innegan (Williams) will hire his boat out to anyone for the right price, no questions asked. However, when he discovers that his latest passengers are really just modern-day pirates, he begins to wonder if he should have asked a question or two, especially after they take over his boat.
However, when they get to the pirate's target--the most luxurious cruise ship ever built--they find the ship dead in the water. Once aboard, they realize that everyone is missing on a cruise ship that should have hundreds of people. Worse yet, the boat is taking on water and something is tracking them, something that isn't very nice and likes to leave human bones lying around. Finnegan and the pirates find a handful of survivors who don't seem to know much about what's really going on, including a beautiful thief (Janssen) and the owner of the cruise ship (Anthony Heald).
Finnegan and the others soon find themselves trapped by the same thing that killed the ship's previous occupants. With communications out on both ships, Finnegan's boat disabled and the cruise ship sinking, they are running out of time. And whatever got to the other passengers is coming after them.
There's only one thing that's deep here...
Stephen Sommers, the writer and director of Deep Rising, has done an amazing thing. He's taken every monster cliche imaginable and used them to create a very silly but occasionally entertaining sea monster movie. His characters aren't very likable, the action is totally predictable and the premise is ridiculous. But all those things aside, it doesn't stink.
The problem is that Deep Rising is riddled with so many coincidences that it's impossible to suspend disbelief (which is hard enough considering the movie's about a big people-eating squid on a cruise ship). The cruise ship is sabotaged so that the ship stops. A giant squid bursts through the hull of the ship. The squid eats everyone (it must be very hungry and have a tremendously fast digestive system). Finnegan's boat is disabled just before it reaches the ship. Communications are out on both ships and there's no way to call for help (and no one has a cell phone...c'mon!). No one seems to remember there are lifeboats on the ship. Every time the characters know the monster is coming, they stand around and wait until they see it. The monster always seems to know where the people are. The monster is darn smart for the average giant people-eating squid. There's more but, hey, why spoil all the fun?
What Sommers does right is not take his subject matter seriously. It's a silly movie that never pretends to be anything more. Sommers also keeps the action moving along at a fairly good pace, and, while the giant squid special effects are nothing spectacular, they are kind of fun. The squid's tentacles are nasty creatures in and of themselves that open up to reveal lots of teeth that can suck a person in whole.
Unfortunately, Williams and the rest of the cast have nothing to work with in their stock roles; they are basically props. Only Kevin J. O'Connor, as Finnegan's mechanic, gets a chance to shine (and annoy) as the comic relief.
