Underwater follows the crew members of a deep-sea drilling rig as their vessel begins to fail. However, the real danger is lurking in the darkness of the sea.
Quick review: Underwater is like if you took all the character development, world-building, and plot out of the original Alien and just left the horror bits — somehow it works.
We’ve seen Alien copycats before to varying degrees of success. From the great (The Descent) to the fine (Life) to the insulting (Inseminoid, anyone?). But at the very least, Underwater is keenly aware of its position. It’s an economical, mindless, Hollywood thrill ride. Exactly what you’d expect from a mid-January horror.
Just the shallow idea of a plot
From the very beginning of the movie, you know that they aren’t fooling around. Without any exposition or pretense, we hop straight into a deep-sea drilling operation in the Marianas Trench — aka the deepest part of the Earth’s oceans. Norah Price (a short-haired platinum blonde Kristen Stewart) is preparing for bed when the entire rig begins to fail and cave in around her. Narrowly escaping a painful death by crushing, she and Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie) another crew member make their way to the escape pod bay discovering another crew member (played by someone that doesn’t deserve to be mentioned) and the captain of the vessel (Vincent Cassel). They meet up with Emily (Jessica Henwick) and Liam (John Gallagher Jr.) in the bridge to form a plan of escape.
Not much of the plan makes sense and neither does the environment, but the movie doesn’t dwell on it. At just 95 minutes, it doesn’t have time to spend on needless things like a plot. The crew descends further down to the ocean floor to find another escape pod bay. However, before they can make it there they encounter something (or somethings) otherworldly that make their journey even more dangerous than it already is.
What you see is what you get with Underwater. Honestly, it’s refreshing. The scares are cheap but effective. The tension is derived solely from the environment — setting something under the sea or space is an easy way to build suspense. And the characters are really only made charming by the cast. But it’s so satisfying. It’s an elevated B-movie if such a thing even exists.
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There really isn’t a moment to relax and take in the environment or get used to any space. However, the surprisingly effective production design is essential to the movie’s success. The tight dank corridors are endless and imperfect — filled with pipes and grates and wires like Alien. It’s the perfect setting for the story.
The same goes for the bulky pressurized suits that are the only barrier between the crew and agonizing death at the hands of the depths of the ocean. The unreliability adds to the stakes.
Stewart, even when phoning it in, has just the right level of movie star appeal to lock you into the screen. Cassel and Henwick also do great work with their limited screentime. However, you can’t read too far into anything with Underwater. By design, it’s shallow. It’s a theme park of a movie, as Martin Scorsese would put it, and it works for that very reason.
Random thoughts ?
- John Gallagher Jr. is incredibly underrated and should be a huge star by now. This movie wastes him.
- The creature design is terrific, but the twist is jawdropping. Plus, the movie uses them sparingly enough to keep them interesting.
- The first and last shots of Stewart are pure Hollywood hero shots.
Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.