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Hello, everyone. As I promised in the post regarding the new schedule, my next review would be coming soon. Now, here it is. You might be surprised by this one, as much as I was with the movie itself, so let’s dive in with my first review of both 2020 and the new decade.
Folks, I present to you my review of Underwater.
The story follows a team of scientists tasked with drilling for resources at the bottom of the ocean. However, during their mission, part of their station, the Kepler 822, is hit by a massive earthquake. Upon regrouping, they realize that the longer they stay there, the more the rest of the Kepler will succumb to the pressure. They decide that their best chance of surviving is to suit up and go to another station, the Roebuck 641, that’s more stable, despite being a mile away.
Unfortunately, the slowly increasing pressure is the least of their problems... because once they set out to find the Roebuck, they not only have to face total darkness, but also what dangers might be lurking within it. On top of that, what seemed to be just a natural disaster may be something much more frightening.
Before I get into my thoughts on this, there is something that needs to be addressed: I am aware of the criticism stating this is just another Alien clone, and therefore I am aware of some parallels between that movie and this one. However, if I go over them here, it’ll more than likely involve major spoilers, and I usually try my best not to do that. Now, do I share that same sentiment that it’s just another knockoff of Alien with a different coat of paint? No, because there are several things that stood out to me with this that gave it a slight edge. That doesn’t mean I consider it better than Alien as an overall movie, let alone as a sci-fi horror movie (it’s not). Thus, it also doesn’t mean that I felt it was a beat-for-beat remake of it. If anything, I felt it was more inspired by Alien and trying to be its own thing. I’ll go more in depth on that in a moment, but for now, let’s get to my thoughts.
What Worked: Although the majority of the time I usually start with the cast anyway, there’s a particular reason why it’s important that I go over the lead right away on this one. Our main protagonist, Norah Price, is played by Kristen Stewart. Some of you may instantly be hesitant to see this movie upon hearing she’s even in it at all. While I can certainly agree that her character could have been played by anyone else, the fact that she was in it didn’t make me all of a sudden not want to see it. The premise alone was enough to keep me interested. Plus, you’ll be surprised in hearing this as much as I was while watching it… I honestly kind of liked her in this. It may take some time for you to buy her as a mechanical engineer, sure, but ultimately, you grow to like her character over the course of the movie, mainly because she puts everyone else before herself.
The fact that I liked her in this was a more than welcome surprise for me, especially after the last movie she was in, Charlie’s Angels In Name Only*. Therefore, to say I needed that would be an understatement.
As for the rest of the cast, there’s Vincent Cassel (Black Swan, Jason Bourne) as Captain Lucien, who suggests that they walk the mile over to the Roebuck. He’s the rational one of the group, trying to keep everyone calm and focused, yet also keeping something from them. He balanced those aspects very well in his performance, and I really liked his character. What also genuinely surprised me is how his secret was handled within the context of the story. It’s mostly kept in mystery as to what he knew, what he experienced, etc., because it’s after a certain thing happens in the middle of the movie, which leads everyone else to discover it for themselves.
Then we have John Gallagher Jr. (10 Cloverfield Lane, The Belko Experiment**) as Liam Smith, a fellow engineer, and Jessica Henwick (Marvel’s Iron Fist, the upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong) as Emily Haversham, a biologist. Even though Smith doesn’t really get to do much, there’s a reason for that; besides, I still felt John Gallagher Jr.’s performance was solid enough, despite probably being the weakest out of everyone.
As for Jessica Henwick, I thought she was awesome in this. Emily’s actions ultimately make her another strong female character.
There are two other scientists in the group. The first is Rodrigo Nagenda, played by Mamoudou Athie. Although he’s only in it for a few minutes, I still really liked him for the time he was in it. I also think he will get more attention with a more high-profile project coming out next summer that’s part of an established franchise.
The second is the comic relief for this movie: Paul Abel, played by T.J. Miller (perhaps best known as Weasel, the sidekick from Deadpool). Then again, really any movie he’s given a supporting role in has him as the comic relief, and this one is no exception. However, he’s not the type of comic relief that ends up being more obnoxious than hilarious. He’s genuinely funny in this, and most of his jokes are in the first few minutes of his screen time early on in the movie. Aside from that, he uses them sparingly, and they never feel out of place.
The last major cast member listed for this movie is worth noting for one reason. For any gamers out there reading this review, particularly those who happen to be fans of the Dead Space series, Gunner Wright, the voice of main protagonist Isaac Clarke himself, is also in this. Look out for a scene involving a transmission being played back for the crew, and you’ll hear him.
Now for the technical aspects. I still found the plot very interesting, despite it appearing as inspired by Alien. Here’s where the several things that give this a slight edge over it come in.
