Into The Blue Review

"Into The Blue" reviews

Movie

Into The Blue

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2006-05-17 23:44:38

Rating

2/5

Provider

CinemaSource

Review

Almost identical to 1977's The Deep, Into the Blue centers on a young hot couple searching for buried treasure and inadvertently tangling with drug dealers and killer sharks. There are, however, no angry moray eels.

Story

We meet our lovers in the Bahamas. Jared (Paul Walker) is a dive bum looking for his big break. Samantha (Jessica Alba), Jared's devoted girlfriend, is happy handling sharks at the Atlantis resort and living with her man in a trailer on an idyllic beach. Wouldn't we all? Except maybe the shark part. When Jared's best bud Bryce (Scott Caan) shows up with a new girlfriend, Amanda (Ashley Scott), things get a little dicey. It starts off when the four divers discover a legendary shipwreck rumored to contain millions in gold. Soon visions of wealth and greed are swimming in their heads. But also nearby on the ocean floor is a sunken plane full of cocaine. Uh-oh. The friends make a pact to keep quiet about both discoveries so they can excavate the shipwreck and claim it before a rival treasure hunter, Bates (Josh Brolin), can beat them to it. Of course, their plan goes awry, as plans are wont to do. The nefarious smugglers, looking for their underwater stash, are lurking about. So Bryce and Amanda come up with a new plan of their own. You know nothing good is going to come of this.

Acting

Into the Blue is a perfect vehicle for its four lead hotties, especially Walker. He's at best when he doesn't have to say too much and can just stand there looking buff and beautiful. At least Walker has played it pretty smart with his career up to this point. He's so far resisted trying on an accent and doing a period drama, content being the pretty boy who makes action movies such as The Fast and the Furious and its sequel. And that's just fine by us. As his sultry paramour, Alba--who's having quite a year with Sin City and Fantastic Four under her belt--isn't required to do much either but look stunning in her scantily clad wardrobe. She'll no doubt be the reason most of the male population will flock to see this. But when it comes down to protecting herself from the bad guys, she can also wield a pretty mean machete. Her Sam has got a lot of guts, evoking images of her character in the ill-fated TV show Dark Angel. Rounding out the cast is Scott (Alba's Dark Angel co-star) as the lanky Amanda, a squirrelly girl with her own agenda, and Caan as the snarky Bryce. The Ocean's Eleven actor is great at playing the hothead you want to slap for being so clueless but who grows on you nonetheless.

Direction

Into the Blue tells us that there is $6 billion worth of buried treasure in the world's oceans just waiting to be discovered, with a major portion of it buried near the Bahamian islands. If that isn't enough incentive to just chuck everything, go live in the Bahamas and be a treasure hunter, then feasting your eyes on the scenery in this movie just might do the trick. After helming Blue Crush in lush Hawaii, director John Stockwell--who's definitely a sucker for surf and sand, as well as the word ''blue'' in the title of his films--gets his feet wet again in Into the Blue. Really wet. Shooting a film in which three-quarters of it is underwater was an arduous task, especially on the actors who all had learn how to free dive, which is snorkeling in deep water for extended periods of time. But much like its obvious inspiration, The Deep, Into the Blue is really all fluff without much substance. It's just a giant excuse to watch beautiful people frolicking in beautiful backdrops with sharks, drug dealers and action sequences thrown in for good measure. And, you know, that really isn't such a bad thing.

Bottom Line

Pretty people in skimpy bathing suits swimming around in crystal blue waters, for hunting treasure. and keeping ahead of the bad guys. What more can you ask for? Into the Blue is just dumb fun in the sun.

Copyright © CinemaSource 2006.

Movie

INTO THE BLUE

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2005-10-25 21:09:37

Provider

MRIB

Review

Something for the boys and girls, Into The Blue has no pretentions of being much more than Baywatch with a big Hollywood budget. Sure there's holiday postcard sunsets and gratuitous use of young nubile bodies squeezed into the skimpiest Speedos seen this side of Peter Stringfellow's pant drawer, but Saul Metzstein's underwater thriller is pure popcorn fun.

Hard-up deep sea treasure hunter Jared (Paul Walker) is searching for a mythical shipwreck when he stumbles upon a downed plane with a cargo full of heroin. Things get even better when the fabled pirate ship pops up as well, but Jared's wise-cracking pal (Scott Cann) already has foolish plans to sell the smack back to the owners. Cue ferocious shark attacks, more underwater explosions than a toddler's bath time; oh and plenty of scantily clad model-types parading around the Bahamas. Jessica Alba's immaculately bronzed bod gives her co-star Walker's acting a run for his money, but the unashamedly hammy script never takes itself too seriously.

For every groan there's a good couple of laughs and even a suspense filled finale that'll divert your attention from the bountiful bodies, just for a second mind.

Copyright © MRIB 2005.