"Jessica Alba plus Paul Walker equals cinema gold!"
This must have been the premise from which "Into the Blue" was born. Granted, Jessica Alba certainly knows how to hold the attention of an audience, and Paul Walker is no slouch in the looks department, either. But throwing two beautiful people together does not necessarily make a good film.
Still, "Into the Blue" is an enjoyable flick, provided the viewer enters the theater knowing the film is nowhere near Oscar caliber.
The basic premise is that Walker (Jared) and Alba (Sam) are treasure hunters. All these two want is one big break, so they can stop living in a trailer, purchase a boat that actually floats and begin enjoying their life of hotness together. Cue the entrance of Jared's old friend Bryce (played by Scott Caan in his usual style of goofball smartass), accompanied by a woman he barely knows whose importance to the plot is minimal. Caan's character, a lawyer, has the use of a house and luxurious boat for the duration of his stay and when the group goes free diving they inadvertently come across not only relics from a sunken ship but also a recently crashed plane filled with 800 kilos of cocaine.
This of course leads to moralizing on the value of love and money and on what truly constitutes treasure. Here the movie starts to spiral, as the treasure hunters try to keep their find a secret while attempting to find funding for their undersea dig. They also cross paths with the coke dealers who want their drugs back. The ending is rather predictable, but suffice to say it involves a machete-wielding Jessica Alba and sharks.
The acting is typical for this type of movie, with lots of lip pursing and muscle-flexing, but with cheesy lines like, "I believe in you more than the prospect of any treasure." Their acting ability really is secondary to moving the plot along.
Keeping the picture moving are some beautiful underwater and seascape shots that appear before the actors fill them doing what they do best: looking good and wearing little. In these shots, the camera is at its most steady, but the majority of shots done on the land appear shaky and choppy, poorly filmed and hastily edited together. The work that went into the movie is shoddy, depending instead upon the overwhelming gorgeousness of its cast to carry it through the rough patches.
This is one of the last movies of the summer season, and it plays out that way for most of the picture. It only deviates slightly from the set path of a moneymaker, but does not remain memorable. See this movie with the understanding that it is not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but can still get the job done if the night calls for bubblegum fun and light thrills.
