I SAW DEEP WATER (2026)

Rennie (Die Hard 2/Elm Street 4/Prison) Harlin is again in full, action swing with his latest, Deep Water, a companion piece to his previous, sharks-attack effort, Deep Blue Sea, with this one written by S.P. Krause, Shayne Armstrong and Peter Bridges (et al) and co-produced by Kiss' Gene Simmons. 

Deep Water is in groove with another plane-disaster, shark picture, Claudio Fah's No Way Up, as well as Tommy Wirkola's recent Thrash, in that they both allude to the infamous, WWII, shark incident that Quint recounts in Jaws, depicted in Robert Iscove's Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and Mario Van Peebles' U.S.S. Indianapolis: Men of Courage. (Incidentally, in regard to the Jaws saga, there's also a colorful, Jaws 2 nod within the plot. You'll know it when you see it.)

With Deep Water, we get a 747, which while traveling from L.A. to Shanghai, crashes straight into the Pacific Ocean (thanks to a laptop-led explosion), leaving its passengers as scattered, mako bait. 

The plane's first officer, Aaron (The Dark Knight/I Frankenstein) Eckhart's Ben, is the hero, a troubled one cut from Harlin's Cliffhanger cloth, mirroring Sylvester Stallone's Gabe Walker, who in his own right mirrors any number of conscientious, Irwin Allen, disaster-movie heroes. 

Though Sir Ben Kingsley's Rich, a captain ready to retirement, adds a distinguished but doomed presence to the story, circumstances force Ben to the long-run forefront. However, his guidance is a hard squeeze, considering that the passengers are being taken down one by one, thus raising the panic quotient a hundredfold. (It all comes down to "Who's next?": anything but reassuring.) 

The stranded co-participants are headlined by the heedless Jaya, played by Kelly (Plane/Beast 2026) Gale (who holds top, marquee prominence); Cora, played by Molly (Apostacy) Brown Wright, a snippy but anchoring, little girl; and Dan, played by Angus (Fury Road/Insidious) Sampson, his character being the uncouth jerk you'll cheer to be devoured. However, all those involved enrich the dilemma's ups and downs by conveying a palpable, shared panic, with variances among them (good, bad and in-between, some smart, some stupid), which would reflect any realistic, incidental gathering forced into a high-stakes, if not condemned, circumstance.  

Eckhart knocks it outta the park, though, as a man with the world on his shoulders, doing his best to reassure the passengers that everything will be okay, even when the gory evidence says otherwise. He dons an adamant visage that could crack at any moment, and because of this, he becomes an identifiable focus for the plot. Everything revolves around him. Everything (in particular the tension) works because of him. He is Deep Water, pure and simple. 

Though Deep Water isn't heavy on groundbreaking complexity any more than No Way Up or Thrash, like the latter, it moves right along, creating a heart-pounding diversion and despite its curious, limited release, works as a swell, scary way to christen 2026's big-screen, summer suspense.