UNDERWATER (2020) Dir. William Eubank

Remember back in the late 80s when there was a slew of underwater set movies? Well apparently director William Eubank and writer Brian Duffield do and they take inspiration from those with a little something extra that I wasn't expecting. Check out my full review after the jump and beware, there are some SPOILERS.

UNDERWATER 
Dir. William Eubank
Cert: 15
Run Time: 95mins

So going back to the first statement I made about the late 80s trend of underwater set sci-fi movies, we have to look at the main films of the genre, namely these three movies, Deepstar Six (1989) Leviathan (1989) and James Cameron's The Abyss (1989). These three films have a few things in common; all are set on deepsea/underwater drilling stations, all encounter strange or otherworldly beings and all have a very similar production design style. Why am I mentioning these three movies? Well William Eubank's Underwater draws heavily from these films as well as; Alien (79), Sphere (98), Life (2017), Event Horizon (97) to some degree and even a smattering of Stephen King's The Mist thrown in for good measure, it also takes inspiration from a certain beloved horror author for the final 30 minutes or so of the film which I will go into in a bit. But even though it does take inspiration from these films, it doesn't outright steal and it tries to make those themes and, well tropes, work on their own merit.

Underwater is nothing original, but it doesn't hurt the film, in fact it kind of makes it more enjoyable. The film was clearly made by someone who loves those movies and is trying to pay homage to them but trying to do in a more "for the millennial crowd" way.

The film opens with Kristen Stewart almost in the nuddy, brushing her teeth, she spots a spider in the sink which she finds weird. Suddenly there's an explosion and she's off like a whippet. You see we're at the base of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Ocean at nearly 7 miles deep. That's about the same as half of Manhattan in a straight line, it would take about 4 hours to walk it. That's pretty far considering Manhattan Island is nearly 14 miles long.  Anyway, they think it was caused by an earthquake but there's no time to hang around and work it out, they need to get fuck out of dodge ASAP otherwise they're squid chow. During her escape, she meets up a with few other survivors including and not limited to; The Captain, T.J Miller, a woman who seems to get scared by the tiniest of things, a pilot (?) wearing the customary deep-sea uniform of Hawaiian shirt and Rodrigo, the token black guy. They need a way to get to the surface, all the pods are fucked and the sub is knackered too so the captain makes the plan that they'll take an express elevator across the ocean floor half way to a mid point station and then walk to an abandoned drilling platform and use their escape pods to leave. But as is the case when making a journey across a perilous wasteland of guppies and starfish, something is lurking in the darkness of the deepest part of the ocean. One by one our team of survivors are laid waste to the dangers of swimming in the deep end.

So yeah, my little plot write up is a bit sarcastic and a bit critical of the narrative, but in all honesty it is what it is, it's a solid albeit familiar get from point A to point B film and it moves at a tremendous pace right from the very start. The film only runs for about 95 minutes and that's basically all you really need for a film of this ilk, there's no scenes that drag and the cast all give solid performances even if T.J Miller is playing the exact same character he plays in everything. The biggest revelation in the cast is actually Kristen Stewart, I know people bash her for the Twilight flicks and having the same expression in every scene but she actually carries this film as the lead, I actually found myself giving a shit which is something I've never done with a Kristen Stewart film. So Kudos to her for taking on a film which looked very tasking and actually pulling it off. The biggest disappointment for me was Jessica Henwick, So utterly badass as Colleen Wing in Marvel's Netflix show, Iron Fist, here reduced to the screeching, panicing damsel in distress. I would like to have seen a bit more umph from her character, but I guess thats how it was written. The Captain is played by Vincent Cassell who is, well, it's Vincent Cassell, clearly doing one for the money, but his presence adds a much needed air of class to the film. It's like having a cast full of high school musical stars in a film with
Judi Dench, there's always going to be that level of class a certain actor can bring to a film. He's good, he's not Vincent Cassell in Irreversable good, he's Vincent Cassell in Ocean's Twelve good. It's the kind of role we could see Gary Oldman or Samuel L.Jackson or even 90s Kurt Russell playing, it's THE actor role. As I previously stated, T.J Miller is just playing T.J Miller, the same role he played in Deadpool, Ready Player One and interestingly, Cloverfield, another film which Underwater seems reminiscent of.

The film is written by Brian Duffield, who's credits include Insurgent (2015), Jane Got A Gun (2015) and the fun horror comedy, The Babysitter (2017) and he does a decent job, the dialogue is good, the action is good and it moves, like I said, at a tremendous pace which does keep you at times, on the edge of your seat but it wears its influences to much. We get it, you like Alien/Aliens but this isn't Aliens, this should be your own thing as there are a few scenes that do feel ripped straight from those films. It's a decent script but a little more originality would have been nice.

Director William Eubank does an absolute stellar job behind the camera. He cut his teeth on smaller indie sci-fi flicks like Love (2011) and the weird but very impressive and inventive The Signal (2014) so to see Eubank with a budget, $60mill if i'm right, is nice because it looks like all of the budget is up on the screen. But a lot of the credit for the look of the film needs to go to Cinematographer Bojan Bazelli who has Dp'd everything from King Of New York to Mr & Mrs Smith and A Cure For Wellness and he gets some great widescreen shots inside the stations, the outside water shots are a bit murky and are a bit difficult to actually make out what is happening at times but everything is really well lit, set up and shot. Praise should also go to production designer Naaman Marshall who clearly took inspiration from the conceptual artwork of Ron Cobb, the artist and production designer on The Abyss, Leviathan, Alien, Aliens, Robot Jox, Total Recall and Space Truckers. The sets in Underwater instantly made me think of Cobb's work on those films which I really like, I like the mess of desks and computers in a confined space, how everything looks industrial instead of opting for white corridors and 2001 A Space Odyssey style art direction, which of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with, but for a film like this, this lived in, industrial style works perfectly.

Now, here's where for me, the film lifts itself above just generic sci-fi horror, If you go all the way back to the first paragraph, I said " a beloved horror author" and who do I mean? Well, here's the thing, H.P Lovecraft, the master of aquatic horror and otherworldly weirdness has never had a movie of his 1928 classic, Call Of Cthulhu made, no thats a lie, there has been a movie made. In 2008 there was a film called Cthulhu that was loosely based on Lovecraft's The Shadows Over Innsmouth, but you never actually see the Elder God himself. According to William Eubank, the behemoth at the end of the film, is in fact Cthulhu. He does have very similar features, tentacles and all but just enough is different to not get sued which makes me believe that Lovecraft's estate wouldn't let them use Cthulhu in the film but it actually is him, which for me takes Underwater to another level of impressive. One day we will eventually see Guillermo Del Toro's film version of At The Mountains Of Madness but that little inclusion in Underwater made a happy chappy as there are some Lovecraftian themes that do seem to run throughout the film.

Underwater is an odd film, it's very enjoyable and it moves speedily along but it all feel so so familier which ultimately hurts the film. Its well directed and shot and the script is decent even if it does rely on homages or contain elements from much better films but it does it's job in 95 minutes, It hooked me from the opening and I found myself on the edge of my seat at times but thats not really enough to make it stand out amongst the Deepstar Six's or The Leviathans or The Abyss' of the world. It's a decent sunday evening, couple of beers flick and I think we can all start cutting Kristen Stewart a bit of slack now. Anyway. Underwater gets a solid 3 out of 5 from this guy. If I did half stars it would be a 3.5.