Deep Blue Sea 2 - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Deep Blue Sea 2



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Renny Harlin is known for a lot of cheesy films, but he has a cult following that allows him to make all sorts of over the top adventure/action movies. Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, Cutthroat Island, 12 Rounds, and the infamous Deep Blue Sea. Now I don’t pretend to believe that Harlin is a master of cinema, but his films are USUALLY extremely entertaining. At least in a guilty pleasure sort of way. 1999’s Deep Blue Sea is something that I’ve seen COUNTLESS times. A masterpiece of cheese, with a great cast chewing up the scenery in such epic ways that you HAVE to love the film. Unfortunately, Renny Harlin and the cast was what made the sci-fi shark movie into what it was. A hilariously fun watch that just couldn’t be replicated.

Deep Blue Sea 2 is just what you would expect of a DTV sequel. Originally under the control of Warner Premier (a defunct sub studio of Warner Brothers that was designed to handle their direct to video films), but after the 2012 demise of Warner Premiere, the film was semi shelved for a while. Unbeknownst to me, Warner had continued to work on the film long after it should have been shelved permanently, and released the movie last week with barely a glimpse of promotion. I should have been suspicious when I saw that Warner had embargoed reviews until after street date (the cinematic version of keeping bad press away from the project), but I still was more than a bit curious as the first film was a HUGE guilty pleasure.

Sadly we have a sort of reboot/remake of the original rather than a true sequel. Just with a lesser cast and an even smaller budget. We once again are dealing with super smart sharks, but with a slightly different twist to them. Instead of working on a cure for Alzheimer, we now have a wealthy billionaire by the name of Carl Durant (Michael Beach) who is pouring all of his vast wealth into a super secret project based off of an aquatic research station off the coast of South Africa. When this mysterious billionaire ropes in Shark specialist Misty Calhoun (Danielle Savre) all hell breaks loose. You see, Durant has been running a slightly unethical science experiment out in the ocean. He’s developed a super drug to boost intelligence, and has been testing the drug on Bull Sharks (the most dangerous of the shark species. A move that boggles the mind when he could have chosen a much less vicious breed of shark to run his experiments on) in order to see if it has potential to humans.

Yeahhhhhhhhh, I’m pretty sure you all can see where this is going. Turning an alpha predator into a super smart animal (supposedly a 1000 times multiplier on the base intelligence level) has BOUND to have a few nasty side effects. Soon after Misty and several other scientists arrive, “Bella” (the queen shark), decides to lead a shark mutiny and starts tearing up the enclosure. With the underwater rig under attack, and the research facility starting to collapse on itself, Misty, Durant and the rest of the crew have to make it back to the surface without being eaten (this time, instead of the sharks infiltrating the station, Bella randomly gives birth to babies, who act as super piranhas. Effectively hunting and destroying anyone in their way).

Deep Blue Sea 2 tries to imitate the success of the Renny Harlin film, but fails miserably. I’m sure that most people aren’t shocked and horrified at that revelation, but it’s pretty obvious why. We have a fairly bland direction style, a direct to video promotion, low budget (which actually has pretty decent CGI comparatively), a weak cast, and a penchant for ripping off whole sections of the first movie. Not to mention the fact that the writers didn’t think that it was a big deal to answer many of the questions brought up in the movie. Mainly, why in blue blazes was the most lethal type of shark used for the experiments? Why does Durant take the drug himself, and WHY does he not seem to get smarter from it like his shark experiments (it actually almost feels like he gets dumber). How have they been trained to swim in formation and respond to commands? And those are just a handful of questions that the script just glosses over without even a care to explain.

The audience is strung along with your standard array of obstacles, with the cast stumbling through water logged corridors, slamming doors shut, and getting hunted down by little baby bull sharks. Which make up the worst CGI of the entire film. Unfortunately the trio of writers have ripped off all the bad parts of Deep Blue Sea and none of the good ones. Which means that the cheeky, almost 4th wall breaking moments of the first movie is gone, and the sequel just desperately tries to take itself WAY too seriously. Gore, blood, munched humans, and your typical “there could be another sequel!” ending leaves this reviewer much to worn out and beleaguered to give more than a modicum of caring to this train wreck.




Rating:

Rated R for creature violence and gore, and for language




Video:

Once again, I can’t verify WHAT cameras were used, but from what I have gathered from other online sources the DTV shark film was shot with a mixture of digital cameras to varying affect. The “out in the ocean” shots of the movie actually look quite striking, with sharp clarity and a goodly amount of detail to boot. Facial tones are accurate, and there’s a nice neutral tone to the colors and I can’t complain too much about them. However, those are not the ONLY shots in the movie. When the movie goes underground (especially in the dimly lit third act) there is a THICK blue, red and green grading that, combined with the dim lighting, robs the picture of any major detailing. Especially with the copious banding that occurs down there in the bottom of the research station. The image can also be a bit soft down there, robbing the image of the clarity and sharpness that it showed out in the open ocean.







