Into The Blue

Synopsis: A group of young divers in the Bahamas find themselves in deep trouble with a drug lord after they stumble upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane - as though the sharks weren't bad enough!

Into the Blue is like a bastard descendant of Pirates of the Caribbean. A group of four good, no, great-looking twenty-somethings are searching for lost treasure in the Bahamas, hoping to strike gold and never have to work again, when they stumble upon so many bricks of coke that they "could build a house from it". Bingo you might say, there's their retirement fund right there. But no, these guys are too honest for that kind of dirty trade. But perhaps if they just sold an incy-wincey bit of the white and powdery gold they could get a good boat and pursue more legal treasure hunts. And so begins (one hour into the film) the adventures of Jared (a mainly bare-chested, Paul Walker), his girlfriend Sam (a mainly bare-bummed, Jessica Alba), his best friend Bryce (a mainly goofy, Scott Caan) and his best friend's new girl-friend, Amanda (a mainly blonde, Ashley Scott).

Some great underwater photography and beautiful scenery (some of it of the walking and talking variety) help Into the Blue maintain a good level of entertainment for close to two hours, yet perhaps a shorter film would have upped 'OK' to 'pretty good'. There are some tense moments and some horrific ones also, but the script flatlines when trying to say something about the importance of trust and friendship, and the dangers of dealing with things of a dubious or outright illegal nature.

The performances are all reasonable. Jessica Alba is not a bad actress. She seems to throw herself into every role she takes on, but perhaps that's the problem - there's too much of herself in all her parts. Paul Walker looks great (a younger version of Brad Pitt, abs included) but seems to act as though it were an afterthought, which it perhaps it was. On the other hand, Scott Caan, son of James, is surprisingly good. He finds a decent balance between the comic and the emotional with his role and injects some life into the duller parts of the movie.

The film's director, John Stockwell manages to create genuine relationships between characters and make a logical progression out of some of the most unbelievable situations. Unfortunately the script by Matt Johnson fails to build tension quickly enough, and before I knew it, I was starting to wonder how long it would be until I could have a cigarette, never a good indicator in my books. However, those into adventure films will find enough to have a good time with Into the Blue and when the action gets a bit boring there's always the beautiful Caribbean scenery to look at.

 

 

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