The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The acting in this movie is really good.

Plot; The captain and crew of a boat for hire and a group of mercenaries find themselves locked in a battle for survival against tentacled monsters aboard a doomed luxury liner. The ironic thing about B-movies not aspiring to be more than that is that as a result they often end up being more than that. Deep Rising is one such movie. Directed by Stephen Sommers (who would perfect that craft with his next movie, The Mummy) it plays like an amalgam of The Poseidon Adventure and Aliens. Never pausing long enough for its seams to show, the quips and clips are each emptied and reloaded with an almost gleeful vigor by its top notch cast. Headlined by the immensely underrated and underappreciated Treat Williams, they know exactly what kind of movie they're in, and the movie is all the better for it.Deep Rising ain't high art, but it is good fun, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I *adore* terrible movies, even without Crowe, Servo, and Joel dishing out the quips. There's a list of movies I simply adore at least in part BECAUSE they're so terrible -- "Reptilicus" is one such, a film so bad that apparently merely to MENTION it in Denmark requires the one who Speaks Its Name to buy a case of beer for everyone in earshot.However, the ne plus ultra, the sine qua non, the crème de la crème, the (insert pretentious foreign phrase of choice here) of terrible movies for me is "Deep Rising." While it could have used, in my humble opinion, more scenes of Famke Janssen changing clothes ("She's naked during the entire picture!" "She is NUDE in once scene!" "Depends how you watch it" --"Coupling"), the premise is choice: world's largest luxury liner is scheduled for paramilitary attack, but the attackers soon discover the liner has been taken over by Giant Vampire Squid From The Bottom Of The Sea. Treat Williams, as the Harry Morgan (the one from Hemingsay, not the one from M*A*S*H) wannabe whose boat is first hired, then hijacked (hirejacked?) by said paramilitarians, skirts on the edge of tongue in cheek, but his supporting cast play it almost completely deadpan. Anthony Heald, an actor I've seen in person more than once (he was stunning in "Equivocation," at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival), is simply far too good to be in a picture this crappy, but as he told a friend of mine in Ashland once, he has children to put through college. Kevin O'Conner (the annoying guy who gets eaten by scarabs at the end of the first "Mummy" pic) plays the annoying sidekick but one with heart, and he's brilliant. The head villain, played by Wes Studi (The Sphinx in "Mystery Men"), is as hard-bitten and stone-faced as they come, and his gang of hired mercenaries are evil enough to deserve their come-uppance at the hands, er, tentacles of the aforementioned vampire squid, one by one.It's a film I've probably seen half a dozen times, on late-night cable, and would watch again right now, preferably with a platter of calamari and a bottle of Beaujolais -- violating the white-wine- with-seafood rule because Beaujolais goes with everything, and you need a lot of red with your tentacles just to achieve parity with this picture.

Plot The captain of a small transport boat, his engineer friend, and a group of badass mercenaries board a seemingly abandoned cruise ship in the middle of the south china sea, unbeknownst to them however, the ship has become taken over by a massive sea monster which fully intends to kill anyone who dares enter it's domain. Also along for the ride are a jewel thief and the ship's owner and captain. The rest of the story plays out as a survival saga as our heroes fight their way off the ship through superior fire power and lots of exploding sea creature anatomy.This film has been a favorite of mine since i first saw it luckily, back in February 1998 during it's original theatrical run. I'm a huge fan of monster movies and action pictures, so to see a film that combined the two so seamlessly and inventively was a treat. The special effects are top notch with good practical effects work from Rob Bottin of John Carpenter's The Thing fame. Special mention should be given to the half digested man scene which to this day still gives me the creeps. The creature is a well realized menace of pure aquatic terror, resembling a mix between a T-Rex, octopus, snake, and starfish, it truly resembles something one would not want to encounter in real life but also an original beast, one which has it's own uniqueness and personality which hasn't been seen on the big screen since. The CGI to bring the creature to life is great and as good as anything seen in Jurassic Park. The tentacle effects, especially the scenes depicting their movement throughout the ship in pipes and hallways, has a sense of realism rarely seen in monster pictures, the way they slither like a snake and slowly crawl towards their victims before eating them shows a sign in intelligence not just in the main body in the creature but in the the individual parts as well. It's like the tentacles have brains of their own. Besides the effects of the film, which still hold up to this day, the production design and art direction are spectacular, the interior of the ship is incredibly detailed, with the ship before the monster's arrival looking like a luxury resort, filled with bars, a massive staircase, a casino, and a stage area on the main floor, it truly is a paradise on the high seas. I especially like all the touches of Chinese memorabilia and history sprinkled throughout the party room where all the activity of the ship is held. The sets of the ship being abandoned and the halls of the ship being flooded also are well done and do a nice job of showing the geography of the ship and just how massive it truly is. Regarding the performances, special mention must be made of Treat Williams very entertaining Han Solo sequel performance as John Finnegan. Williams brings so much swagger, charm, and self-awareness to the role that u enjoy spending time in his company and hope he makes it to the end in one peace. He also holds his own in the films action sequences especially in a very neat homage to Terminator 2 towards the end of the film involving him, a jet ski, closed elevator doors, and a shotgun. It's very unrealistic and over the top but who cares it' s a hell of a lot a fun. The supporting cast is excellent especially Famke Janssen as the thief/love interest to Williams character. She's a strong female character who holds her own with the men. Kevin J O Connor is funny as Williams comic relief sidekick. Anthony Heald as the owner of the ship has fun as a slimy villain. The actors who play the mercenaries all are good and memorable and have a few bits of funny dialogue during their characters introduction scene. Everyone who was apart of this film seemed to be having a blast making it, which shows in the final film, making it easier for me as an audience member to want to go on the ride. The writing in the film is top notch and is filled to the brim with funny one liners. The direction is just as good, Stephen Sommers the man who would later bring us the Brendan Fraser mummy movies and Van Helsing, knows the kind of film he is making and just goes for broke delivering a completely satisfying monster action movie. He doesn't waste time on needless exposition on what the monster is or where it came from. He directs action well and keeps the film moving at a brisk pace. The look of the film also is of note with almost the entire setting taking place during a thunderstorm, surrounded by pouring rain and low hanging clouds which give the film an ominous atmosphere, further pushing the idea the sense of danger and isolation in which our characters find themselves. So wrapping up my thoughts I love this movie it's a fun and fast paced thrill ride with good performances, solid direction, a cool and unique creature, and last but not least features one of the coolest movie guns ever put to celluloid (the M1-L1 triple pulse rifle is something to behold). It goes without saying I highly recommend this film and will continue to watch it for many years to come, hopefully with my review I can bring more awareness to the film's existence and it can grow a bigger cult following, it deserves it. So thanks for reading my review and good day.

