_**Big-budget ‘B’ adventure/horror on the high seas, but too cartoonish**_

A band of ruthless hijackers seize the world’s richest cruise ship in the South China Sea, but no one’s on board. Something mysterious & terrifying from the great depths got there before them. Treat Williams and Kevin J. O'Connor play the protagonists who inadvertently transport the hijackers while Famke Janssen plays a survivor on the vessel. Meanwhile Anthony Heald is on board as the shady owner of the ship and Wes Studi plays one of the key thugs.

“Deep Rising” (1998) is an action/horror that mixes “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972) with “Alien Resurrection” (1997), but encumbers it with camp and a creature that does wildly unbelievable things. While the monster is interesting in some respects, it’s actually not original. It’s a glaring rip-off of the Celestial Man’s true form revealed in the 1974 issue of Marvel Comics’ The Defenders #14.

Nevertheless this is a fun, thrilling adventure if you can roll with the above hitches. The cast is diverse and spirited. Yet this doesn’t change that it’s basically a B-type of dumb adventure/horror flick. It just cost 30 times as much as the usual B sci-fi and bombed at the box office. Meanwhile the feminine department is limited to Famke Janssen and she never did much for me (but she’s a’right), although Una Damon has a small role.

The film runs 1 hour, 46 minutes.

GRADE: C