When my friend told me he had gotten a few passes for a sneak preview of Into the Blue and I asked what it was about; I wasn't going to go until I saw Jessica Alba in a two piece on the pass, and from what he told me almost the whole movie is her swimming. So why wouldn't I want to go?!
Into the Blue is a high-stakes thriller set in the deep, shark-infested waters of the Bahamas. When young divers discover the wreckage of a cargo plane at the bottom of the sea, they believe their dream of buried treasure has come true. What they don't realize is that millions of dollars of illegal goods are in that sunken plane and a group of dangerous criminals are already desperately searching for it. As tensions mount and the friends begin to fight about what to do with their find, others get closer to discovering their secret - and the treasure hunters quickly become the hunted.
At first I didn't pay much attention to the movie, just Jessica Alba, but as it progressed I found myself following the movie more and more and since I hadn't heard anything really about the movie except that they find some treasure I decided I should pay attention since I decided to do a review on it. The movie starts off introducing the characters and we find out that Jared (Paul Walker), used to be a diver for Bates (Josh Brolin), we also learn that Jared is dating Sam (Jessica Alba) and we're introduced to Jared's best friend Bryce (Scott Caan), as well as a girl he picked up on the way Amanda (Ashley Scott). The two couples decide to go diving one day and Jared loses his watch in the ocean, he dives back down to find it but he comes up with something from a ship, with his hopes high he dives back down and finds a gold dagger. By now everyone is joining in on searching for more items on the sea floor, but as Jared is looking he finds a whole lot more than he anticipated, he finds a downed plane. He searches the plane and finds kilos upon kilos of cocaine. Knowing this will bring nothing but trouble to all of them, everyone makes a pact saying that no one will tell and that they will report it once they find their sunken ship. Of course that doesn't go as planned and someone tries to cut a deal with another party and puts everyone's lives at risk. Now in a race for their lives and the treasure it's up to them to set things right. The story has a few twists in it, some you can expect some not so expected. I thought the story had potential but the way they took the movie just wasn't exactly what I expected, this definitely isn't any Goonies or National Treasure, but hey, Jessica Alba makes it all worth it!
All the audio visuals were done well; most of the movie was diving so there were a lot of under water shots of sea life...and Jessica Alba. There's not much else to say about the camera angles or anything, it wasn't like there was a lot of action going on that they had to have all these great angles or great sounds but you'll find that they do a great job with all the underwater shots.
The acting was done well, Caan through in some comedy hear and there but otherwise there wasn't anything that was done exceptionally well. Nothing stood out; I'd say it was just average acting, though there were some scenes where I was thinking to myself, that's way too corny. All in all though, they pulled everything off in this movie that they needed to, acting wise and of course Jessica Alba in her bikini makes up for everyone that fell short!
Overall the movie wasn't that great for a treasure hunting movie, it doesn't compare to Goonies or even National Treasure for that matter, but movie wise I would say if you're looking for something that's enjoyable and isn't hard to understand, something you can just watch to watch this would be a good movie to see. Especially if you want to see Jessica Alba!
"Into the Blue" opens September 30, 2005 and is rated PG13. Action, Adventure, Crime. Directed by John Stockwell. Written by Matt Johnson. Starring Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Paul Walker, Scott Caan.