Deep Rising begins with a text informing us that many ships have mysteriously disappeared over the South China Sea. The million dollar question is "How did they sink?" The suggested answer is that undiscovered sea monsters swim up to the surface and sink them. After exploiting the mystery of what undiscovered life lurks within the depths of the ocean, the film introduces us to some of the characters: John Finnegan (Treat Williams), Joey Pantucci (Kevin J. O'Connor), Leila (Una Damon), Hanover (Wes Studi), Mulligan (Jason Flemyng), Mamooli (Cliff Curtis), Mason (Clifton Powell), T. Ray (Trevor Goddard), and Vivo (Djimon Hounsou). The first three are doing business with the other six by transporting them to an unknown location by boat. Little does Finnegan (the owner of the boat and leader of the business) know that, for insurance money, someone is paying Hanover, Mulligan, Mamooli, Mason, T. Ray, and Vivo to sink a cruise ship with hundreds of people on it. As the mercenaries' client sabotages the ocean liner's motor functions, something from deep beneath the ocean's surface slams into the hull. When Finnegan and the others arrive and board the ship, nobody is on board, but there is blood everywhere. Soon after, the characters find themselves fighting for their lives against enormous, man-eating sea creatures with tentacles.Deep Rising is a shoddy, ludicrous, and utterly incompetent disaster. Its putrid directing and writing leave it completely devoid of anything a real action-packed horror movie should have: Elegance, chills, convincing visual effects, plot, authentic characters, originality, and excitement.The directing is unbelievably garish. Director Stephen Sommers has always felt the need to make his movies humorous, and that's fine, but none of the humor in Deep Rising is actually funny. Most of it is just annoying, like when, before the monsters show up, some of the mercenaries maniacally shoot their automatic weapons at a sudden noise and don't stop until told to. In addition, there are plenty of horrific things that happen in the film, but none of it is horrifying or chilling at all. To name just one example, a half digested but still living man is shot out of a monster's stomach. This scene is intended to be disturbing, but instead it's silly and superfluous, and will only make the viewer roll his or her eyes.Since we see so much of the monsters in Deep Rising, one would think the filmmakers would have made them look better than they do. Instead, they look remarkably cheesy for 1998. The fact that the creatures are computer generated images is so obvious, and their movement is choppy. This, along with the endless but poorly shot action sequences, makes the movie very non-thrilling.The atrocious story and screenplay are the worst thing about Deep Rising. The premise is a mishmash of other movies: Some people are trapped onboard a sinking ship (The Poseidon Adventure) with monsters that prey upon human beings (Alien, only with more than one monster). The plot is riddled with errors in logic, such as the monsters' tentacles breaking vault doors off their hinges and warping metal walls, or people handing others loaded guns to kill themselves with instead of just shooting them themselves. The dialogue consists mostly of characters sniping at each other and saying boring rhetorical questions like "where the h*** is everybody?" or "what the h*** are those things?", leaving little room for actual content. Since none of what happens is compelling at all, the viewer will have trouble paying attention and will forget things before the movie is over. And the characters are so shallow and under-acted that even Finnegan, the main character, matters about as much as an extra in any movie of any decency. There is no concern about their fates or the general outcome of the plot. This, along with a host of already mentioned problems, spells a project high on inanity and devoid of excitement. Guns are fired, soulless people die, stuff blows up, and that's about it. Will the heroes survive? Will the villains die horribly? Not only does no one care, but the answers are never in doubt, due to how predictably derivative Deep Rising is.    For emptiness, cheesiness, inappropriate tone, and sheer lack of power, Deep Rising cannot be beaten - nor for wretchedness. It's too awful for adults and too violent for children, and I encourage you to avoid it.