Underwater

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It was as if one day, a group of people got together and said "we all love James Cameron so much, we need to take 'Aliens', 'The Abyss' and the whole idea of the Mariana Trench, throw them in a blender and see what happens. It takes from more than just those films, but Cameron kept coming to mind throughout my viewing of this, pretty much blatant 'Aliens' ripoff. Of course, we know this isn't a first, but some things here are just plain lifted from the first and second 'Alien' films.

The story takes place, incredibly deep, with plans for a big industrial company called Tian to drill seven miles deep for resources. However, a big quake damages the underwater drilling station, where a mechanical engineer named Norah Price (Kristen Stewart) and her colleague, Rodriguo (Mamoudou Athie), manage a narrow escape. As the story progresses, they eventually run into crew members Paul (T.J. Miller), Captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel), biologist, Emily Haversham (Jessica Henwick), and engineer, Liam Smith (John Gallagher Jr.).

The group finds themselves on the ocean floor, racing to survive the harsh, pressurized, underwater elements. However, before they know it, they realize that their drilling has unleashed some old and forgotten deep sea, very alien-like monsters, and soon they are up against more than just the crushing depths of the ocean, as one by one, the supporting cast falls victim to them.

Now, right away, this movie loses a bunch of point from me for borrowing from too much. The 'Alien' movies, and 'The Abyss' are obvious, but I've also seen comparisons to 'Godilla', 'The Rift', 'Sphere', the list just keeps going. It is your typical bottle movie where a monster is taking out a crew, and the survivor girl ends up running around in her underwear. Come to think of it, this is much more of a 'Alien' ripoff than an 'Aliens' ripoff, right down to specific scenes like that. Hell, there's even a scene with the crew sitting around a glowing table, strategizing - those who have seen both know what I'm talking about.

This wasn't, however, bad enough to earn a terribly low rating on my scale. If you can go into this, a little blind (having not seen so many sci-fi, adventure, action, horror films), or go in expecting the worst, it can still be a good time. I did manage to appreciate the creature effects in this, and the overall claustrophobia of the deep, dark bottom of the ocean. It manages to be just uncomfortable enough in its execution (in a good way) to win me over, at least a little. And hey, Kristen Stewart wasn't bad in it either, even though she's never really been a go-to for me. But she comes through in this, not blowing me away, but I could appreciate her all-around heroic role here for what it was.

I'd say that this is one that you could easily skip in theaters, as you're not gonna miss a whole lot. But if you want the full effect of all that underwater mystery discomfort, head to an afternoon matinee and enjoy. My only real warning is that you need to know how much that this borrows from. You have, in some way, shape or form, seen this one before. It pretty much is just 'Alien' underwater. I get the feeling that It'll be forgotten about by the end of the year. Oh, I forgot to mention, this was announced in February of 2017, damn near four years ago. It does feel a bit slapped together and rushed out just to put a stop to people talking about it... but who was talking about it? Anyway, it's watchable, just not that good.

2/5

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