Underwater (2020) | Film Review

The 80’s were truly a great decade for movies. Is it any wonder that so many movies and TV shows these days are reaching back to those days of big hair and parachute pants for inspiration or an IP to exploit? The eighties gave us Spielberg at the height of his directing and producing powers, saw James Cameron give birth to both The Terminator and the Alien Queen, and made Indiana Jones, Marty McFly, Rambo, and the Ghostbusters household names.

Of course, the waning days of those glorious ten years also saw the rise to prominence of one of the greatest sub-genres to ever grace the silver screen: the aquatic creature feature. 1988 wasn’t just the year of James Cameron’s The Abyss and George P. Cosmatos’ Leviathan, but also of Deep Star Six and Lords of the Deep. Though these four movies ranged from big budget studio fare to bargain basement Blockbuster shelf-filler, they all shared one thing in common beyond their basic premise.

I loved them all. Madly, truly, deeply.

There’s just something about the mystery of what may be hiding in the unexplored depths of the world’s oceans that grabs me. Like outer space, there’s still a whole lot we don’t know about what’s way, way down there in the dark and cold. I do know this, though. It’s the perfect locale for a movie monster mix-up. Lots of dark and spooky nooks and crannies in an environment that can be just as dangerous as it’s gilly antagonists. Maybe more so.

While we haven’t had a year quite like 1989 since, there have been a few notable films from time to time. Deep Rising, Deep Blue Sea, and The Meg are three that quickly come to mind. These were all great, fun films that offered up loads of action, scares, and laughs, and gave us one hell of a good time at the cinema. And, of course, there’s been lots and lots of dreck too. Six Headed Shark Attack or Bermuda Tentacles, anyone? Sadly, the dreck has constituted the majority of content over the years thanks to the insatiable appetite of streaming and cable services for content. So when I see a big studio has a new undersea horror on the way with a top tier cast and big budget effects, I’m all in. Goddamn the torpedoes, I say. Full steam ahead, and don’t forget the popcorn.

Underwater from 20th Century Fox follows a team of deep sea workers who – after the integrity of their rig becomes disastrously unstable – are faced with a harrowing foot journey across the ocean floor to reach a previously abandoned rig that holds their only hope for survival. With their workplace collapsing all around them, and the suits they need to make the trip technically not designed for such an outing, things quickly become even worse when our intrepid team soon discovers that they are not alone in the murky depths. There’s something out there. Something big. Something mean. Something hungry. Something that’s never before been featured on The Discovery Channel.

Now, before I get into the meat of this review, allow me to digress for a moment. When I go to a movie – and I think everyone will agree with me on this – my greatest hope is to be absolutely bowled over by what comes on the screen once the lights go down and the twenty to twenty-five minutes of commercials and trailers have run their course. To be honest, that doesn’t happen very often. Not every film is going to knock it out of the park. That’s okay. I really don’t expect them to. I’m quite happy to plop down a few bucks for something that’s ‘pretty great’, ‘good’, or ‘not bad’. Even if a movie is ultimately disappointing, but gives me moments to love, I can be pretty forgiving. Hell, if some studio decides to dump pure, cinematic excrement onto my screen, as long as I’m ultimately entertained by the sheer awfulness of it all, I can walk out of the theater without any regrets. To this day, I don’t beat myself up over planking down good money to see Showgirls and Battlefield Earth on opening weekend. Witnessing their implosion with an audience was a treat, and it’s always great fun to be able to say ‘I was there’ when the topic of just how disastrous they were comes up.

All I ask is this. Please, please, please don’t bore me. That is ultimately the worst cinematic crime of all. When I can’t bask in greatness, have at least some fun with what I was given, or revel in the incompetence of it all, what’s left to enjoy? Nothing, that’s what.

And, I’m sad to say, Underwater bored the absolute hell out of me.

There is nothing worse than watching something that seems to have everything going for it, but in the end falls flat in almost every category. The cast is a good place to begin. It’s a pretty solid one. We have Kristen Stewart as the tough and resourceful heroine trying to keep everyone alive (think Sigourney Weaver in Alien), Vincent Cassel as the no-nonsense Captain who maintains his cool while his underlings are losing theirs (think Tom Skerritt in Alien), T.J. Miller as the smartass (think Bill Paxton in Aliens) and Jessica Henwick and a few others who serve either as monster kibble or someone for the bigger names to save in tight spots (think everyone else in Alien or Aliens). None of these performers are bad, but as the old saying goes, you’re only as good as what you have to work with, and they really don’t have much to work with here. Nothing new, anyways. Everything they are, everything they say and do, is pulled from a myriad of other movies that did it much better. Instead of being wholly wrapped up in these characters, I was just sitting in my cozy reclining seat being constantly reminded of where I’d seen all of this before. “Yep, I remember that in The Descent”. “Yep, I remember that in Mission to Mars”. “Yep, I remember that in Alien. I appreciate the effort they put in here, but the cast should be creating memories of their work for me, not bringing up recollections of performances from past opening weekends.

Okay, how about the look of the movie? Those trailers looked pretty cool. Well, the sets and overall production design were impressive, but it wasn’t anything we haven’t seen before. It’s an underwater research/drilling facility. If you’ve seen Deep Blue Sea, The Meg, The Abyss, or any other underwater adventure/horror flick from the last thirty years or so, it’s pretty much the same places, different faces. Kudos to the designers who put it together, but it was far from inspired. And once the action moves outside and beyond the facility, the design doesn’t really matter anymore. Everything is so dark and murky, you can barely see anything a foot or two beyond the actors. Be prepared for a lot of bumping around in the dark amidst clouds of silt. It happens a lot. So much, in fact, that I started to think it was being used intentionally as a means to keep the budget down.

And what about the creepy critters, the biggest draw for this kind of movie? While the monsters were certainly menacing and grotesque, I was surprised at just how un-scary they and this film were. There were more than a few moments where I gripped my chair in eager anticipation of what I was sure were going to be horrifying scenes of juicy carnage – or at least a good jump scare or two – but they all ended up coming to nothing. Things did indeed happen, but to say they were anticlimactic would be an understatement. There was one moment near the end where something is revealed about the creatures that had huge potential for coolness and terror, but it is so short-lived and appears so late in the game, it only serves as a letdown since it has nowhere to go. If they had revealed that earlier in the movie and ran with it, this really could have been something special. Epic even.

I’m not going to say much about the direction and screenplay in particular. I think it’s quite evident what I think from what I’ve already written. Like everything else in this movie, while they were both handled competently, both seem to have relied on copying what has come before rather than making it something of their own. The signatures of others are scribbled all over this from beginning to end.

Underwater was a movie that squandered its ample resources on a story and characters that were lifted from superior films. It refused to be daring or, in the very least, put a fresh spin on what had come before. And while it was certainly an original film in that it wasn’t a reboot or remake, it was definitely a ‘re’-movie. ‘Re’ as in recycled. It may not be based on another movie, but it certainly feels like it was.

Like its title, Underwater is uninspired and unimaginative. A ninety-minute slog through very familiar territory that felt twice as long. With zero originality, you’re better off getting your popcorn to-go and watching the classics at home.