Produced by Tom Keniston, Hunt Lowry, Patty Reed
Written by Dirk Blackman
Directed by John Pogue
Starring Tania Raymonde, Nathaniel Buzolic,
Emerson Brooks, Bren Foster, Alex Bhat
Silly, hugely uneven, but not-terrible sequel is worth a look for shark movie fans.
A group of scientists are stationed on a floating, nearly abandoned fishing village, which looks like a cross between the main sets of Waterworld and Popeye.
This kinda intriguing location is a smart move, since the vast majority of the film takes place there and is more visually interesting than a bland laboratory.
The group is studying the local sharks, but they’re interrupted by the arrival of a research team on a large vessel.
These folks are funded by big pharma to retrieve a trio of bull sharks that escaped one of their oceanic labs.
These sharks were surgically and chemically altered in the name of profits, er, science, and are now super-smart and are uncharacteristically slaughtering Great Whites.
As it turns out, one of the research team happens to be the old beau of our main heroine, and old feelings and conflicting emotions arise.
Deep Blue Sea 3 begins with a pretty cool opening shot, then settles in to being an unabashedly straight-to-video, unnecessary sequel.
It has the tone and feel of the many, many DTV sequels I checked out in the late 90s/early 2000s, like Timecop 2 and its ilk.
This isn’t a bad thing, and I found the vibe kinda pleasant for a while. But the film starts to get dumb, with character motivations and plot points rendered almost meaningless at times.
Then something really fun happens. At about the hour mark – when I was about to throw up my hands – there’s a terrific, comical, out-of-nowhere jump scare to rival the Samuel L. Jackson moment in the original Deep Blue Sea.
It’s a riot, and I actually applauded. The film picks up steam after that, and the last third, while still cheap and silly, actually delivers the goods.
The characters, despite the motivational issues, are overall fun and I was rooting for the good guys.
The shark effects are lousy but the original looked pretty fake as well, so you should let that slide.
Overall, not an especially good movie, but I’m glad I watched it for that one great moment and some other fun scenes as well.
If you’re looking for shark mayhem, you could do much, much worse.
