Deep Rising Reviews

ALIEN meets ANACONDA, by way of SPEED 2. Somewhere in the South China Sea, the luxury liner Argonautica -- a floating resort hotel crammed to the rafters with the vulgar rich -- is invaded by something very, very big and very, very nasty. Meanwhile, no-questions-asked entrepreneur Finnegan (Treat Williams) and his scrappy crew are ferrying a mysterious gang of thugs to an unspecified destination in the same general part of the middle of nowhere. Engine failure forces them to board the Argonautica, which is covered with blood and mysteriously empty, except for a few stray passengers and crew members hiding out in the vault and babbling about things on the loose. That covers the setup: Most of the picture's appropriately named running time is dedicated to following the dwindling band of survivors as they flee a Freudian nightmare come to life: slimy, snaky, fanged tentacle horrors that swallow people and digest them alive. Ick. Among the monster bait: mercenary creep Hanover (Wes Studi), the Argonautica's sniveling owner (Anthony Heald), glamorous jewel thief Trillian (Famke Janssen) and Pantucci (Kevin J. O'Connor), Finnegan's sad-sack engineer. Were things over at the 90-minute mark, this would be a tight, brainless thrill ride; as it is, it goes for one too many climaxes and wears out its welcome.