Horror and laughter

Although the special effects seem a little on the cheap side this movie is one of the best b-movies I have ever seen. A lot of stuff was stolen from other movies, but that did not bother me for a second. It's been proven again that fine actors can truly add extra value to a movie as well. This movie offers you horror and laughter at the same time, which is a very unique combination these days. (SARR)

TITANIC + TREMORS + ALIENS = TOO MUCH OF TOO MANY GOOD THINGS?!

"Deep Rising" seems too much like a conglomeration of TITANIC + TREMORS + ALIENS + THE ABYSS, but that seems to = TOO MUCH OF TOO MANY GOOD THINGS for one movie.

Yes, without a doubt, "Deep Rising" has action and eye-candy, action and gore, action and a huge scary monster, and action and a huge scary monster destroying a huge cruise ship. However, "Deep Rising" is somewhat short of plot and character development. In fact, most of the characters vanish before the movie proper really begins. Lacking these two ingredients, "Deep Rising" has characters without plausible motivation and their possible deaths lack much significance because we aren't given the opportunity to care.

It has always been a useful trick to take a story line and, via the editing and rewriting of it, begin the story as near the climax and conclusion as possible. This way, presumably, a lot of boring, repetitious and unnecessary details can be discarded which otherwise might slow things down too much. In the case of "Deep Rising", the consequence is a feeling of disgust rather than an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride. I just don't care about the characters. I don't buy their reasons for doing what they are doing or being how they are and where they are.

ABOUT THE THRILL RIDE:

The fliming is all depicted at night and the camera angles and close-ups that dominate the film give it a very dark and dismal look. Worse yet, the creature really looks like it's CGI and so does the ship. By the time the thrill ride starts, we have a ghost ship which appears like a beautiful portrait of scenery without any people.

ABOUT THE THRILL RIDERS:

Famke Janssen [Dr. Jean Grey from X-Men] who plays a pickpocket named "Trillian" is the one bright spot, but she is not given much to work with beyond her present incarceration on-board for an attempted theft and her fast-study approach to automatic weapons. Her interest in Treat Williams' "Finnegan" seems a bit quick and contrived even for so fast a study.

Treat Williams plays the wise-cracking, cliched, anti-hero, boat jockey, "John Finnegan". Having been nominated for acting awards on five separate productions, we expected much more from him. Instead, his character does the predictable stuff at the expected times in the ways that you will expect if you see this film.

Anthony Heald who plays "Simon Canton", the owner of the Argonautica, is the slick, double-dealing, sleazy, rich villain. He is cowardly, back-stabbing, and without any virtues other than his complete lack of admirable traits. Yuck! He does not even do an adequate job of making us believe or comprehend why all this [the story line] has to happen which is his whole purpose in this film. Heald is well-remembered for his role as the nervous and self-promoting chief psychiatrist "Dr. Frederick Chilton" from "The Silence of the Lambs", so we know he could have done better. In fact, it seems like everyone could have done better, but that has to start with a better script.

ABOUT THE DVD & FEATURES:

Widescreen 2.35:1, French Language Track available, Theatrical Trailer, Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio, Chapter Search. Or in plain English -- NOTHING SPECIAL!

FEW LAST WORDS:

Some horror fans will love this film, but it is not the type of film that Science Fiction fans will find interesting, or enjoyable unlike "The Abyss" or "Aliens" or "Tremors" or "Jaws" or even "The Crawling Eye". It just misses the mark of Horrific Science Fiction and lands somewhere in the depths of the deep blue sea. The sad part is it looks like it really could have been an excellent film if only it had a little more story and characterizations and just tried to be itself instead of imitating so many other excellent and successful films.

Giant Carnivorous Worms Attack!

This movie proves that there is a region between big budget science fiction thrillers like "Starship Troopers" and "Independence Day" and low budget stuff that is barely tolerable (or intolerable in many cases) such as "Blood Surf." We once called these movies B-science fiction movies, though that terminology is somewhat out of style. Regardless, this movie is an excellent B-movie that is a lot of fun to watch.

This movie does not take the easy way out by having a nice simple plot. The plot starts simple enough, but then gets very complicated. Fortunately, the giant carnivorous priapulid worms that the actors encounter manage to solve much of the complexity.

The movie begins with a nice simple attack on a cruise ship. The ship's owner is having a little money problems and decides the easy way out is to have the ship sunk, which then allows him to get the insurance money. However, when the hired mercenaries board the ship they are unable to find anyone, and they keep hearing strange noises. Then mercenaries start disappearing into the water pouring into the ship's bowels.

Interlude time: While we are waiting to get a clear view of whatever is running around making people disappear we meet a burglar, Trillian St. James (Famke Janssen) and we learn more about the captain of the ship carrying the mercenaries, John Finnegan (who was clueless about why he was hired), well played by Treat Williams. We also meet a number of mercenaries, albeit briefly in many cases, and finally encounter the captain of the cruise ship and the owner. Of course, they are all blathering about something wandering about the ship and eating people, but we know better. Right?

Okay, after finding that there are people on the ship after all, just not as many as the mercenaries initially thought, they finally meet their first priapulid worm. Of course, the meeting does not go well for the worm (the mercenaries are well armed) or the mercenaries (the worms are well-teethed), and things begin to spiral out of control from there. Everyone finally gets the bright idea that they should forget about stealing and robbing and sinking the ship and just getting off the ship and away from the ship. Unfortunately for the people on the ship, the worms have other ideas that involve pulling people into their gut and digesting them alive.

The remainder of the movie is a cat and mouse, or worm and man, game. You must not think that these worms are your typical earth-type worms. These worms move like extremely fast, flexible and slimy snakes. These worms have nasty mouths and can suck you into their gut quicker than you can say "Look out!" or "AAHHH!" The worm then slowly digests the victim. In once scene the mercenaries and sundry others manage to remove a victim from a worm. It turns out that was not such a good idea (I will not attempt to describe that particular scene).

I was afraid that this movie was going to turn into a cheese fest. However, it turned out to be surprisingly good. The worms were clearly CGI, but they still looked very good. There are scenes where the worms interact with their surroundings, and those scenes are uniformly excellent. The scenes may not be believable, but they are well done. The mercenaries and the worms are well-matched, and I thought there was never a certainty in the outcome.

If you can believe that worms that are usually no more than six inches or so in length can somehow be many feet long, and can move about as fast as a running man, and if you like Treat Williams or Famke Janssen, this movie is a popcorn munching treat. However, you may want to put away the popcorn when that guy pops out of the worm; that scene is really gross.