Narrative inconsistency, discount visual effects, and a direction in total disarray turn Renny Harlin’s latest disaster thriller into a bleak insult to the viewer's intelligence

by Antonello De Pierro

Rome - We have been asking ourselves for years, as we watch bewildered the dismal spectacle of certain film productions brazenly paraded into our theaters: how far must the public endure the reckless assault of the merchants of nothingness? How long must we witness the tragic demise of logic, sacrificed on the altar of cheap summer-box-office consumerism?

The answer, unfortunately, floats menacingly and weary among the waves of Deep Water, the latest effort (and no term was ever more appropriate) signed by Renny Harlin.

On paper, the plot purports to offer an adrenaline-fueled crossover between a disaster movie and a shark thriller: a commercial flight bound from Los Angeles to Shanghai forced into an emergency ditching in the heart of the Pacific Ocean, right into the clutches of a hungry pack of sharks. In reality, however, we are confronted with a genuine creative shipwreck, an embarrassing parade of worn-out tropes and lapses in taste that insult the intelligence of the audience.

It is impossible to stay silent before the poverty of a screenplay that seems to have been scribbled on the back of a store receipt. Plot holes abound, sustained by a frayed logic that demands not so much the suspension of disbelief, but a total temporary lobotomy. The film stumbles from grotesque fires and laughable impact dynamics to life rafts seemingly made of papier-mâché, ready to deflate at a mere glance, not to mention ridiculous dialogue that purports to tackle social issues and cultural barriers, only to drown miserably in unwitting absurdity. A plastic romance, brainless behavior, and cardboard characters complete a bleak picture.

But the true atrocity unfolds in the acting and special effects. It cuts deep to see a performer with a dignified past like Aaron Eckhart forced to wander through digital debris with the expressiveness of a plaster mannequin, while the rest of the cast floats aimlessly, utterly incapable of conveying a single atom of true tension or genuine despair. And what of the famed sharks? Rough, almost embarrassing CGI transforms the fearsome predators of the deep into weightless, aesthetic-less outlines, eliciting bitter laughs rather than chills.

We are witnessing yet another demonstration of how an industry devoid of ideas attempts to palm off "cardboard notoriety" and bargain-bin special effects on the public, wrapping them in high-sounding names to disguise absolute nothingness. Renny Harlin offers us re-warmed soup, a "B-movie" that lacks even the honesty to admit its own nature, arrogantly taking itself clumsy seriousness.

Deep Water is not merely a bad movie; it is the manifesto of a cultural sloppiness that we, with our relentless thirst for truth, will continue to sanction without hesitation. Its artistic pretensions sink inextricably into the abysses of oblivion. Rejected without appeal.