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| Worldwide Box Office Gross - See All |
1. Titanic |
| 1997 |
$1,835,300,000 |
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King |
| 2003 |
$1,129,219,252 |
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest |
| 2006 |
$1,006,996,572 |
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone |
| 2001 |
$968,657,891 |
5. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace |
| 1999 |
$922,379,000 |
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into the blue
Into the Blue is a thriller set in the deep, shark-infested waters of the Bahamas. When four young divers discover a legendary shipwreck rumored to contain millions in gold at the bottom of the sea, they believe their dream of buried treasure has come true. But nearby on the ocean floor, a sunken plane full of illegal cargo threatens their find. The friends make a pact to keep quiet about both discoveries so they can excavate the shipwreck before a rival treasure hunter uncovers their secret and beats them to the gold. But their plan goes awry when they realize dangerous smugglers are already closing in on the missing plane, and one of the friends makes a fatal decision that quickly turns the treasure hunters into the hunted.
When under water, the action-adventure "Into the Blue" has genuine thrills. Above water or on dry land, this is one dead fish.
Columbia Pictures inherited "Blue" in its acquisition of MGM, which may explain why the studio didn't bother to release a movie about diving in the Bahamas during the summer season. The generous coverage of the bodies of stars Jessica Alba and Paul Walker will draw a young crowd opening weekend, but story and dialogue are too weak to keep the action-adventure afloat for long. By winter, though, the film may resurface as a vicarious pleasure for those unable to afford plane tickets to sunnier climes.
Exec producer Peter Guber's first outing as a producer came with "The Deep" (1977), a movie about Caribbean vacationers, treasure hunters and Jacqueline Bisset in a wet T-shirt. So these are familiar waters for Guber. Certainly, he makes certain Alba and co-star Ashley Scott rarely wear clothes other than bikinis.
The movie's other hard bodies belong to swarming, circling sharks ever present in nearly every underwater scene. The actors all dive with seeming ease amid these predators, so credit shark and diving master Stuart Cove and an underwater second unit headed by director Peter Zuccarini and photographer Bob Talbot with jobs well done. The underwater fights, emergencies and shark attacks are executed and edited to maximize verisimilitude. Would that the film never came up for air.
Granted, most thrillers require characters to make errors in judgment. But "Blue" relies almost exclusively on the monumental stupidity and callousness of characters played by Scott Caan and Ashley Scott. The heroes, Jared Cole (Walker) and Samantha "Sam" Nicholson (Alba), are stable though poor folks, living an unbothered, idyllic life on a tropical beach next to Jared's leaky boat. Well, maybe not too stable as Jared quits/gets fired from his job as a scuba-diving instructor.
What really changes the couple's lives, though, is a visit by old pal Bryce (Caan), supposedly a hotshot New York attorney who says "bro" way off often to be convincing as anything other than a dumb, out-of-his-element playboy. He arrives with Amanda (Scott), whom he apparently picked up on the way to the airport. A mobster client has loaned him a seaside villa and luxury yacht, which allows all four to go on a treasure hunt.
Hurricane season stirs up wrecks on the ocean floor, so our intrepid quartet immediately happens upon two wrecks. One's a Civil War-era ship. The other arrived at the bottom only days before -- a plane carrying a shipment of cocaine. Not wanting their first discovery, rumored to carry a fortune in gold, to turn into a crime scene by the second discovery, the group makes the dubious decision to keep quiet about both.
Worse, though, Bryce -- remember, he is supposed to be a lawyer -- sees no reason why they should not fund their salvage efforts by pilfering some of the illegal drugs and selling them on the island. Jared and Sam say no. But this fails to stop Bryce and Amanda from taking a midnight dive to the plane. Before you can say "predictable," the owners of the illegal shipment have captured the duo.
Athleticism, not acting, is required from the stars, and here they come through in style. The chases and fights above and below the water are as effective as they are preposterous. After a languid start, director John Stockwell, an avid surfer and diver who made the surfing movie "Blue Crush," revs up the action so as not to dwell on the increasing foolishness of Matt Johnson's screenplay. |
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