All I remembered from my 1998 viewing of “Deep Rising” was Famke Janssen in a sexy red dress; Anthony Heald explaining that the tentacled sea creatures don’t eat you, they drink you; and that the movie wasn’t very good. I guess any ocean-based thrills are gonna seem tame during “Titanic’s” rein.
Consistently (if shallowly) entertaining
On this viewing, though, I must reassess: Writer-director Stephen Sommers’ film is a ton of fun. There isn’t a moment of “Deep Rising” that isn’t entertaining. Shallowly entertaining, sure, but it consistently stays above the low-water mark.
Granted, the movie isn’t really about anything. I think that explains my initial dislike. Other water-creature films from around that time have bigger ideas or ambitions, such as “Sphere,” “Virus” and “Deep Blue Sea.”
“Deep Rising” (1998)
Director: Stephen Sommers
Writer: Stephen Sommers
Stars: Treat Williams, Famke Janssen, Anthony Heald
But so often in monster flicks – with “Godzilla vs. Kong” being a recent example – all the stuff that isn’t monster attacks is kinda dumb, like the writers are struggling and failing to make the film stand for something.
It’s to “Deep Rising’s” credit that it doesn’t try.
Big personalities
A group of bad guys, led by Wes Studi, aims to destroy a cruise ship, owned by Heald, as part of an insurance scam. Treat Williams’ smaller vessel carries the baddies out there, going by the philosophy wherein if they show him the cash, there will be no questions asked.
After a lavish shindig of rich people is wrecked by the first monster attack, “Deep Rising” narrows its focus. Femme fatale jewel thief Janssen trades flirty quips with Williams, who tries to be Han Solo but is more like Lone Star (which is totally right for this movie).
It’s Kevin J. O’Connor, though, who steals the show from the ensemble of Type A personalities with his whiny voice; Sommers gives him all the one-liners, and they always land. I also dig that he’s not a total loser; he (for some reason) has a hot girlfriend, a fellow crew member played by Una Damon.
Monsters and machine guns
The personalities in place, “Deep Rising” becomes Monsters vs. Machine Guns. In one scene, Studi’s crew unleashes a hail of bullets on an empty room just cuz they’re having fun using the weapons.
The individual tentacle monsters and the end boss are designed by “The Thing’s” Rob Bottin. While a slight knock is in order because these are 1990s CGI effects, the attacks and kills are crisply staged. A highlight comes when the team shoots up a tentacle and their partially drunk (drank? drunken? drinked? dranken?) colleague tumbles out.
Oddly, that image – as well as a ship’s hold full of bloody skeletons – has a comical tinge. It’s fair to call “Deep Rising” a horror flick, but it’s not scary. It’s aimed at people who are familiar with this narrative structure but are happy to wring fun out of it rather than fear.
Tonally, there aren’t many films quite like “Deep Rising.” Sommers’ only aim is to entertain us, and because that aim is so one-dimensionally obvious, we don’t have to deal with the pseudo-smart parts of a spectacle movie. “Deep Rising” is about ridiculous monsters attacking ridiculous people with ridiculous guns. In this case, that’s enough.