The Deep was Peter Benchley's follow-up to Jaws. A couple on vacation in Bermuda, Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset, stumble across a wreck site holding the strange mixture of morphine ampules and Spanish dubloons. After being set upon by the local bad guy, Louis Gossett Jr., they seek out local diver and historian Robert Shaw for help. Shaw essentially reprises his role of Quint from Jaws, cultured up a bit. It's then a race to see who'll end up with the gold and who'll be devoured by the man-eating moray occupying the wreck.

The Deep has some problems, mainly with the characters. Nolte is particularly obnoxious -- a greedy little man single-mindedly pursuing even the tiniest of trinkets while his girlfriend is nearly drowning just a few feet away. At one point, he loses both his mask and his air supply but when his friends finally find him after a frantic search, he's holding his breath, blindly reaching under a rock trying to grab one more shiny thing. Throughout the movie, he constantly places Bisset in harm's way without ever thinking twice. Even Shaw, a great actor, comes off less than stellar here with an old salt routine that seems weak. Bissett, diving in nothing but a T-shirt, steals the show and sets off wet T-shirt contests in clubs across the country for years to come.

What The Deep does have going for it, though, is underwater footage, more than 45 minutes of it. The stuff shot in open water is washed out but everything inside the wreck -- and that's the majority of it -- is great. If you haven't been in the water for a while and feel the need for a celluloid fix, this should do it for you.