One Mann’s Movies review of “Underwater” (2020).
Bob the Movie Man’s Rating:
Certification:
US: PG-13. UK: 15.
I had a sinking feeling (excuse the pun) about this movie from the word go. It’s a lazy approach to ‘mansplain’ the whole set up for the movie through digital news posts during the main titles. It feels more patronising to the audience than having main titles and then a ‘Star Wars-style’ synopsis.
Just one drip…. (Source: 20th Century Fox).
Once into the movie, director William Eubank gives us the bare minimum of character set-up for our heroine while she brushes her teeth*. (And no way did she even follow the British Dental Association recommendation of two minutes brushing!)
And then….
BAM!!!
I was thinking that the manic action that follows was some sort of dream or flashback. But no. We are pitched headlong into the story without pause as disaster strikes. It all feels positively indecent.
For we are seven miles down in the Mariana trench, when a drilling station springs a leak.
(* Interestingly, the trailer seems to show some above water scenes/dialogue and introductions to the rest of the crew that never made the final cut.)
K_Stew’s shock when she see’s the film’s budget…. “you spent $80 million… making this??” (Source: 20th Century Fox).
Hokey science.
Now call me a cynic, but I would have *thought* that, at that depth, a single leak would implode the whole station in about 10 seconds flat. But then that wouldn’t be cinematic enough, and would be a much shorter movie!
And there are numerous other scientific implausibilities. For example, diving helmets that appear to be able to withstand 15,750 psi of pressure (I Googled it) can be smashed-in by a woman by just bashing it.
Sigh.
“Flat-chested elfin creature”.
We are in ‘Alien-lite’ territory again. Just as in last year’s “The Meg“, those pesky humans have disturbed something in its home territory…. and it’s suitably pissed-off. The action centres on hippy-chick engineer Norah (Kristen Stewart). The script neatly describes her as a “flat-chested elfin creature”… a fact which every male in the audience has thought (come on guys, admit it , you did!) from the immediately preceding scene.
It was never entirely clear to me what skills Norah was supposed to have…. it seemed to flex from diving to electrical engineering to computer engineering.
Stewart is a handy actress to have in a movie, but here she is mostly relegated to lots of shots of her athletic body running through corridors in her skimpy crop-top and knickers.
“Great news Norah – – I’ve just got you the Marks & Spencer’s lingerie account. There’s just one condition…”. (Source: 20th Century Fox).
The rest of the cast.
Supporting Stewart are veteran French actor Vincent Cassel as the mission captain; “the funny one” Paul (T.J. Miller); the trusty male action figure Smith (John Gallagher Jr.); and Emily – the ‘less-flat chested but screamy one’ (Jessica Henwick). Emily also gets to run around in a T-shirt and knickers: you kind of quickly get to know the audience the film is trying to appeal to.
As will be obvious if you’ve seen any of these types of film before, not all of these folks are going to make it.
I won’t let on that I spent most of this film thinking that Jessica Henwick was Olga Kurylenko! (Source: 20th Century Fox).
BUT WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING??
This low budget sort of film is presumably filmed in a small water tank in a Louisiana studio. Clearly the memo said “fill it with murky water so the audience can’t see the sides”. “And just for good measure, let’s film it with hand-help rapidly moving cameras”. The result is that a lot of the time, when there was a burst of frenetic underwater action, I had NO IDEA what was actually going on.
In this way, the movie reminded me of the shark B-movie “47 Metres Down” from a few years ago.
Smudge of oil. Must be an engineer today. (Source: 20th Century Fox).
Not Alien. Not Abyss-mal.
This is certainly not “Alien”. Although similarly set, this is not “The Abyss” either. It’s most similar perhaps to “Life“, but without the clever twist ending.
It’s also not a truly TERRIBLE movie either. But unfortunately this is one of the most “meh” action movies I’ve seen in the past year. It’s just brain-crushingly forgettable.
There was only one vaguely memorable shot in the whole movie: a final shot of Kristen Stewart. But that just serves to make me think…. ‘Stewart deserves much better than this’.
For a movie concerning itself with a lack of oxygen, watching this felt like a waste of it.
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCFWEzIVILc.