Audio:

For a film that really relies on ambiance and activity, this was a surprisingly tame mix. The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track from Warner really was one I was expecting lots of activity and LFE from, but what we got was a fairly pedestrian mix that relied too much on basic ambiance and middling punch. The vocals are always clean and clear, with a firm center of the room anchoring, and the surrounds are given a goodly amount to do. They’re a bit anemic, and don’t really give a massive sense of directionality, but they are more than capable and do a decent enough job. The LFE was the only thing I was REALLY disappointed in. The bass was constant and fairly straight forward, but it was lacking the throbbing power and energy that an movie like Deep Blue Sea 2 would really benefit from.







Extras:

• Returning to the Deep – The Making of Deep Blue Sea 2 (Featurette) – Go behind the scenes with the cast and crew of Deep Blue Sea 2 as they film the highly-anticipated sequel.
• Deep Blue Sea 2: Death by Shark (Featurette) – In this wildly fun featurette, the cast and crew of Deep Blue Sea 2 discuss their characters’ demise and the jump-out-of-your-seat moments in the film.
• Deep Blue Silliness (Gag Reel) – A collection of fun outtakes and bloopers from the feature film showcasing the cast and production team.
• Deleted Scenes – A few filmed moments that didn’t make the final cut of Deep Blue Sea 2. But we know you still want to see them.

Final Score: ​

Deep Blue Sea was no cinematic masterpiece, but it WAS a fun film that didn’t take itself seriously enough to be offensive. The cast was great, the CGI solid, and the one liners so hilariously awful that you couldn’t help but giggle along with the ridiculous plot. The sequel forgoes all of the tongue in cheek elements that made Deep Blue Sea so fun, and just crams in a serious of escape sequences as our heroes (and heroine) try to out run sharks in their own environment, while creating plot holes so large that even the sharks themselves could fit through them. Warner Brothers’ Blu-ray presentation is solid enough, with good video and decent audio. Once again the only really MAJOR weakness (besides the movie), is the generic extras that the disc is saddled with. Making this stinker something to avoid.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Danielle Savre, Rob Mayes, Michael Beach
Directed by: Darin Scott
Written by: Erik Patterson, Hans Rodionoff, Jessica Scott
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, Spanish (both Castillian and Latin), German, Japanese DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German SDH, Japanese, Spanish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: R
Runtime: 94 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: April 17th, 2018

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will skip it based on your recommendation.

 

[phillihp23]

Watching this now.

 

[Michael Scott]

good luck

 

[Todd Anderson]

Mike, ever watch a film called Open Water?

 

[Michael Scott]

Yeah I saw it when it came out. Really creepy shark movie

 

[dmiller68]

The video portion of this review is about "Paddington 2" and not Deep Blue Sea 2... Might want to fix that, I was a tad confused. I may watch it at some point if it hit Netflix. Thanks for the review.

 

[Michael Scott]

The video portion of this review is about "Paddington 2" and not Deep Blue Sea 2... Might want to fix that, I was a tad confused. I may watch it at some point if it hit Netflix. Thanks for the review.

thanks for that catch. You're the first one to notice that lol. We run the reviews based upon a template and this must have been one where my "copy/paste" messed up. I replaced it with the actual Deep Blue Sea 2 video writeup (the score was correct, just not the text)

 

[dmiller68]

@Michael Scott hey level set question. So I know a few review sites i.e. Blu-ray.com as example a 5 "star" Blu-ray for video would = 3 "star" 4K Blu-ray if there is no difference in quality. Does this make since?

 

[Michael Scott]

@Michael Scott hey level set question. So I know a few review sites i.e. Blu-ray.com as example a 5 "star" Blu-ray for video would = 3 "star" 4K Blu-ray if there is no difference in quality. Does this make since?

very similar to how I grade it here. A 3 star 4K disc means it's about as close to the Blu-ray as possible. Anything above a 3 means it's an improvement, but i'm not using those numbers to base my 4K UHD score. I'm still grading the 4K films on a scale of 1-5 based upon how they look compared to other 4K discs too. It just so happens to coincide that about the 3 star range you're getting into "looks no better than Blu-ray". There's a few that have gotten that low, and a few that have actually WORSE ratings due to them tweaking it to look different than the Blu-ray

 

[dmiller68]

@Michael Scott thanks!