The first is the setting: Instead of a ship, this is set at the bottom of the ocean, which is a bigger environment with pretty much the only contained environments being the stations themselves. Therefore, rather than the creature attacking us in our own territory, they’re attacking us in theirs. On top of that, it’s as dark as you can possibly go, so since the surroundings are bigger, when the creatures strike, it’s more unpredictable. They can literally be anywhere, and you won’t see them coming. Being in an environment like that is genuinely scary.
With that being said, this doesn’t mean that the scares are jump scares you can see coming a mile away. They’re still jump scares, but they’re genuinely effective ones here.
Then there’s the time it takes for the chaos to begin. Buildup may be more suspenseful, but sometimes just getting right into it helps. If you’ve seen the trailer, it actually fools you into thinking it builds up. Where you see the station start to become unstable… it opens with that, and doesn’t let up. It’s literally one of the first scenes in the movie, and it just gets more unsettling and more intense from there.
Of course, when you have a creature feature, you’re bound to have some brutal kills in it. This is where it also doesn’t hold anything back. For a PG-13 movie, it felt like it was a hard PG-13 to where it was right on the cusp of being an R, particularly with one death scene halfway into the movie. All I’ll say is this: you’ll probably never look at diving suits the same way ever again.
The last thing that stood out to me and made this feel like its own thing is the main reason why I definitely didn’t want to go into spoilers on this one, because in this case, it would be a huge spoiler. This would be the ending. How it plays out is insane, because it has this big reveal that I did not see coming.
That last part is where I get to what automatically piqued my interest in this up a couple notches: The director, William Eubank. This isn’t the first time he’s had a big reveal like that in a movie. I first saw that in his last movie, The Signal, which I loved, and that was only his second movie. Having now seen his third, his style is really starting to impress me. Even though I haven’t seen his first movie, titled Love (another sci-fi movie), with The Signal and now this, I believe he’s becoming one of the most underrated directors working today. I not only want to seek out his first movie, but after this, he has two projects lined up next. Whenever they come out, I will definitely be looking forward to them. One of them is an action movie, so being the fan of action movies that I am already, I’m absolutely in for that. The other one is similar to this, and it’ll of course have a sci-fi twist on it, and I’m intrigued to see what that’ll have to offer.
It’s also worth noting that Marco Beltrami is one of the composers. His score here is really good, although with a composer of his caliber, that can be expected. For evidence of that, he has a very wide range of various genre experiences from his early work in the 90s up to now. Some of his most recent work prior to this includes Ford v Ferrari, A Quiet Place, and Logan.
One more excellent thing on display here is the cinematography. Simply put, this movie looks fantastic.
In regards to flaws, I would say the creature effects could have used a little work, but the designs themselves make up for that. Something that could have used some tweaking was the writing. It needed to make this feel more like its own thing in terms of the characters and their traits in addition to the narrative rather than mainly in the narrative. That’s really my main flaw, but I’m still willing to give it a pass because everything around it is so surprisingly good.
Overall: While not original, Underwater still has a lot going for it to make it stand out up against what came before. It’s not as scary as Alien, but it does have some elements that are scarier. Did I expect it to be better than a sci-fi classic? Of course not. Was I expecting a fun time with a sci-fi thriller that’s like it, but kind of its own thing, yet still entertaining from start to finish? Yes, and it’s exactly that.
What’s most impressive with this is all the production value that went into it. You’d think the budget was higher than it is, like maybe 100-120 million dollars, to warrant something of this quality. However, it looks really good for a movie budgeted at only 50-80 million. The acting is solid, even from Kristen Stewart. It’s shot very well, it’s intense throughout, and the creatures, in both design and effects, are as frightening as the environment they inhabit. The score is great, as you’d expect from someone like Marco Beltrami. It's so brutal in terms of deaths that you really would feel like it was rated R.
All of this comes together in one of my biggest surprises of the year so far. It’s definitely the most underrated so far for me. It makes it all the more sad that it didn’t do well, because it really does deserve more attention. For a January movie, a surprise such as this is a more than welcome one, especially from a director who hopefully gets more recognition in the future.
It’s one of the better January movies in recent memory for sure. We have two other surprisingly good ones that I’ll be reviewing soon.
But in addition to those, see Underwater when you can. It’s better than the trailer made it out to be. Much like in the movie, there’s so much more underneath the surface.
*Yes, I’ve seen it. Just you wait, folks… because when the time comes (and it will), I have something very special planned for that, which you can consider my review of it; doing it in my usual format is barely scratching the surface, and you’ll know why. I may at least do reviews of the original two movies (AKA the ones that were actually good; seriously, they’re a lot better than people give them credit for).
**The latter in particular is an underrated movie.