Unlike other high body count horror movies, which character is going to survive isn’t predictable (LL’s character complains that “brothers never make it out of situations like this, not ever” - but, happily, he’s wrong). There’s an innate sense that these people have worked together, fallen for each other and fought for many years, which makes it so much worse when the sharks begin chowing down on them. When Jackson’s rich suit rocks up to their self-described island paradise, he causes ripples, but the witty repartee between colleagues and long-time friends remains. The characters feel lived in from the moment they first appear, whether it’s Jane’s good guy with a bad past, Rapaport’s nerdy Cal Tech alum with too-long answers for why everything is going wrong or Skarsgård’s grumpy doc, who’s memorably introduced peeing into the wind. Its po-faced earnestness makes even Deep Blue Sea‘s wackiest moments (“They recognized that gun!”) easier to swallow. That they do so with absolute sincerity is testament both to their skills as performers and the strength of the script (credited to three screenwriters, one of whom based it on a nightmare he had), which never once winks at the material. Jackson are tasked with delivering cheesy lines about “making waves,” being “knocked to the bottom of the goddamn food chain” and “wrangling” sharks. As a result, high quality actors like Thomas Jane, Saffron Burrows, Stellan Skarsgård, Michael Rapaport (before he lost his mind) and even the great Samuel L. Rather than making self-aware nods to the escalating madness, Sharknado-style, Harlin plays it completely straight. There’s some nonsense about Alzheimer’s research and increasing brain mass to harvest protein matter, but suffice to say that killer line - “As a side effect, the sharks got smarter” - is just the tip of the iceberg (or the peak of the fin). The completely nuts plot finds a group of dumb scientists (always a classic) marooned in a massive floating ocean facility besieged by three massive super sharks they themselves have unwittingly created.
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