Underwater (2020) Review

"We're just going to walk, with insufficient oxygen, across the bottom of the ocean?"

-Paul Abel

A drilling station in the Mariana Trench is damaged by a large earthquake and most of the crew is killed.  The survivors have no choice but to walk across the ocean floor to a nearby station with escape pods.  Unfortunately, something else is out there with them.

What Works:

I like the claustrophobic feeling of this movie.  The tights spaces filled with water give me the chills far more than any underwater monsters.  I would love a whole movie about a group of people trying to survive in a damaged underwater structure and when Underwater goes that direction, it shines.

I was nervous that T.J. Miller's comic relief character would be obnoxious, especially from the trailer, and while he does have elements of that, I was surprised to see that he was actually very competent.  His character always goes out and does his job, he just makes quips and complains while he does it.  I can relate.  This, plus his fascination with Alice in Wonderland, makes him by far the most interesting character in the cast.

The score is actually really cool and adds a lot to the film.  It's a very sci-fi score, and this is a sci-fi film, but it's not a score you would expect to hear in an underwater movie.  I loved it.

Finally, the 3rd act is pretty solid with some really cool moments.  At one point a character gets swallowed by one of the monsters and shoots their way out.  It's easily my favorite moment in the movie.

What Sucks:

The first act of a movie is supposed to set up the characters and the setting.  It should show us who these people are, what their relationships are to one another, and why we should care about them.  It a sci-fi or horror movie, they should usually set up locations so we can get a layout of where the movie is going to unfold.  Underwater gives us absolutely none of that.  It's like they forgot to shoot the entire first act.  The movie starts so quickly, I thought it was a dream sequence at first and kept waiting for it to end so the real story could start.  None of this is good.

This movie gives us no reason to care about the characters and, besides the aforementioned T.J. Miller, none of them are interesting.  Maybe if there had been a first act, they would have been.  I just had no feeling for who these characters were or what the dynamic between them was.  Apparently Norah (Kristen Stewart) and Smith (John Gallagher Jr.) had a close connection, but we don't know about it until late in the film.  It's not like it was a big twist, it was just something we didn't get to know because the movie doesn't have a first act.

Finally, there are also portions of the movie where it is really hard to understand the dialogue.  I already don't know what's happening, the movie shouldn't make it worse by limiting my ability to hear the characters.  

Verdict:

Underwater is a movie I really wanted to like.  I love this type of movie, the claustrophobia is palpable, T.J. Miller does a good job, the score is awesome, and the 3rd act is solid.  The movie just suffers so many fundamental issues that I can't recommend it.  It needs a first act so we get a sense of the facility and care about the characters and it has some audio issues.  It's a real shame.

 4/10: Bad