There’s two distinct movies here, one that takes place far far below the surface and another that takes place on the surface and near beaches where every day people are playing in the water. Neither of these stories are particularly interesting, though to me the first half is by far the superior of the two. There’s some obvious Chinese pandering through the film, though I feel somewhat conflicted at calling it “pandering” since this movie was a joint effort between American and Chinese film financing and production companies, so can it truly be pandering if they’re trying to sell the movie to their own audiences? As ill fitting as the word is, I’m quite comfortable with calling it obvious and out of scope of what I was expecting for the film. There’s some great CGI to be had, but they obviously either used several effects houses or cheaped out on some, because with ever great scene with effects is another will just as awful ones.
To sum up the film, there’s a scene towards the end of the third act in which Jason Statham is in a personal submarine that has had one of it’s control surfaces ripped off, leaving a jagged shank of metal hanging off the side, which he uses, to great effect, as a knife. As I was writing in my notes “hey that’s like a knife fight, but with a shark” he proceeded to jump out of the personal sub, WITH A KNIFE, and proceeds to attempt to stab the shark, which we’ve already confirmed several times, is the size of a billionaire’s yacht.
It’s not a great movie, it’s not a terrible movie, it’s a whelming movie.
