If you walk away from “Into the Blue” having learned anything, it’s that Jessica Alba has a nice ass. And although the film is intended to be centered on the discovery of some fairytale pirate booty, it’s her booty that you’re more likely to see throughout the length of this picture. But who’s really going to complain about Alba’s five-star body when there are more discernible problems to worry about? Like her acting, or perhaps the entire movie as a whole, because despite how pretty “Into the Blue” may look, it’s a tedious shipwreck to sit through.
Living like trailer trash on the beaches of the Bahamas, Jared (Paul Walker) has big dreams of becoming a famous treasure hunter, but his girlfriend Sam (Alba) – who plays with the sharks at Sea World – would much rather he go back to work for Bates (Josh Brolin), the local “treasure finder.” When Jared’s brother Bryce (Scott Caan) comes down to visit with the hope that they’ll uncover a heap of buried treasure in the middle of the sea, they come across something much bigger – a crashed plane carrying millions of dollars in drugs. But before the plot can even get into motion, our young hipsters strip down to their swim gear and spend the rest of the movie swimming around the ocean as if it were a Calvin Klein ad. It goes a little like this: Oh mi god! Like, we’re four hot twentysomethings with killer bodies! Come watch us in this groovy underwater montage!
Sigh. And to think that director John Stockwell really did love the water. His last major feature (“Blue Crush”) used the ocean as a playground too, but that film was far superior with an entertaining script to match its sexy co-stars. Maybe he’s really just a dirty old man who likes to stare at young girls in skimpy bikinis, but at least he got that part right. The casting couldn’t have been better, with Alba and relative newcomer Ashley Scott looking H-O-T in every scene. Stockwell even manages to toss some male eye-candy into the mix for the women to gawk at. This doesn’t excuse the fact that underneath all the pretty faces and smoking hot bodies is a plot drowning in monotonous inadequacy. That is, until the last fifteen minutes, when Stockwell decides that he wants to make an action movie instead of a documentary on treasure hunting for the MTV generation. The success of “Into the Blue” has been doomed ever since it was pulled from the summer film season, but I have a sinking feeling that it might have been in trouble much sooner than that.
1.5 / 5 Stars
Starring: Paul Walker, Jessica Alba, Scott Caan, Ashley Scott, Josh Brolin
Director: John Stockwell
DVD Features:
The widescreen DVD release of “Into the Blue” includes director commentary with John Stockwell, a short making-of featurette, deleted scenes and screen tests for the film’s actors.
