DEEP RISING
The most shameful of Oscar snubs
Suck the liquid flesh off my bones if you will, but Deep Rising IS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE. Well, okay, maybe not the greatest, but it's certainly the greatest giant tentacle-monster movie ever made.
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from it - it looked like a blast, but got very mixed reviews from fans of this type of movie and universally bad reviews from critics. Nevertheless, it won me over.
A team of freelance getaway boaters (!) take a team of mercenaries to the Argonautica, a brand-new cruise ship that's said to be the most awesome afloat. The mercs aren't saying what their plans are, but Finnegan (Treat Williams), the leader of the boaters, doesn't mind - he's used to being left in the dark. They get to the boat, and find out what was strongly suggested to us in the intro to the film (where we got to see some unlucky chick get sucked into a toilet): there's nobody there, although there's a whole lotta blood.
Okay, there are a couple of people there. One is Famke Janssen, who plays a jewel thief who was lucky enough to be locked in the freezer during whatever happened. But she ain't alone - the boaters and mercs soon find they have to deal with a whole lot of man-eating tentacles, not to mention the ship's three remaining crew members hiding in the vault.
Williams and Janssen, endeared themselves to me rapidly. It's nice to see that Janssen is expanding her repertoire a little (that is, not playing a sex kitten of some form or another)...while she's clearly doing a Sandra Bullock thing here, I was pleased with how good it was. For that matter, she does it better than Bullock herself has done it in quite some time. Williams, on the other hand, consistently made me smile for reasons I can't put my finger on. It's like he's playing a sort of more macho, but very slightly less intelligent Han Solo. This is the only movie I can even remember Williams in in years.
The rest of the cast is largely tentacle-fodder, although Kevin J. O'Connor, the obvious comic-relief guy, was a weird mix of amusing and annoying - he really did get in some good moments, but he was pretty freakin' whiny.
The monster - at least, as tentacles - was great. When the whole thing was shown, it was a little excessive (just how is this thing supporting that much blubber above the surface? Bah, I don't wanna think during this movie.), but as a collection of tentacles...what can I say? COOOL!!! Just about everybody else was standard monster fodder, although when that one guy meets his end (one word, without spoiling - CLICK), I'll admit my flesh just CRAWLED in near-sympathy.
The action was exciting and inventive, the gore, disgusting without being repulsive, if you know what I mean. (the first time I saw this, I thought that the scene where a half-digested man stumbles around, screaming in agony was a little gratuitous and disturbing; the second time, I couldn't stop laughing) It's a movie that wants to keep a goofy smile on your face throughout. It succeeded for me, in grand style. This movie was fun, fun, fun - what I go to movies for, most of the time. It's too bad that it bombed like bombs have so rarely bombed before.
The last fifteen or so seconds was also one of the finest and funniest cap-offs to a movie I've seen in years.
See it, see it NOW!