"7 miles below the ocean surface something has awakened"
After an earthquake destroys their underwater station, six researchers must navigate two miles along the dangerous, unknown depths of the ocean floor to make it to safety in a race against time.
Kristen Stewart
Norah Price
Vincent Cassel
Captain Lucien
Mamoudou Athie
Rodrigo Nagenda
T.J. Miller
Paul Abel
John Gallagher Jr.
Liam Smith
Jessica Henwick
Emily Haversham
Gunner Wright
Lee Miller
Fiona Rene
Godmother
Amanda Troop
Poseidon Patty
After an earthquake destroys their underwater station, six researchers must navigate two miles along the dangerous, unknown depths of the ocean floor to make it to safety in a race against time.
If you enjoy reading my Spoiler-Free reviews, please follow my blog @ https://www.msbreviews.com I was surprisingly interested in and even optimistic about this movie. Why "surprisingly"? Well, first of all, the cast doesn't really have a big name attached to it even though I actually enjoy some of Kristen Stewart's performances (who, like Robert Pattinson, has a few blind haters that haven't seen anything else other than Twilight), as well as a few other actors (Jessica Henwick, particularly). Then, no director or screenwriter caught my attention. William Eubank hasn't done anything exceptional yet. Brian Duffield co-wrote Insurgent (awful) but delivered a surprisingly fun horror screenplay with The Babysitter. Finally, Adam Cozad helped to create some underwhelming narratives (The Legend of Tarzan, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit). In addition to this, I'm not in favor of films written by more than two people since these usually disappoint, and... it's a January movie. So, why was I slightly excited to watch Underwater? For the same reason a lot of people probably avoided it: its formulaic horror-thriller story deep at the bottom of the ocean. If a sci-fi film has a premise based on a team that works on a claustrophobic location and some sort of entity "disrupts" their job, I'm instantly drawn into these movies. There's something about them that makes me enjoy them more than most people. Usually, this type of film has a low-budget and really requires a talented director who's able to generate genuine tension and suspense. Underwater is 2020's big surprise. January movies are known to be Hollywood's trash bin, so I'm honestly dumbfounded that this film is far from being bad. It's very, very good! The set and production design are impressive, and they help create that isolated, suspenseful atmosphere. The first few minutes are nail-biting. The next twenty minutes are fantastic. The following twenty minutes continue to be a blast of entertainment. I felt continuously surprised by how good the movie actually is. I still can't believe what I just witnessed! Don't twist my words, it's not a masterpiece or even a "great" film. It still follows a plot-driven narrative that countless other movies did better. It borrows inspiration from Alien, Cloverfield, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, and every other film involving an alien-like form threatening a crew. Plus, it lacks characterization of pretty much every character. There's no real attempt at deeply developing a single character to make the audience care about it, but this doesn't mean the movie can't succeed. Like I wrote above, there's a whole lot of plot-driven films that went on to be phenomenal. The difference between those and Underwater is that the latter doesn't truly bring anything new to the genre. It just uses the known cliches and executes them really well, which is itself a massive surprise. I can't deny that I had a lot of fun watching this thriller. I expected messy action with way too dark lighting making it impossible to see anything. I received surprisingly visible, well-filmed sequences, packed with tension, tons of panic, and a palpable sense of urgency. There aren't that many moments to breathe and relax. The VFX team and Bojan Bazelli (cinematographer) deserve a lot of credit because the "aliens" not only are visually captivating, but they are shown just in the right spots for the exact right amount of time. Underwater doesn't possess a huge budget, so the creatures need to be shown "in the shadows" to make them look and feel "realistic". It might seem like an obvious technical decision to be made, but its execution it's far from being an easy task, so kudos to everyone that participated in making the monsters a genuinely menacing threat. The cast is excellent. Kristen Stewart continues to break out of the Twilight shell, proving again and again that she's a wonderful actress. Jessica Henwick is pretty great, as well as Vincent Cassel. Everyone delivers fairly decent performances, even T.J. Miller, who portrays the always divisive comic-relief character that will surely be extremely annoying to some, and quite funny to others (I stand in the middle, I think his character is fine). It's definitely a good sci-fi horror-thriller, way better than most January flicks (Underwater is one of the last 20th Century Fox's movies, which probably means that Disney had no clue what to do with it, hence dumping it in the worst month of the year). I just added William Eubank to my list of directors to follow. His commitment to actually make a good film is demonstrated on screen, so I really hope that his movie gains some sort of following when it reaches people's homes. Underwater is 2020's (first) massively positive surprise. A January film far better than most of the month's competition. William Eubank delivers a remarkably well-filmed sci-fi horror-thriller filled with great tension, surprisingly visible (!) action, fantastic production design, and some really captivating VFX work. It's by no means a brilliant movie! It takes inspiration from better films of the same genre, and it follows a straightforward, plot-driven narrative with close to zero character development. It simply uses the known cliches but executes them really well. An underrated cast led by Kristen Stewart offers some notable performances, but it's the claustrophobic atmosphere surrounded by incredibly well-generated suspense that turns this movie into a success. Technically, I still can't believe how surprised I am. I just wish that it had a little bit of more characterization, so I could recommend it even more. As it stands, do watch it at the highest quality when you get the chance. Rating: B
Kristen Stewart actually kind of pulls off carrying this thing, which was a surprise to me. I know a lot of people have really enjoyed her post-_Twilight_ career, but I haven't really latched on to anything she's done. It feels pretty short, but not as short as it actually is at 95 minutes. The creatures were cool, I'm pretty sure. It was kind of hard to see. But for all its ups and downs I did basically enjoy _Underwater_, a solid mix of creepy monster, creepy environment, interspersed with tension-relieving dialogue. The only real problem is that it's **very** derivative. Not a massive issue in and of itself, the trouble is that it means every five minutes you think to yourself "Oh! This is just like X Movie (usually _Alien_)... I kinda wish I was watching that instead". _Final rating:★★★ - I liked it. Would personally recommend you give it a go._
Very fun, tense thriller that doesn't waste any time. If you've seen Leviathan or Event Horizon or Pandorum, you know exactly what this movie is going to be. Appreciated the whole cast, and I wish more serious actors would pick up genre roles like this.
