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PLOT: Four friends in the Bahamas are torn between two possible 'scores' at the bottom of the ocean -- a sunken pirate haul waiting to be salvaged, and a shipment of cocaine aboard a crashed plane.
Just for fun, somebody should go to work editing the harebrained sun 'n' adventure flick Into The Blue down to the only 10 minutes or so that matter.
That would be those long, lingering shots of a bikini-clad Jessica Alba that feature so prominently in the trailers, as she scubas through the azure, sunlit Bahamian waters, kicking up rays and other sea-bottom creatures.
That still leaves about an hour and 40 minutes of get-on-with-it plot to unfold, ample time to let your mind wander to such issues as, "What is it about the Bahamas that lends itself to implausible movies?" Like, say, Jaws 4, where, tired of being shark food, the protagonists flee Amity Island for -- the Bahamas! ... where they arrive to find the shark is already waiting for them!
But I digress. This time around, the central implausibility is that the biggest haul of sunken pirate treasure in maritime history sits a few miles off the coast of Nassau -- about a hundred yards from $100-million worth of cocaine sitting in the hold of a crashed plane.
It's been a while since I checked, but the Atlantic Ocean is still big, right? I mean, what are the odds?
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Doubloons or Devil's Dandruff? Decisions, decisions.
Well, there are two couples in this flick -- a marine-salvaging boy scout named Jared (Paul Walker) and his girlfriend Sam (Alba), and Jared's crass BS-flinging lawyer buddy Bryce (Scott Caan) and his scheming bimbo girlfriend Amanda (Ashley Scott, who uses the word "hot" often enough to owe Paris Hilton royalties).
So it's logical that one couple would favour getting rich legitimately by robbing a dead pirate, and the other would take the "easy" route, stealing from drug dealers.
For film fans, Into The Blue marks a long-awaited reunion of Walker and Caan (James' charisma-challenged son) from Varsity Blues. They tackle each other, give each other noogies and call each other "Bro" a lot.
Meanwhile, there are bad men in the many yachts that line the Bahamian pier. You'll probably recognize them as bad guys early, which will just make the waiting worse. You know things will come to a boil, and there will be a reckoning and some vigilante action -- and maybe even a shark or two, grown a bit peckish since Jaws 4.
And you may find yourself wishing to God all that stuff would unfold faster than it does.
Instead our two couples argue, they go to discos, they say "Bro!" some more. Amanda declares more things "Hot!" They dive. They run out of air. They survive to run out of air again.
In the end, it's about the closest you may get to drowning without actually getting wet.
BOTTOM LINE: Glub, glub. The plot's implausible, the script's inane, the acting's laughable and the movie is too long by a half-hour. But there are 10 good minutes worth of the camera lingering on Jessica Alba's body as she scubas through the azure, sunlit Bahamian waters.
(This film is rated PG)