- Title: Into the Blue
- IMDb: link
What can you say about a movie that strives to meet your low expectations? Into the Blue is not really a bad film, just a mediocre one. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, a group of mostly honest people find something valuable, but to get it they will have to bend or break the law. As the pressure mounts the group begins to fracture with distrust, but in the end everything will turn out swell and we’ll have all learned a moral lesson. If you haven’t seen that movie, I dunno, like a hundred zillion times then you’re in luck, because here’s your film. And hey, Jessica Alba spends almost twenty minutes in a bikini.
Sam (Jessica Alba) and her beach-bum boy-toy Jared (Paul Walker) live somewhere on beautiful beaches of what appears to be the Bahamas making a living in various tourist attractions while hoping that one day they might find some buried treasure in the deep of the ocean. Old friend Bryce (Scott Caan ) shows up with his new lady Amanda (Ashley Scott) and they go out for a boat ride and low and behold they stumble onto something.
The group not only discovers what appears to be one of the biggest treasure sites in recorded history, but also a sunken plane with millions of dollars of cocaine. Here’s the conundrum: if they report the plane and the drugs the entire area will be sealed off and they will lose their salvage rights, and they have to find a way to pay for the massive undertaking of exploring the ocean floor without drawing notice from other treasure hunters or owners of the downed plane and the sunken merchandise. As you might expect the group clashes on what to do, gets into some serious situations, and before you can blink they are shooting it out with the police, drug runners, and other treasure hunters.
I was very surprised when I saw the studio was promoting this movie as a thriller. Thrilling? Nah, more like mildly amusing in that B-movie late night cable television way. Everything here you’ve seen before, just look at the cast and you will be able to tell immediately which character will have which mandatory reaction to the situation. As for the plot twists, you will see those coming from an ocean away.
So is it worth seeing? Well, if you’ve gotten nothing better to do, some extra money burning a hole in your pocket, and don’t mind keeping your expectations low….maybe. The underwater photography is very well done, especially in the early scenes where it almost looks like Discovery Channel footage as the film showcases the setting for the film.
The cast is fine, but the script doesn’t really give them much to do. Stock characters and a regurgitated plot from many similar movies fill the screen, but hey the cast looks good in their swimwear so I guess we’re not supposed to notice.
Chances are you’ve already seen this film under a different title. If you have not, let me recommend Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan which has a similar plot but with a much better script. Sorry, it doesn’t have a cast with perfectly chiseled bodies or take place on beautiful beaches. If that’s what you want or you are a fan of Alba or Walker, or a fan of movies that showcase water, or just enjoy really mediocre B-moves that Bruce Campbell wouldn’t be caught dead in, you might get your money’s worth. Otherwise stay out of the water, at least until you can swim for free on cable.