Over the years these part oceanic travelogues, part bikini clad star vehicles have produced plenty of films, some of them good, some of them bad, nearly all of them instantly forgettable. All concerned here deserve some credit for producing a film with slightly more substance than many of their predecessors.
There's nothing that interesting or different about the story: a group of deep sea divers searching for a boat of sunken treasure accidentally stumble across a crashed aeroplane filled with cocaine. One of them sees dollar signs, some go along with them, some don't. All of them end up in a world of trouble, especially the attractive female lead who gets kidnapped and held as ransom.
But somehow this one seems to work better than a typical genre film. The production values seem sleeker, the performances more realistic and the leads more likable than a typical stock plot phone in effort. Paul Walker proved his worth as an affable, flawed leading man a long time ago. Alba can still make stupid actions seem intelligent, Scott Caan plays a redeemable rogue and Josh Brolin a grounded but watchable villain.
This is hardly a cinematic masterpiece and follows a plot you've seen a hundred times before, but somehow seems to succeed, almost in spite of itself, where so many similar films have failed.
Delivers exactly what the poster would suggest and with a minimum of fuss. In short, there are plenty of worse ways to spend two hours than Jessica Alba running into trouble in a bikini and continually getting saved by a shirtless Paul Walker.
There's nothing that interesting or different about the story: a group of deep sea divers searching for a boat of sunken treasure accidentally stumble across a crashed aeroplane filled with cocaine. One of them sees dollar signs, some go along with them, some don't. All of them end up in a world of trouble, especially the attractive female lead who gets kidnapped and held as ransom.
But somehow this one seems to work better than a typical genre film. The production values seem sleeker, the performances more realistic and the leads more likable than a typical stock plot phone in effort. Paul Walker proved his worth as an affable, flawed leading man a long time ago. Alba can still make stupid actions seem intelligent, Scott Caan plays a redeemable rogue and Josh Brolin a grounded but watchable villain.
This is hardly a cinematic masterpiece and follows a plot you've seen a hundred times before, but somehow seems to succeed, almost in spite of itself, where so many similar films have failed.
Delivers exactly what the poster would suggest and with a minimum of fuss. In short, there are plenty of worse ways to spend two hours than Jessica Alba running into trouble in a bikini and continually getting saved by a shirtless Paul Walker.