BSFN 9 - Deep Blue Sea

Deep Blue Sea was chosen for Bad Science Film Night because of this article on BBC News, which got all the BSFNight-ites excited. Happily Deep Blue Sea has all the things that a Bad Science Film needs, namely evil scientists corrupted by their hunger for scientific knowledge and thus taking crazy risks, a talking parrot and, of course, killer super-sized super-intelligent sharks - love it!

There are some scientists on an open water, but also underwater, research station trying to cure degenerative neurological conditions using the fluids extracted from the brains of mako sharks that live in the facility. Suspiciously big and clever sharks, so Samuel L. Jackson (who either is the richest man in the world or works for the richest man in the world, whatever) has come to investigate for the weekend. There is just a skeleton crew on the research station and there's also a hurricane coming, so he can just hunker down and watch the research in progress. The research team includes Saffron Burrows (British accent intact, which doesn't bode well for her character's personality...do we think that she might be very clever, but also a teensy bit evil?), the Punisher and Stellan Skarsgard, with LL Cool J as the facility's chef (accompanied by his talking parrot).

The super-sharks are smarter than the clever science people have realised so they are able to take advantage of the storm to do some serious damage to facility, although they got a bit of a lucky break with the helicopter wire breaking - perhaps sharks have a network of marine creatures and seagulls they can convince to sabotage helicopter winches? Clever shark cross species telepathy? Had the wire in the helicopter not jammed the sharks wouldn't have been able to cause the chopper to crash and use the unfortunate medical emergency who necessitated the medical evacuation to break through glass (would you not make glass for use at depth that could withstand a man's nose? Even if that nose were covered in an oxygen mask and being propelled by a super-shark? The richest man in the world should not have cut any corners on his marine research fortress)

Generally the film proceeds as you'd expect, with super clever sharks pursuing people down corridors and up elevator shafts. There are some deaths which are surprising, but it's not exactly an unpredictable film. Naturally Saffrom Burrows has a pretty skimpy wetsuit on for most of the film, except for when she needs to be stripped to her underwear. In conclusion, all good B-movie fun!

Bad Science Film Night 9 - Deep Blue Sea

• Favourite Tagline: Bigger. Smarter. Faster. Meaner.
• Premise: Genetically engineered super big, super clever sharks attempt to flee the open ocean facility they are held in during a freak storm, eating many of the skeleton crew in the process.
  
• Best DVD extras: Nope, not the interactive menus, despite their prominent place at the top of the extras list, but the deleted scenes! They threw quite a lot of light onto the film making process.... The deleted scenes had a commentary on from the director, who also did Die Hard 2: Die Harder (the Christmas airport one) and Cliffhanger. I may be paraphrasing a bit here, but he appeared to say over every deleted scene, which always involved people talking quietly and never had sharks, how the character development felt like it slowed the story and he wanted to get to the sharks. On the bright side, after watching the deleted scenes we understood why one character seemed inexplicably devastated by the death of another character - they were lovers!
• Worst piece of science: The dead/sick human brain tissue re-animating (sadly not due to to luminous green fluid) because of mysterious shark brain fluid stuff. According to the resident biologist neurons do not look like that when they fire - disappointing. There should also be a special mention for the bit when the shark turned on the oven to cook the chef!
• Most exciting thing Google has to say: Look at, presumably, the official website! Can you tell this film was made in 1999? Do you remember your geocities days? If you feel nostalgic, may I direct you to this.
• Total number of BSFNight-ites: 9, near capacity!