Deep Blue Sea 3 [Blu-Ray]

Director: John Pogue

Cast: Tania Raymonde, Nathaniel Buzolic, Emerson Brooks

Release Date: August 25, 2020 (Wide Release)

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 5/10
Disc Rating: 6.5/10

Synopsis:

Emma Collins, an eminent marine biologist, and her crew have set up a mid-ocean laboratory over a sunken island town in the ocean where they are observing the first known Great White mating area. Unfortunately, the enhanced Bull Sharks that escaped in Deep Blue Sea 2 are also there with their own evolutionary goal: cross-breeding with the bigger faster Great Whites. The mission’s patron, Richard Lowell, believes that the Bull Sharks contain the key to intelligence enhancement, which he secretly intends to sell for big profits. Now, Emma and her crew are trapped on crumbling stilt houses mere feet over the ocean, caught between predators above and below the water.

Please Note: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ invites you back into the water to accompany a team of researchers on a tiny island called Little Happy which serves as a marine nursery known for being a Great White breeding ground. Soon the peaceful team led by Dr. Emma Collins (Raymonde) find themselves stuck directly in the middle of a fight to the death when a team of hunters hired to capture or eliminate a deadly pack of Bull Sharks with genetic modifications before they can breed and change the face of Ocean life as we know it. Now, Emma’s team must decide whether to join the fight or stop the other group of humans before it’s too late and they become caught in the crossfire.

Directed this time around by John Pogue (The Quiet Ones, Quarantine 2: Terminal) from a screenplay by Dirk Blackman (Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) Pogue does a pretty capable job at the helm of ‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ guiding along the water centric excitement and doing the most with the limited budget at hand. The film’s cast includes Tania Raymonde (Texas Chainsaw), Nathaniel Buzolic (Hacksaw Ridge), Emerson Brooks (TV’s The Last Ship), Bren Foster (Terminus) and more, with many offering fairly competent performances in their respective roles, although some are still better than others.

‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ is a surprisingly decent new installment in the recently resuscitated shark attack film franchise and a massive improvement over the previous sequel. It delivers an entertaining new adventure with another group of folks forced to take on some enhanced sharks in the middle of the sea with bloody results. Perhaps one of the most surprising elements of this new installment in the series is that it actually bothers to connect some dots between all three films, allowing it to actually feel like the third chapter in a trilogy to a degree as opposed to another entirely unrelated film simply banking off a familiar franchise name. ‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ might not manage to hold up with the original film which was a fun and quite bloody surprise upon its release, but it most certainly is still a notable step up from the previous sequel which fell flat in far too many ways and failed to even come relatively close to capturing the unique fun and unexpected craziness of its predecessor. The third installment may not accomplish these elements as capably as the original, but it definitely does a far superior job of getting back to what the fans want with some hilariously shocking moments, twists and turns and even almost turning into a full on action film at times with some unexpected showdowns between the human characters. Not to mention actually featuring a few characters you can at least moderately care about this time around which certainly helps a great deal all in itself.

Overall, ‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ is a definite improvement over the previous sequel, offering an amusing, exciting and occasionally fairly bloody new entry in the series that still struggles to achieve the fast paced and refreshingly clever guilty joy of the first film, but does serve as a huge leap back in the right direction after the almost painfully bad second entry. Fans of the series (or at least of the first film) may want to give ‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ a fair chance whenever it’s convenient. If you enjoyed the sequel in the slightest you’re likely to have quite a bit of fun with this one and at the absolute least it’s liable to serve as a fun distraction one lazy evening at home, especially if you can find a cheap rental option which shouldn’t be all that difficult.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the film’s original 2.40:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks pretty nice altogether, providing a smooth, clean and nicely detailed presentation from start to finish with competent and rich coloring and texture; never suffering from any noteworthy faults or troubles along the way. It holds up quite admirably even during the various fast moving, darkly lit and heavily populated moments, never allowing anything onscreen to become negatively affected or rendered indiscernible. Overall, this is a quite capable high definition video presentation that should please fans of the franchise.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This multichannel soundtrack nicely compliments the onscreen action and tension throughout, delivering a crisp, clean and nicely balanced audio presentation that regularly takes advantage of all five available channels in order to send water and characters whipping past, along with more, while always making certain that any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously remain clean and fully audible. Overall, this is a solid 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtrack that contributes some extra fun to the viewing experience and shouldn’t disappoint.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ includes a couple of brief extras in the way of Behind the Scenes Featurettes which include interviews/comments with members of the cast and crew, plus behind the scenes footage and more. They include: ‘Deep Blue Sea 3: Fight to the Death’ (running approximately 5 minutes in length) and ‘Sinking Sets and Sharks: Making Deep Blue Sea 3’ (running approximately 5 minutes).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Film Rating: 5/10
Disc Rating: 6.5/10

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‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ is Now Available to Own on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

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