Great watch, will watch again, and do recommend. To be fair, I was sick when I saw this was available and couldn't resist watching it. I'm a fan of Kristen Stewart (most of the time), and sure, she runs around in her underwear for a lot of the movie, but that's not a reason to watch the movie, it's a horrible reason for a web search. A great reason to watch this is that it is a underwater survival story. The isolation and technical strategy involved in dealing with this situation makes it gravely atmospheric, without the threat of "monsters". Honestly, that version would have also made a great movie. The movie clearly takes queues from several other great movies, and while it does it very well, the problem there is "several". Had the movie mirrored only "Alien", it probably would had been a stronger story. Clearly the writers wanted the threat to build, similar to video games, or possibly more similar to an alien invasion movie. The cross between a survival / slasher movie and an invasion movie muddles the feel of the movie somewhat. It downgrades the movie from truly excellent to great, and I don't feel that everyone is going to get the proper experience to recognize all of the great individual parts because the overall pie tastes a little funny.
**Overall : An exhilarating and tense high-stakes survival movie where the creatures are only one of the many horrors to be survived.** I can't lie - I LOVED THIS MOVIE! Underwater is the spiritual follow-up to the Alien franchise. The intensity of every claustrophobic second grips the audience as the characters fight to survive overwhelming obstacles to emerge from the ocean's depths alive. The dive suits, narrow corridors, limited visuals, and terrifying creatures add to the suspense throughout the film. The director displays his incredible skill at building tension and anxiety every moment. I don't know why this movie has such low reviews because I was captivated from start to finish.
A somewhat mis-matched crew are working on a base deep underwater when things start to go wrong. An earthquake right at the bottom of the Marianas Trench - or was it? Kristen Stewart ("Price") and Vincent Cassel ("Lucien") lead a team who have to escape their collapsed facility and make it to a nearby abandoned mine where there might be a route topside. The film features the usual lines of jeopardy - will they drown, is there enough oxygen, etc - but somehow, even when we discover there is much more to the disaster, the menace just floats away. Stewart is really underwhelming, as are the rest of the cast and is the writing. The visual effects are adequate, but that is standard nowadays, it's the story and characterisations that are just flat. It is only 90 minutes long, but it seems longer and somehow the ending was just a bit, well, damp! Can't think this ever got a cinema release - that might have helped, big screen and all that - but otherwise, this is entirely forgettable fishy fayre.
A deep sea submersible pilot revisits his past fears in the Mariana Trench, and accidentally unleashes the seventy foot ancestor of the Great White Shark believed to be extinct.
An exploratory dive into the deepest depths of the ocean of a daring research team spirals into chaos when a malevolent mining operation threatens their mission and forces them into a high-stakes battle for survival.
Using massive piloted robots to combat the alien threat, earth's survivors take the fight to the invading alien force lurking in the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless enemy, the forces of mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes who now stand as earth's final hope against the mounting apocalypse.
Follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed King Ghidorah. When these ancient super-species, thought to be mere myths, rise again, they all vie for supremacy, leaving humanity's very existence hanging in the balance.
Geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes discovers that an unknown force has caused the earth's inner core to stop rotating. With the planet's magnetic field rapidly deteriorating, our atmosphere literally starts to come apart at the seams with catastrophic consequences. To resolve the crisis, Keyes, along with a team of the world's most gifted scientists, travel into the earth's core. Their mission: detonate a device that will reactivate the core.
A helicopter pilot and an environmental scientist lead a exodus of survivors in a search for a safe haven after a catastrophic tectonic event causes the crust of the earth to break apart.
Hugo is a brilliant turn-of-the-century scientist, loved and respected by his family and friends, admired by his colleagues. But he is a man quickly becoming obsessed with a curious and frightening question...What is the mysterious apparition found in the photographs of his dying subjects?
In a futuristic world where the polar ice caps have melted and made Earth a liquid planet, a beautiful barmaid rescues a mutant seafarer from a floating island prison. They escape, along with her young charge, Enola, and sail off aboard his ship. But the trio soon becomes the target of a menacing pirate who covets the map to 'Dryland'—which is tattooed on Enola's back.
A mysterious force knocks the moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it.
It has been ten years since The Battle of the Breach and the oceans are still, but restless. Vindicated by the victory at the Breach, the Jaeger program has evolved into the most powerful global defense force in human history. The PPDC now calls upon the best and brightest to rise up and become the next generation of heroes when the Kaiju threat returns.