Treat Williams plays John Finnegan, a cocky captain of a speedy little ship that has been hired by some tough guys to take them to an ocean liner in the South Pacific Ocean. The liner has been rigged to sink, but not before it is looted. Things don't go to plan, however, and when Finnegan and co. get to the liner, it's already been attacked and raided by someone. Or something.
Deep Rising hits all of the beats that you want it to, from the enjoyable opening scene displaying some unseen threat to the big ship to the perverse and satisfying comeuppance that ends the storyline for one of the baddies. Williams is posited as a very reluctant hero, with his repeated refrain of "now what?" every time things seem about to go from bad to worse, and the supporting cast is a good mix of people who provide varying degrees of enjoyment.
Writer-director Stephen Sommers certainly uses every trick in the book to make the most of his budget and resources, with a lot of the first half of the movie benefiting from very little actually being seen onscreen (the creatures remain underwater, or can be seen/heard trying to get into rooms from the other side of the walls). And there are a lot of good moments that show off some special effects, it's just a case of them not quite having the capability to perfectly render everything they want to display in the third act. The dialogue is a grab bag of clichés and exposition, but it all works well enough. This is a film that isn't attempting to hide the many films influencing it, from the old b-movies with giant monsters in them to the adventure flicks with a square-jawed hero doing his best while out of his depth. It's a formula that Sommers would arguably hone to perfection in his Mummy movies, but it's here in an even more horror-tinged form.
Williams is decent in the lead. He never quite made the step up to full-on cinematic hero, but this is the closest that he comes. The main female in the cast is Famke Janssen, playing a thief named Trillian, and she's fantastic, but that is usually my reaction to any Famke Janssen performance. Wes Studi is the leader of the looters, he's a formidable bit of wretchedness, and Kevin J. O'Connor is supposed to be someone you root for, but is so bloody annoying that you're wishing for his onscreen death from just about the first moment he speaks. Elsewhere, you get Anthony Heald trying to stay smug in the face of overwhelming danger, Jason Flemying, Cliff Curtis, Clifton Powell, Trevor Goddard, Djimon Hounsou, Una Damon, and Clint Curtis making up most of the other players (I may have forgotten one or two main names, it's an impressive cast anyway).
You have some great set-pieces, a number of really impressive death scenes, and a finale that pulls out all the stops when it comes to some stunts involving a Jet Ski zooming along on the water (no sarcasm, more people should appreciate just how good that stuntwork is). Deep Rising is a very fun way to spend 106 minutes, and all the better for not having any cheap sequel coming along to sully the memory of it. Yet.
8/10
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