Into The Blue features an attractive cast, gorgeous underwater photography, and a beautiful Bahaman setting. It also, incidentally, has a plot, something about buried treasure and drug dealers. But that isn't so important, and as long as the movie is aware of that, it succeeds.

Paul Walker stars a Jared, a 29-year-old beach bum living modestly with his girlfriend, Sam (Jessica Alba). Jared doesn't have a lot of ambition (at the beginning of the film he gets fired from his job as a snorkeling instructor), but with a beautiful girl and the beach in his backyard, he is content. His one dream is to discover a shipwreck, complete with treasure, on the ocean floor so he can live off the money for the rest of his life.

When his old friend Bryce (Scott Caan) comes to visit with his new girl, Amanda (Ashley Scott), they stumble upon a wrecked plane with loads of cocaine while snorkeling. Amanda and Bryce see this as an opportunity to Jared's treasure hunt, but Jared and Sam want nothing to do with it. The only problem is if they report the plane the authorities will close off the water to divers.

For the first hour or so, this moral dilemma, along with the aforementioned eye candy, dominates the film. After that, it devolves into increasingly ludicrous intrigue involving former model Tyson Beckford as a sketchy club owner and James Brolin as a beach bum gone bad. For the most part, however, the film stays exciting and interesting, even if believability goes completely out the window.

The ocean has rarely looked so gorgeous, and the film makes excellent use of actual ocean life, including a handful of tense scenes with what appear to be actual live sharks. Director John Stockwell, now a vet of underwater action with this film and 2002's Blue Crush, does a great job with these scenes, though the shaky camera work in the action scenes gets a bit headache-inducing.

Though Walker and Alba aren't the most talented actors in the world, the script doesn't call for them to do much other than look good, and they do. Scott Caan provides a fair bit of comedy as a Type A guy with a chip on his shoulder, and James Brolin manages to be both laid back and sinister in an enjoyable performance.

The only time the film really fails is when it attempts to be taken seriously. There's a tense scene on a yacht with high class drug dealers that feels like it belongs in a different movie. And towards the end, the film gets unexpectedly and unnecessarily violent.

But overall, the film is fun and great to look at. If you're expecting anything intelligent or thought-provoking, you'll be greatly disappointed. But if it's mindless entertainment you're after, you could do much worse than Into The Blue.

Rated 15 (Republic of Ireland) / 12A (Northern Ireland) (see IFCO website for details)
Into the Blue is released on 21st October 2005.
Into the Blue – Official website