UNDERWATER (2020)
Did you ever see Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien? He asked knowingly. There are lot of copycat movies out there, while many more take inspiration from it's look and feel. From Outworld to Contamination and everything in between, there are homages and there are outright copies. Some are weird Italian features with bizarre dubbing. The key to making any of these work is of course bringing something new to the table. Even Luigi Cozzi knew that he needed some crazy monster egg effects to make a memorable creature feature. The films in question just have to be engaging, and it's something that I'm not sure this latest entry to to the sub-genre manages to pull off.
It's a great looking movie, when you can see what is actually happening. But Ridley's own copy pasted ideas in Covenant managed to get that right at least. That's the easy part, because production artists don't have to worry so much about the script. Set in a vague future time period the story is about workers on a deep-sea oil drill. It's soon apparent that they've dug too deep, and too greedily. It's less a story and more a series of set pieces. Like a roller-coaster ride in the usual blockbuster sense, it's not worried about characterisation, or, ironically, any sense of real depth. It's all very surface level stuff. The diving suits look great, the interior of the rig looks appropriate, and the lighting is good.
But it is all just another Alien wannabe. Some elements such as corporate broadcasts and workplace safety posters make it feel like a Dead Space video-game location. Which means that there are large chunks of the film which become a copy of a copy. There's a lot of lip-service given to the idea that this is actually a H. P. Lovecraft inspired tale, which again could be said of Alien. But while the cosmic horror aspects in that case were fairly clear, here there's never enough ancient god DNA being added the proceedings. The cast never come across any prehistoric ruins or make any existence questioning discoveries. All that interesting sci-fi design work is wasted when the threat could really be any kind of sea creature. It tries to move fast enough that these inclusions can be glossed over.
However, this all means that the white-knuckle ride is sometimes shot with a careless eye. The first big decompression threat is less of a terrifying disaster scene, and more of a shaky-cam nightmare. When the crew is forced to leap from a falling elevator chamber there are odd cuts and pieces of missing visual information. Too many set pieces start to feel like post production efforts that are detached from the live action elements. Worse still, the actual underwater horror moments that should be the real meat of the experience are murky and dark. On the one hand, yes these are scenes set underwater at more than six miles down. But why should this not be properly framed at least? There's no sense of scale in some moments which is kind of a problem.
But another problem is the bland cast, who range from suitably stoic to oddly lifeless. With character development at a dead end, they at least could deliver is charisma and charm. Engineer Norah (Kristen Stewart) and Captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel) are not interesting leads. The acting is solid enough but it's all too forgettable. Elsewhere constant irritant Paul (T. J. Miller) is somehow not dead during the initial system failure, and stays alive for far too long. The rest of the ensemble has little to do beyond their job descriptions, and as a result make even less of an impact. Talking about pets and children is not enough to make their roles meaningful when they have nothing to do.
Of course, most of them do get killed off by diving mishaps and CGI creatures. There are some gruesome moments, particularly early on when the threat is still the atmosphere of their habitat. It's often claustrophobic, and the first act is reasonably engaging thanks to tense and occasionally realistic situations. But again it becomes a problem when so much post-production gloss has been painted over certain situations, and they lack grit. There's only so much suspense that helmet interior shots and dim lights can offer, before the monster jump scares become dull. In some cases major problems like oxygen tank failures seem like minor inconveniences. There's no consistency to threats big or small.
Overall the biggest let down is that I wanted to give credit to this whole affair. It's an underdog kind of feature with lots of style. The sci-fi and horror genre is often far too lacking in budget, and this is a cut above the usual fare. But in the end its most notable feature is the final appearance of the 20th Century Fox logo. There are many individual pieces that are interesting or shocking, but the general story is too underwhelming. In some ways it's the opposite of something like Cloverfield Lane in which the human drama elevated it past a silly conclusion. Here the silly aspects are too numerous and the actual drama lacks any sort of energy. The worst thing you can be is boring, and that's the lasting effect here.
2\5
