Underwater

Kristen Stewart with her deadpan expression is completely out of her depth here as an actress, though the film itself is better than you’d expect from the behind-the-scenes rumors that made the rounds before it premiered. The cinematography is solid and properly gritty – to the point where you tell yourself: hey, this is what it might actually look like after a disaster ten kilometers below the sea. Unfortunately, this level of veracity means that when the protagonists leave the base for the open sea, it’s hard to make anything out in the dark waters; the chaotic editing doesn’t help. The Lovecraftian scares at the end didn’t do it for me either. (04/02/2020)

I think this would make a cool video game. A pumped-up, slightly B-movie-ish sci-fi horror flick set in the Mariana Trench, where there isn’t much time for thinking. Because of that, however, the protagonists unfortunately have absolutely no character basis, so the viewer doesn’t really care that much when they kick the bucket. And that’s a bit of a shame. Stewart’s acting is actually really good and just a few brief flashbacks would have been enough to make the relationship between her and the captain a little deeper or something. The production design and visual effects are otherwise first-class; the station, the costumes and even Cthulhu look seriously good. (03/28/2020)

Underwater is most often compared to Alien (and rightly so, as some of the scenes are more than inspired), but I think the filmmakers would have been happy if it was also compared to Gravity. Indeed, several times they try to evoke the mood of the first film mentioned, several times the second, but somehow it doesn't come together and it's all only half as interesting. A number of scenes have a nice gloomy atmosphere but aren't very suspenseful. Some scenes are really well acted, like the one where a stressed Kristen Stewart recounts what happened to Vincent Cassel. And the final super-monster scene is fine too, although we don't really enjoy it and everything ends as expected. I was hoping it would be a little better. (01/11/2020)

William Eubank has made an homage to 80's underwater horror but it's nothing more than B-movie entertainment. The film is nicely shot, the monsters are awesome and it moves along very quickly, which are major pluses, but it bothered me that it shuffles its feet in places a lot of times and the climax didn't really engage at all – many times I didn't even notice who died and how, as the film was mostly in the dark and that bothered me quite a bit. The suspense and atmosphere didn't really work for me, and the monsters are only shown at the end, which didn't please me much either. With a more interesting filmmaker this could have been a modern day Event Horizon, this way it's just a fine addition to the genre, but it soon fizzles out. 6.5/10. (02/18/2020)

If there was a glut of underwater monster horror films in the cinemas, I may have complained that Underwater has poorly drawn characters, that the space and the action are sometimes hard to navigate, and that it doesn’t bring anything new to the sub-genre. But given that the last in any way comparable competition is 1989’s Leviathan, I won’t be a douchebag. And it’s also nice to go to watch a horror flick with a sea monster and get an excellently crafted genre film that doesn’t waste time and jumps right into an intensive action, basically the moment the lights in the theatre go out. The money can be seen. Eubank has once again proven that they can manage the visual aspect of filmmaking with panache. In terms of ambition, however, Underwater is probably the most mundane of their filmography, but this is certainly to the benefit of their cause. But for me, the main plus are the best designed monsters far and wide. (01/10/2020)