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Deep Rising is a guilty pleasure of mine. It's one of those films I rented on a whim and and simply fell in love with.

Is it a great film? No.

Does it have a great script? Not really, and it's downright silly in parts.

Does it have great acting? Eh, there's been better...

But the effects are good, the characters are likable, the creature is neat, and somehow it all comes comes together to make an enjoyable B schlock horror/comedy that, in my case anyway, leaves me with a big smile on my face.

Oh and as an added bonus, Famke Janssen is simply lovely in this film. Rent it on a rainy day and you won't be disappointed.

Unlike a lot of monster and sci-fi movies we see these days, where apologizes are constantly made and everything is politically-correct, Deep Rising is an unapolagetic rollar-coaster which only asks us to suspend our higher thinking for an hour and a half. Intelligent by no means, Stephen Sommers' movie however definately succeeds in it's intention, which is to be a straight fun adventure.

Like the rest of the movie, we've seen the plot a dozen times before in different or similar forms. A square-jawed man of the sea and his wise-cracking sidekick give a group of mercenaries a ride in their PT boat to an undisclosed location somewhere out over the murky ocean. Little does the boatman know that the soldiers-for-hire are planning to knock off a massive luxury cruise liner with an assortment of assault rifles and deadly torpedo warheads. When they reach the ship though, they find it derelict, and encounter a nightmarish tentacle beast.

This movie is stupid as hell, but it knows it, and just wants to take us along on its stupid ride. As mentioned before, the movie makes no apologizes. We don't get any little kids who know more than the adults running around and saving the day; instead we get piles of horrid, blood-covered skeletons and disgustingly neat scenes of half-dead victims being regurgitated by our monster villain. Speaking of the monster, its a fairly decent CGI creation, which is surprising considering how little effort can be put into putting CG creatures onto the screen in movies with anything less of a budget than Jurassic Park or The Phantom Menace.

The flick is plenty fun, but where it truly lacks is the character development area. In Deep Rising, and most movies like it, a fair amount of the characters are regulated to quick two or three word descriptions which dictate everything that they do. There's "The Womanizer", "The Coward", "The Guy Who's Scared", etc. And man, if a guys got an Austrailian or English accent..forget about it, that's his whole character right there. The two most interesting characters are Treat Williams, a third rate Bruce Willis-Mel Gibson, who nevertheless puts a likeable effort into the main hero, and the mind-numbingly beautiful Famke Jannkson as a thief the crew finds alive aboard the cruise liner.

Deep Rising is a movie that knows what it wants to do, and does it well, adding some originality and excitement to a genre overflowing with badly-executed ideas and ameatuerish directing.

I give Deep Rising a 6 out of 10, and I'd reccomend it to any fan of grade-B horror movies or anyone who enjoyed the 1999 remake of The Mummy.

I bought this DVD last week. I've watched it for the first time with some friends. I must admit, that must be some movie.. Here, director Stephen Sommers try to prove that if Aliens scared you.. Then this one will do worse.. Well, it did at times.. The whole plot sounds simple to me.. with these bunch of thieves coming on board this cruise liner, the Argonautica.. Only to find that the passengers have vanished. It's not 'til they realise that they up against something more deadly and it came from the bottom of the ocean.. We're not talking giant squids here.. Something more sinister..

Treat Williams played well as Finnegan. Famke Janssen, Wes Studi and the rest of the cast kept their end of the bargain with their performance. A really good film, full of one liners.. A few jokes.. This, that and the other..

7 out of 10!

Deep Rising is a good film. It is an example of a well made B movie. A group of mercenaries hijack a cruise ship that happens to host a giant sea creature- You can't make this up and it works. This is a cheesy blast and both Treat Wiliams and Famke Jannsen are good and one wonders why they never achieved more stardom. The direction is sublime and the pacing is excellent. The effects would have been a hindrance if the film tried to be a more serious straightforward drama but because it is so tongue in cheek they work in favor. This is a must watch.

This is one fun, intense monster movie. They blew it with the title (what the hell does Deep Rising actually mean? - Things From the Deep would have at least meant what it was), but the execution was admirable. This came out the same time as "Phantoms," which depicted a lot of people disappearing on land; in this one, a lot of 'em disappear at sea, on The Argonautica, the latest fancy cruise ship. As in Phantoms, the monster is tough to kill and human beings are easy prey. Like Phantoms, this was ignored at the box office, unlike the director's later hits, "The Mummy" movies. But it has the same level of entertainment. The band of mercs, along with a few other reluctant tag-alongs, make for a darkly funny ensemble as they make their way through the new ship of horrors. O'Connor provides a lot of the humor with wry line delivery, but lead actor Williams is also amusing. As the corrupt ship owner, Heald also steals a scene or two, and turns out to be the only one knowledgeable (for some odd reason) on these monsters infesting the ship. The creature or creatures really are horrible to see in their work - there's some gross mass death scene stuff going on, at odds with the humor; it's almost as if the characters need that humor to keep from going crazy, though some of them do anyway. Janssen, as the main femme fatale among the macho men, does some of her best work here. There's a good, chilling atmosphere in the constant rain and the dark, in the middle of the ocean somewhere. There are no real slow spots and many viewers will probably want to check this out again someday soon. You can do much worse than kick back with this pic on a dark night.