Deep Blue Sea - Plot Point Breakdown

The second best shark movie out there after Jaws 2, Deep Blue Sea (1999) also has one of the greatest surprise deaths in any blockbuster movie. Yeah the plot's riddled with holes but it's got LL Cool J as a Jesus-loving chef, Samuel L Jackson as a tight-ass suit and errr...Thomas Jane? To be fair it's full of great moments, like when LL Cool J's chef - Sherman "Preacher" Duley - gets locked and almost cooked in his own oven by a super smart Mako shark. That's B-movie poeticism. Of course, he escapes the oven and uses a lighter to blow the shark to smithereens, which would definitely happen. It's also got Michael Rapaport, nuff said.

Inciting Incident - Dr Susan McAlester genetically engineers three Mako sharks in order to harvest their brain tissue for the cure to Alzheimers. After one of the sharks escapes and attacks a boat full of hot teens, Dr Susan McAlester must persuade her financial backers that her research is worth funding, so they send corporate executive Russell Franklin (Samuel L Jackson) to investigate the Aquatica facility. As he arrives at Aquatica a foreboding storm closes in.

Lock In - While pulling brain tissue from the largest shark to demonstrate their progress to Russell, the shark tears Dr Jim Whitlock's arm off. With the storm at it's peak the rescue helicopter carrying Jim on a stretcher, crashes into Aquatica's watch tower and the biggest super smart Mako shark uses Jim on a stretcher as a battering ram to smash the huge underwater lab's window. The facility starts to flood, the other sharks are freed, and the group of survivors must make their way to the surface without getting eaten.

Midpoint - Not-so-stiff suit Russell is in the underwater lab giving a rousing speech on how the group need to stick together to overcome adversity when one of the sharks rises out of the water and eats him whole. Meanwhile LL Cool J's battling a shark in his kitchen and manages to blow it up by throwing a lighter into the oven which was turned on and nearly cooked him alive.

Climax - After the ever-expendable Janice (Jacqueline McKenzie) dies, poor old Tom Scoggins (Michael Rapaport) is traumatized what with all his colleagues dying around him, but Carter (Thomas Jane) persuades him to return to the flooded lab because the controls to open a door to the surface are there. Tom Scoggins is eaten by a shark, obviously. Dr Susan retrieves her research from her locker but is almost eaten by one of the sharks when she drops her research in the water. Fortunately she gets down to her undies and electrocutes the shark with a live power cable, unfortunately destroying her research in the process.

Resolution - Carter, Dr Susan and LL Cool J make it the surface through a decompression chamber. Carter realises that the grand daddy shark is trying to escape and that they purposefully flooded the facility so they could jump over the fence Free Willy style. Dr Susan, in an effort to stop the shark escaping into open water, cuts herself and dives in so she can get eaten, which she does, deservedly. LL Cool J pierces Carter to the final Mako shark with a harpoon as it breaks through the fence. Not knowing whether Carter's still attached to the shark LL Cool J triggers the harpoon explosive and blows it up in a pulpy shower of blood and meat. Turns out Carter did detach himself from the shark and swims back to the facility wreckage in time to see the other crew members returning from leave, not knowing that they're all out of the job.