Publication Date: 05-10-2026

Deep Water (2026) review

Dir. Renny Harlin

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★

Deep Water makes Flight Risk look like Flight. A two-concept-in-one film featuring a plane crashing into an ocean followed by the few survivors fending off sharks should’ve been a slam-dunk. Not since The Hurricane Heist has a glorified B-movie misunderstood the assignment to such a brazenly inept degree.

More puzzling is the film was directed by Renny Harlin, who has been around Hollywood long enough to know how to make a high-concept action movie work. His resume includes Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, and even another sharp romp, Deep Blue Sea. Those who have seen Final Destination and still remain just a little trepidatious about setting foot on a plane know what a compelling plane crash looks like. Those who have seen Open Water and The Shallows know what a great shark attack movie is, and how the characters involved are just as integral as the great white carnage. Deep Water not only skimps in both aspects, content with being derivative, it’s also content to be one of the ugliest movies you’re likely to see all year, bathed in shoddy special effects and a glossy sheen that renders certain scenes with all the aesthetic appeal of a page in a magazine.

Our pilots aboard this doomed aircraft are grizzled vet Rich (Ben Kingsley) and first officer Ben (Aaron Eckhart), who stays in the air to keep from going home, where his family troubles are so significant they’re not even addressed. Prior to take-off, and mid-air, we’re introduced to a swath of thinly developed archetypes, ranging from a firecracker grandma (Kate Fitzpatrick), an awkward dude (Richard Crouchley) trying to make the always-wise pass at a flight attendant (Molly Belly Wright), and an oafish, chainsmoking brute (Angus Simpson). The brute inadvertently causes the plane crash thanks to the faulty electronics in his luggage sparking and eventually catching fire before setting off a Rube Goldbergian chain of events that results in an engine catching fire. While the plane starts actively disintegrating, and passengers galore begin getting launched into the open air, Rich and Ben make a water landing that further busts up the plane into a couple large chunks. Only a couple dozen passengers of 257 survive once they’re precariously afloat in shark-infested waters; among the dead is Rich, leaving the comparatively inexperienced Ben in charge.

Unfortunately for everyone, the aforementioned oaf is still alive, and succeeds at being a burr in the ass of progress. There’s stray children, a few of the familiar faces we met when the flight was in one piece, and Ben trying to keep the peace whilst disposing life-rafts and wondering if he sent the distress signal in time. Sharks circle below and the remnants of the aircraft might as well be an obstacle course of live wires.

Even for undemanding devotees of shark movies, including those ardent completionists who put up with six (and soon-to-be seven) Sharknado films, Deep Water doesn’t work. It’s too serious to be enjoyable on a B-movie level, far too underdeveloped to be moving at that, and too waterlogged with a plethora of asides to generate suspense. Some would say that doesn’t justify the rating I’m giving it. But my patience for this one dwindled in record time when it was abundantly clear that Deep Water wasn’t going to deliver anything remotely different from the kind of standard fare shark movies my girlfriend, Catherine, has subjected me to on streaming. Stay home and settle instead.

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Molly Belle Wright, Angus Sampson, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Barrett, Rose Zaho, Lakota Johnson, and Elijah Tamati. Directed by: Renny Harlin.