Deep Blue Sea 2 is the Men In Black II of bad shark movies

“Deep Blue Sea 2” is a movie that poses a lot of questions. Not just the obvious ones like what? or why? But also ‘what if the raptors from “Jurassic World” but sharks’? And what led Warner Bros to value this IP so lowly they rented it out for this generic, cheap sharksploitation flick? But the biggest question posed by “Deep Blue Sea 2” is: why is it “Deep Blue Sea 2”? It’s completely unrelated to the characters or events from the first movie unless you count imitation as the sincerest form of not only flattery but relation because this movie is simply a cut-price rerun of “Deep Blue Sea”.

Oh, it starts off brightly enough with a shark attack – there’s no time wasting here and it’s a nicely ironic de-limbing for some shark finners but it’s all downhill from thereon in as it lazily settles into its plot of borderline illegal medical research and some clumsy and boneheaded scientists.

In essence, it’s a crappy and unnecessary remake of an already knowingly schlocky B-movie. Even some of the shots and setups look the same, except, you know, lower quality. Ironically, its when it’s not slavishly copying its predecessor that the movie shows a little promise. The presence of baby sharks (doo doo doo doo doo doo) is actually pretty interesting and would have (should have?) been a better focus for a sequel. Their smaller size allows them to pop up in more amusing and unexpected places. There’s also an unexpected homage to “2001: A Space Odyssey” as the sharks mimic HAL9000 by eavesdropping on the human scientists’ conversations and, on at least one occasion, apparently lip-reading too.

It’s an okay watch when all is said and done, but why would you ever bother watching this when you could just watch the better and better-made movie it’s based on? Not for the acting or effects, that’s for sure, so maybe it’s better not to watch it lest we encourage the commissioning of “Deep Blue Sea 3”.