‘You mean we’re all gonna die ’cause you screwed up on the math?’
Imagine if you were to cross one of the lesser Alien sequels with James Cameron’s Titanic with a cast full of ‘90s character actors and no big-name stars. You’ve just imagined Deep Rising. And whatever you imagined is probably better than the actual film…
Captain John Finnegan (Treat Williams) leads a group of mercenaries across the South China Sea for reasons that don’t matter. Meanwhile, aboard a luxury cruise ship hilariously presided over by Frederick Chilton from Silence of the Lambs (Anthony Heald), the spectacularly named thief Trillian St. James (Famke Janssen) attempts to steal… something… I can’t remember what. It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. And then Alien happens.
I can’t stress enough how much this film feels like an Alien sequel, most specifically Alien Resurrection, but with a much smaller budget. I will say that other than a couple of really egregious moments, I actually found the much derided use of CGI to be pretty good here. Indeed, writer-director Stephen Sommers would eventually keep the good stuff he used in this film and drop the rest when creating his much beloved ‘90s classic The Mummy. I also enjoyed Treat Williams. Just his general presence. Apparently, the producers (in a wildly optimistic fit of hubris) wanted Harrison Ford for the role, but Williams understands the brief probably better than Ford would have done, and therefore most of the film’s most fun moments are down to him.
Deep Rising has had a mild critical reappraisal in recent years but I can’t for the life of me understand why. This is a B-movie in all but budget and should be remembered as such. Or not remembered at all.
