Underwater

It may be damning with faint praise, but it's better than I thought it would be. If you love sci-fi/fantasy/action genre films and don't go in expecting a masterpiece, you could have a good time. What it lacks in originality it makes up for in craft. It looks great, has fine actors doing good work, and nice production design. Kristen Stewart shows she has the chops to carry a movie, even without a stellar story, and it delivers enough good action and tension to make up for its shortcomings.

Agreed, no character development but they did get straight into the action, from start to finish.

There was some minor, trivial things that irritated me, for sure, but undeserved of the poopy ratings.

I was entertained, which is the purpose for watching any movie. Armchair critics can go for a swim in the Mariana Trench. This movie was good.

Film patina, look, story and feel was just like Alien in many regards. Including an escape the creatures in bathing suit sequence that must have been a Sigourney Weaver underwear homage. Deep space traded for deep water. But somehow deep water movies are more terrifying than space movies because the obligatory flood scenes add to the terror. Enjoyed it all the same.

Kristen Stewart plays the heroine in this moderate budgeted film that takes place underwater during a massive weird earthquake that is devouring the world she and her friends live in. It's not as scary as is it given its family friendly PG-13 rating but its a decent rental.

Kristen Stewart is working in an underwater facility when it all goes horribly wrong.

Oh no all the escape pods are taken so the survivors will have to don diving suits, catch a lift to the bottom of the ocean and walk home.

It should be fine as long as the waters aren't filled with some nasty monsters released by the drilling.

Whoops!

The action is immediate and hard hitting and thrilling.

This has all the elements you can imagine, people getting stuck under things, oxygen running out, rooms filling with water, sea creatures mauling people etc.

The effects are great, the monsters interesting and it is all done quite well.

"Quite well" is the problem.

This film looks like it is going to be amazing and it is hard not to get excited about it.

So when it takes a paddle around lake-mediocrity it feels really, really bad.

The characters are stark and relatable but you get no build up so you are always playing catch up with them and the relationships between them were a little unclear.

Kristen Stewart's character has a sub plot that should be really meaningful but just feels tacked on as it is relayed through the mediums of chitchat and locker junk.

You get no feel of where the survivors are going so a lot of the plot relies on aptly placed road signs and a patronising version of Alexa, who is zero help to the crew, until it needs to explain how the film is going to end - which it does in patronising detail even drawing us a little picture.

This is a pretty good disaster/monster flick but it feels like a lot of potential has been wasted - which makes me think less of this film than I should.

The production and performances are all good.

Kristen Stewart is very good, but maybe she is stereotyped in my eyes as it took me twenty minutes to shake the feeling that she was on her way to a Halloween party dressed as "the real slim shady" when this all kicked off.

A good enough movie but with a tiny bit more work and a little more nerve this would have easily been an absolute classic people were talking about for the next fifty years.