* Deep Blue Sea (1999)
Dr. Susan McAlester developed a way to harvest serum to cure Alzheimer's from shark brains. Unfortunately, she didn't tell anyone she had to genetically engineer the sharks to have bigger brains in order to harvest enough serum, making them much smarter.
Deep Blue Sea is a cheesy good time with killer sharks, people getting eaten, and an whole underwater science facility being flooded. There's a good mix of characters with a bunch of scientists, a cook, a corporate executive, and a shark wrangler. All of these characters are pretty stereotypical and don't hold too many surprises. The best characters are LL Cool J as the cheerful cook and Samuel L Jackson as executive Russell Franklin. The worst character is Susan who seems to think all this life lost is worth it. She's a parody of a scientist in this anti-science film.
These sharks are ridiculously fast, smart, and all produced with animatronics or CGI. There are only 3 sharks, a mated pair and their offspring, but they certainly eat a lot of people. For the time, the CGI was amazing, but it hasn't aged well. This isn't the only thing threatening the characters since there's a huge storm preventing helicopters and the facility is being flooded floor by floor. It makes for an exciting film even though many of the characters can be flat. Watch this if you want some good, mindless, cheesy fun.
My rating: 2/5 fishmuffins
* Jaws 2 (1978)
Years after the first film, Brody and his family still live and work on Amity Island. A shark seems to be killing people in the ocean again, but it's attributed to boat accidents and the like. Brody is let go from his job after scaring vacationers out of the water and wildly shooting at blue fish. Is there a shark or is Brody simply traumatized from his past?
Jaws 2 brings back almost the entire cast of the first film (except for Hooper and Quint), but is not nearly as successful. Brody is his usual everyman hero and fights to save people even when everyone thinks he's wrong. His wife has a job this time and seems less sympathetic than before because she's more on the side of the financial success of the island. Miraculously, the mayor kept his job and is back to his old tricks, discrediting Brody the minute he says shark. Brody's kid Mike is now a teenager (accompanied by a bunch of new and annoying friends plus a love interest to impress) and still disobeys his father and acts like it's the end of the world when he has to get a part time job.
This film isn't good. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural. The situations are completely ridiculous. For instance, the first shark encounter has a woman "accidentally" (it looked completely on purpose) pouring gasoline on herself and the boat and somehow causing an explosion, which should have also killed the shark. It clearly should have exploded as well, but somehow managed to escape with a bit of a facial burn. It wants revenge! Of course the lying teenagers get stranded with a shark circling them and Brody has to come in to save them. If you want a good shark movie, this isn't for you. However, the cheesiness and campiness are entertaining if you just want some shark craziness.
My rating: 2/5 fishmuffins
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