Deep Rising
| Deep Rising | |
|---|---|
 Promotional film poster | |
| Directed by | Stephen Sommers |
| Written by | Stephen Sommers Uncredited: Robert Mark Kamen |
| Produced by | John Baldecchi Mario Iscovich Laurence Mark |
| Starring | Treat Williams Famke Janssen Kevin J. O'Connor Anthony Heald Derrick O'Connor Cliff Curtis Djimon Hounsou Wes Studi |
| Cinematography | Howard Atherton |
| Edited by | Bob Ducsay John Wright |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Distributed by | Hollywood Pictures (USA) Cinergi Pictures (international) |
Release date | January 30, 1998 |
Running time | 106 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | USD$45,000,000 |
| Box office | Domestic 11,203,026 |
Deep Rising is a 1998 action horror film directed by Stephen Sommers. It was distributed by Hollywood Pictures and Cinergi Pictures, and was released in the United States on January 30, 1998.
Plot
The film opens with text explaining about trenches deep underwater with undiscovered sea life, then cuts to a boat being piloted through a storm on the South China Sea by John Finnegan (Treat Williams). He has been chartered to transport a group of men (later discovered by Finnegan's crewman Joey "Tooch" Pantucci (Kevin J. O'Connor) to be mercenaries) to a specific destination. Finnegan's third crew member is Pantucci's girlfriend Leila (Una Damon).
The focus shifts to the Argonautica, a luxurious cruise ship, embarking on its maiden voyage with many wealthy passengers. The ship is the dream and brainchild of Simon Canton (Anthony Heald) and is under the watchful eye of the seasoned Captain Atherton (Derrick O'Connor). Mingling among the guests and taking full opportunity of the facilities and entertainment is Trillian, (Famke Janssen) a wanted thief who notes unusual noises on the ocean. The party reaches full swing as Canton delivers a speech, christening the ship and those sailing in her to good times.
With the crew and passengers occupied, Trillian steals the Captain's ID card and breaks in the ship's safe, and is caught by Canton and Captain Atherton. She is placed in a storeroom as the brig is incomplete. Meanwhile, the party carries on while a saboteur disables the ship's navigation and communication systems. This leads to the ship running blind, leading Canton into hysterics. The crewman manning the sonar notices a large, swift object coming into contact with the ship, and the ensuing crash causes the passengers to panic as one passenger runs into a bathroom, only to be sucked through the toilet.
The mercenaries install a torpedo launcher on Finnegan's boat, and then it crashes into a drifting speed boat, which damages the engine. The mercenaries (leader Hanover (Wes Studi), Vivo (Djimon Hounsou), Mason (Clifton Powell), Mulligan (Jason Flemyng), T-Ray (Trevor Goddard) and Mamooli (Cliff Curtis)) take Finnegan and his crew hostage and split up into several groups, leaving Billy to watch Leila. The mercenaries use schematics given to them by an insider, but the group discovers blood everywhere first.
The first party heads to the safe room and finds Trillian. She escaped the store room by short circuiting the electronic lock. She intended to have another go at stealing the contents of the safe, this time using Canton's access card. The party unlocks the safe but Vivo is immediately killed by a frightened Captain Atherton, who drives an axe into Vivo's head and two of the other pirates open fire into the vault killing three surviving passengers except Canton.
In the engine room, Finnegan and Pantucci witness Mamooli and T-Ray being dragged underwater by an unseen force, while back on Finnegan's boat, Leila suffers a similar fate. The liner party discover many skeletons stripped clean of their flesh while being attacked by spiked tentacles; one of the party's attacks on a tentacle reveals Billy, half digested and in severe shock. Canton reveals that the cost of the boat and maintaining it have bankrupted him, so he hired the mercenaries to destroy the ship so he can get the insurance money.
As the party's numbers dwindle, Canton theorizes that the tentacles are evolved members of the Ottoia family of deep-sea worms which strip their prey of all body liquids then eject the carcass. Finnegan points out that the tentacles are driving the party to a specific location, and when the party is split up, all the mercenaries and Captain Atherton himself die. Soon, only Finnegan, Trillian, Pantucci, Hanover, and Canton are left. Following another encounter with the tentacles, the five are split up. Finnegan loses the parts he had gathered earlier to repair his boat's engine, rendering it unable to go any further than "a city block." Meanwhile, Hanover and Pantucci attempt to slow the tentacles down with grenades; when this fails, Hanover shoots Joey in the leg and attempts to save himself, only to wind up engulfed by one of the creatures. When Joey hands him a pistol, Hanover wastes its one bullet firing at Joey and is unable to commit suicide before the tentacle swallows him whole.
Finnegan returns to the ship after the party discover a nearby island, and has Pantucci use his boat's autopilot to crash the armed torpedoes into the Argonautica to destroy the infestation. He then returns to the ship just in time to rescue Trillian from Canton, who is about to dispatch her with a flare gun. Trillian and Finnegan then attempt to return to the boat and find the octopus-like body of the creature possessing the tentacles emerging into the liner's main atrium. It grabs Finnegan, who escapes by shooting the creature in the eye. Canton escapes alone to Finnegan's boat and discovers it is aimed for the boat after breaking his leg. The explosion destroys the creature as Finnegan and Trillian use a jet ski to escape to the island, where they encounter Pantucci, who drifted to the island. As the party relaxes, a loud roar echoes across the island, and something crashes through the nearby forest, with an exasperated Finnegan saying "Now what?".
Cast
- Treat Williams as John Finnegan
- Famke Janssen as Trillian Saint James
- Anthony Heald as Simon Canton
- Kevin J. O'Connor as Joey "Tooch" Pantucci
- Wes Studi as Hanover
- Derrick O'Connor as Captain Atherton
- Jason Flemyng as Mulligan
- Cliff Curtis as Mamooli
- Clifton Powell as Mason
- Trevor Goddard as T-Ray Jones
- Djimon Hounsou as Vivo
- Clint Curtis as Billy
- Una Damon as Leila
Reception
The film received mostly negative reviews. A Rotten Tomatoes "Rotten" rating of 30% based on 27 reviews, 0% of top critics based on five reviews and 44% of the user score based on 165 reviews. It also made Roger Ebert's most hated films list. In his own words, "[Deep Rising] is essentially an Alien clone with a fresh paint job."[1]
On its opening weekend it made $4,737,793 (42% of its total gross), ranking #8.
Deep Rising ended up being a box office bomb, with total intake of a little over $11,000,000 on a $45,000,000 budget.[2]
