Into the Blue would be a great movie for showing off that HDTV

Into the Blue stars a bunch of young eye candy (Paul Walker, Jessica Alba, and Scott Caan) in a Caribbean caper about buried underwater treasure and drug dealers. It’s a pretty decent thriller with some good action and even better scenery.

Paul Walker stars as sort of a beach bum who has dreams of finding sunken treasure and cashing in. His gorgeous girlfriend, played by Jessica Alba, knows he has a lot of potential and just needs the right outlet for his skills. In the opening scenes of the movie, they work together to restore Walker’s boat so that he can hit the water in search of their future together.

Scott Caan (James Caan’s son) plays a lawyer who comes into town with his new girlfriend. They just met less than a day before arriving, so you can pretty much guess the girl will be trouble. One of Caan’s clients was a wealthy crook who paid his legal bills with a house and boat in the Caribbean, so as soon as Caan arrives, the whole crew has a brand new boat and a huge house to stay in.

The four of them go out diving one day and stumble across a few rusted items that may have been from a shipwreck. While searching, they also find a recently crashed plane full of millions of dollars worth of cocaine. Their predicament is that if they report the plane, they won’t be able to continue their search for the treasure and stake a claim. If they don’t report the plane, surely the drug dealers who lost it will come looking, and they certainly do.

This story presents a lot of moral quandaries for the main characters, and they all react to the stress in different ways. Some want to sell the drugs. Others want to ignore them and get the treasure. When modern day pirates and other drug dealers come in looking for their stuff, the situation gets very bad. The ending is pretty satisfying, even if the twist is so very obvious. Why do these writers and directors make the villains so obviously villain-like? It spoils the surprise when they turn. The best villains are the ones who seem friendly all the way until the big twist.

The underwater photography in this film is gorgeous. It is good enough to make this movie worth seeing just for the pretty visuals. I don’t get anything out of a shirtless Paul Walker or Scott Caan, but Jessica Alba and Ashley Scott are in great form with all the swimming shots. Their acting was pretty good, all things considered. Josh Brolin also has a supporting role as a competing ship captain, but he looked too much like a scraggly young Nick Nolte in this role.

This movie was directed by John Stockwell, whose last feature film was the surfing movie Blue Crush. Prior to becoming a director, Stockwell was an actor and his most notable role was playing Cougar in Top Gun. This movie was written by Matt Johnson, whose only previous writing credit was for a lame racing movie called Torque.

Into the Blue wasn’t bad at all. I wouldn’t want to own it or watch it again, but I found it to be entertaining. The DVD has some deleted scenes and a few extras, but nothing very interesting. With its lush scenery and bright tropical colors, this would be a good movie for showing off your plasma or LCD television.