The Big Bore

Rating: 3/10 (2 April 2004)

I rented 'The Big Blue' expecting and wanting to like it. I expected a lot of beautiful cinematography by the gifted, stylish director Luc Besson (which it does have), and an in depth(pun) exploration of the mysterious, exciting and dangerous world of breath-hold deep diving. What I didn't expect was that most of the film would be devoted to the boring love story between the enigmatic dolphin-man Jacques Mayhol played by Jean-Marc Barr, and the ditzy Johana Baker played by Roseanna Arquette. I'm not against love stories, but it was excruciating in this film. This couple didn't seem to click, and just caused the film to drag out to a long and meandering at 2.5 hours! POSSIBLE SPOILERS: The friendship and rivalry between Mayhol and Enzo Molinari, played by the Besson regular Jean Reno was good, and should have been enough to give the film a 'human' element. However, even this element of the story becomes a cliche, and any movie viewer should be able to predict the outcome of their dangerous competitions.
The diving scenes are few and far between, and only really seem to gain momentum in the last half of the film. The first hour of the film has about 3 minutes of diving action, which should have been the main source of interest in this film. Even later on, the actual diving scenes are interspersed with the 'love story angst' scenes that make the viewer finally resort to the fast forward button.
The movie should have been more true to its subject matter and the men and mysteries surrounding it, and not the typical Hollywood relationship driven drivel it has in spades. It could have been great, but it drowns in cliches and its boring love story.