Deep Water
Everything seems fine on Northeastern Flight N140 from LAX to Shanghai, despite obnoxious passenger Dan's (Angus Sampson, "Insidious") attempts to smoke and the newly married couple who leave each of their young children to join the mile high club. But Dan left an electronic device charging on a power bank in his luggage and when it sparks, a cargo fire turns into an explosion which catapults a metal container through the hull, taking out an engine as well as several passengers, giving Pilot Rick (Ben Kingsley) has no other choice but to land in "Deep Water."
Laura's Review: C
If director Renny Harlin ("Die Hard 2," "Cliffhanger" and, more recently, "The Strangers Chapters 1-3") hoped to deliver another "Deep Blue Sea" with his latest he missed the mark, but if Harlin's intent was to evoke gales of laughter over various shark deaths, mission accomplished. All that and Sir Ben Kingsley sings karaoke! It took six screenwriters to mash together old 70's disaster flicks like "Airport" and "The Poseidon Adventure" using every cliche in the book and a stunt from "Jaws 2."
In formulaic fashion, we meet crew members and various passengers as they arrive at the airport, the pilot having tried to impress his female flight crew the night before crooning 'Fly Me to the Moon.' Dan is already smoking in non-smoking areas and Cora (Molly Belle Wright, "Omaha") clearly isn't happy sharing her father with his new wife and her new stepbrother Finn (Elijah Tamati, "Holy Days"). First Officer Ben (Aaron Eckhart) does great PR with passengers, but something in his past has kept him out of the pilot's chair.
Once all hell breaks loose on board, Rick informs air traffic control he's rerouting to Guam, but when their situation becomes even more dire and he requests a 'closer airport,' the experienced pilot has to be informed that he's over open water(!) and former Marine Ben instructs him to land between the waves. The plane breaks apart, Rick trapped in the cockpit, with Ben and flight attendant Penny (Lucy Barrett, "Skin Care") unable to free him while about thirty of over 250 original passengers float on various pieces of wreckage. Finn, who saved his older stepsister from being sucked out of the plane, is stuck beneath the waves in an air pocket with a flight attendant and older woman, Becky (Kate Fitzpatrick), who'd befriended the little boy onboard.
After Rick convinces Ben and Penny that he cannot be saved, they leave him to his fate and begin to plan how to rescue passengers, Cora already with them in the nose of the plane. It is only moments after Penny begins to swim towards floating debris that Cora begins to yell 'shark!' And these are unconvincing CGI movie makos which jump out of the water to consume people head first and whole in what is obviously a studio tank. But while the film's dialogue is frequently ludicrous and Fernando Velázquez's ("A Monster Calls") score syrupy and corny, Harlin stages just enough B movie spectacle to make "Deep Water" one of those bad movies that entertain.
Robin's Review: C+
A flight takes off from LA heading to Shanghai. Then, disaster strikes and the plane crash lands on a reef in a remote area in the vast Pacific. The survivors must work together to live in the shark-infested "Deep Water."
Renny Harlin is back! Sort of. The man that thrilled us with "Cliffhanger" way back in 1993 has been busy over the years since then, though you likely did not notice. He returns to the disaster/action flick genre, this time with "sharks on a plane."
Aaron Eckhart and, briefly, Sir Ben Kingsley lead an ensemble cast and story that pushes all the appropriate buttons for a disaster movie. A routine flight goes terribly wrong as the overseas flight loses its engines, breaks up and falls into the ocean. There are but a relative handful of survivors of the 237 souls on board a plane broken into pieces.
As in any disaster flick worth its salt, the crash is just the beginning for those left alive. Unbeknownst to the survivors, they have landed in shark-infested waters and the dead floating attract the predators, lots of predators. So, here we are, stranded in the middle of nowhere as shark fodder so survival becomes the sole factor.
In the ensemble, we have the brave captain (Kingsley) who sacrifices himself for the good of the others and the heroic first officer (Eckhart) whom everyone looks to for leadership. They are the "names" of the cast and Eckhart is first among equals as the rest make up the clichéd characters – like the cool-headed flight attendants, the plucky old lady who shows her true grit and love for her granddaughter and, of course, the asshole guy passenger who will not follow the rules and screws up royalty. Throughout the film, you really want to see the guy eaten by a shark.
With the warmer weather coming and the need for mindless entertainment, "Deep Water" should fit the bill. I guess the filmmakers think that if one shark worked so well in 1976, then hundreds would be even better now. Not so.
Magenta Light releases "Deep Water" in theaters on 5/1/26.
