So what was I expecting? Certainly nothing good. Nothing so bad, it’s good for that matter. When I saw the original Into the Blue way back in 2005 it had one and only one thing going for it: Jessica Alba in a swimsuit. It was right when she started getting big, the same year she starred in Sin City, Fantastic Four and of course Into the Blue; paradoxically the best one out those three has yet to get a sequel. Not that Alba’s in The Reef, I should add. Nope, she’s replaced by Smallville’s Laura Vandervoot, and the odious task of filling Paul Walker’s trunks falls to Chris Carmack.

If the name Chris Carmack seems familiar, it’s because he a brief run on the first season of The OC as Luke, the third point on the Ryan-Marissa love triangle. So far, we have two TV cast-offs leading this thing, and that’s fair because this is a direct to DVD sequel to a mildly successful movie after all. Filling out the cast is David Anders from Alias and Heroes as the bad guy with Marsha Thomason, last seen as the forward scout for the evil Freighter Folk on Lost, as his femme fatale. With a killer cast like this you don’t even need things like story, character development and competent action. But you do need eye candy, lots of eye candy.

Now I didn’t pay too much attention to plot of the first Into the Blue, frankly I have better things to put the emphasis of logistical brain power behind. But from what I do remember, it seems to me that what someone did with the script for this sequel is just find and replace the character names and settings. It’s just lazy, lazy writing to be sure. And believe me, if your film is filled with beautiful women (and hot guys if you’re so sexually orientated), and I’m thinking about how pedestrian the writing is, then you’re failing on all counts. And while the plot of the first Into the Deep, which I believe had something to do with sunken crates of drugs, wasn’t exactly a Hitchcockian prism, this ITD strains every level of realism with a conspiracy to recover a nuke and then bomb Pearl Harbour with it.

Unfortunately, Jack Bauer isn’t on vacation in Hawaii when CTU Honolulu gets wind of the threat and he tears off his Hawaiian shirt and grabs the Jack Sack and a gun. No friends, it’s up to Carmack and Vandervoot to improbably circumnavigate international criminals and save the day on their wits, or at least half of them. The laugh-inducing seriousness in which the actors appear to “work out” their situation is beyond ridiculous. Vandervoot knows that there’s something hinky with Anders and the gang. How do you know she’s perturbed? Because her brow is all furrowed and her lips are pouty. Meanwhile, Carmack’s like, “Be cool, baby. Just because they’re paying us a mil to pull two big ole crates from the ocean without the authorities knowing, it doesn’t mean that there’s dastardly deeds about.”

You want to know how to do camp on the beach right, find this delightful little piece of trash TV-movie from a few years ago called Spring Break Shark Attack. The characters are cardboard cut outs, the acting’s non-existent and the plot is beyond ludicrous. But you know what? At least the filmmakers knew how to have a good time. The Reef is staged with all the gravitas of a Mamet crime drama, but with none of the dubious morality, compelling characters or well-read dialogue. Even for direct-to-video, this is beyond terrible, but I will admit it’s not Postal terrible. I’ll give it a star for at least being shot well because the film did have some nice, ahem, scenery. But that’s all really.