Underwater (2020)
7 Miles Below the Ocean Surface Something Has Awakened
Underwater is somewhat of a mixed headline bag - I’ve seen “soulless ripoff” and all sorts of other things thrown at it. Heck, after watching the trailers all I could think of was the old underwater terror movies like Abyss. What I wasn’t expecting was a bunch of people to tell me that it’s more like an Alien knock-off. Well, I already knew I was going to watch, but now I had to figure out what people were going on about - and that niggling interest in seeing if it’s going to be another one of the few movies where Stewart can act or if she’s been re-delegated to stone-faced one expression. Prepare to get wet, we are gonna dive right on in!
The story here is almost more mystery than anything else - largely given you don’t know a whole lot of whats happening until something comes up to elaborate on it. If you watch during the opening credits, you’ll get the general idea of what’s happening - people are going to the deepest place on earth to drill for some of that sweet sweet good stuff. Really, that’s enough backstory to tell us why and where we are - if anything, I would argue that the little bits of self-narration our main character does is going to lead more people to confusion than anything else. Still, this movie doesn’t take long to kick it into gear - the sea station starts blowing up and collapsing and all sorts of bad things - leading a hand full of characters to have to try and get out of there before what’s left implodes all of them and risk a dangerous trek across the ocean floor in dive suits not meant to be out there for as long as they are about to be to get to a different platform - the actual drilling site - to find some more escape pods.
Now, I mentioned it’s more like a mystery - so let me elaborate a little bit here. We don’t start at the epicenter of everything going on - we do start in the action, but it’s more like watching the B-team down the road and how they have to react to events caused by someone else somewhere else. In turn, our characters can make conjecture about what might have happened but in all honesty we are just about as clueless if not more than the characters are. Some hate this fact, I don’t mind it. Not being the focal point of the chaos can work fine in a movie, and here it carries me along watching just fine, as it gives that little bit of mystery to help push your interest along - and if that’s not somebody’s thing that’s fine as well. In turn, the movie starts almost like a disaster movie, with chaos and carnage raging about as our pitiful fragile humans try to survive it - and yes, there isn’t a whole lot to the characters, but we’ll get to that. A little ways in though, the movie also takes on another form - one I’m more enticed by, that of a monster flick. Now, it’s not just a straight up monster slasher or anything, and it almost plays out much more like many of the attempts out there at Lovecraftian horror, where it’s more of an unknown creature or creatures, and they aren’t the main focal point at all times - they crop up here and there, and in most their screen time actually end up more background elements, shadowy figures amongst the shadowy blank of the ocean floor, flitting about as though you might just be loosing your mind. And then, of course, there’s the scenes where they just want to eat you and there’s a bit more struggling then existential or psychological horror would imply.
The characters here aren’t much to get invested in. We don’t spend a lot of time with backstories, and by the time the main tries to flesh out some backstory it’s already well too late for anyone to care anymore as the movie has moved beyond the characters themselves in stakes. They get classic treatment, where plenty have their quirks - like being the “funny” guy whose off his rocker, or the always panicking intern, or the leader guy - but not much else to go off of. One spends most the movie either unconscious or close to it even, which is somewhat funny given the amount of time he’s actually in it. Given the characters don’t have a ton of background to them, it’s concievable that the actors wouldn’t have much to work with - and sometimes it’s a very true statement. Stewart is, unfortunately enough, back to being rather single-tone in her facial expressions department, but it’s not nearly Huntsman or Twilight levels of horrible acting here, and I think it’s largely more to just do with not having a whole lot to go with. Although she may not look like she’s expressing much, she does still do a good job making it sound like shes expressing at times. The other characters do a good job of nailing their little quirk and playing with it, and it all ends up feeling like a good enough job that you’ll be able to watch the entire movie, but not quite so stellar a job that you are watching the movie because of the characters or actors.
Kaboom!
Being at least part science fiction does give the movie other elements that it can help to balance out the characters with however. Effects department has an absolute ton of things to do - making believable everything from pressure suits to underwater stations and monsters. There’s some deaths in here that although not particularly ultra-gore clad in details are still incredibly brutal, as super-deep underwater doesn’t mess around and all. In fact, the kills that have the most oomph in the brutality department pretty much exclusively tally to the ocean itself, and far outnumber any onscreen damage caused by the monsters - although the monsters did get arguably my favorite character, whom I won’t name for the sake of keeping you in the dark on multiple fronts. The pressure suits are probably my favorite thing in the movie, and look like something I’d love to walk around in for ten minutes before becoming so tired I’d rather just look at it instead. There’s even some nice details like taking off the helmets whenever they have some oxygen floating around to breath so they don’t waste the tanks. The environments are also pretty well done, feeling like almost every clausterphobic underwater station I’ve ever seen. Actual character costumes might be a bit less impressive to people though, given most of it is people in underwear and maybe a t shirt when they are outside of the suits - which apparently don’t leave much room for pants (man and woman alike).
The movie looks good as well. Sometimes it might seem a bit silly when people are action-sliding around a station with water all over the floors as they try to escape doom, but despite the somewhat silliness of it I can’t say it doesn’t look good to the eyes. The murkiness and darkness of the exterior ocean floor scenes seems incredibly authentic to a person who has not been to such a place, and the overall shot compositions are well done. It’s hard to not know where characters are in conjunction with each other, even in the darker exterior moments. The movie also isn’t afraid to use some shot framing to draw emphasis to something that’s a background element either - like a shape lurking behind a character. When we start getting to the (I imagine) more fake effects like the monsters, they still look pretty good up close, striking a feeling of at least somewhat aquatic creatures even if perhaps a little bit too humanoid a shape to feel really inventive. Most of the time, it shoots these elements in a great way still, with really a creature being super-front and center one or maybe two times - never long enough for you to really look at it super long and find all the things wrong with it.
Audio is nice here as well - balancing, foley, and deliveries. The soundtrack fits in with everything quite well, and I did laugh a little when I realized the song used in a scene in the trailers was actually changed to a rock-and-roll version of the Spongebob Squarepants theme in the movie. In fact, they did a really good job of cutting a bunch of disconnected scenes in the trailer to make it seem like there was more story building going on in the front of this movie, and I guess I could see where that might have led to some people’s disappointment. Actor line deliveries are done well enough, and despite a few characters having some accents you can still make out mostly everything you’d want to hear. It also does great things with the sound design, blending some things so you aren’t sure if you are hearing something like a whale, monster, or just natural underwater stress sounds at various points of the movie.
Love these suits.
I enjoyed this movie. It wasn’t quite as much a ripoff or obvious cash grab as it felt like some reviewers would have led me to believe, and although I do see some of their points - a similarity here or there - I feel like a lot of it could be applied to nearly any movie if you tried hard enough. That said, most the negative complaints I can’t entirely wash away - the acting isn’t stellar, the plot isn’t really focused on the main event as much as characters dealing with the aftermath of the main event, the characters are pretty one dimensional, and it doesn’t feel entirely original. That said, the characters aren’t enough to make me hate watching the movie, the effects and sets and pressure suits all look great, and I was interested enough to find out what was going on or happening next that I didn’t regret watching it in the slightest. If you like underwater horror/thriller, I think you’ll probably enjoy this one, even if the actual horror element of it isn’t incredibly strong in my opinion - if your looking for a character driven masterpeice of acting, you’ll most likely like to pass.