Underwater is a science fiction film directed William Eubank. The plot sees an underwater research centre become under attack by a strange unknown type of sea life.
I go back and forth on Kristen Stewart as an actress, sometimes I think she is good and worthy of all the praise she gets; other times I think she struggles with even basic emoting and can’t convince me of anything. However, I will give her praise here, she commands this film, her performance is striking and in some ways very reminiscent of Sigourney Weaver in Alien. This film would be far less good without Stewart in it.
Despite, feeling a little too overly familiar this film managed to keep me engaged throughout. It used the environment and tension to great effect and had a few great sequences that will stuck in my mind long after the film has ended. My one critique in this regard is the way some of these high-tension kinetic scenes are shot. The cinematography of these scenes makes them hard to see; which therefore makes it hard to tell what is going on. An example of my point is midway through the film one of the team is pulled out of their suit, but you don’t realise that you just see a lot of blood, you don’t realise what happened until one of the characters tells you. That is a big problem in my book.
Also T.J Miller is in this and he is every bit as grating as you are imagining. Horror/ dark science fiction films don’t need comedic relief.
Overall, a solid disaster film boosted tremendously by a great performance by Kristen Stewart.
Pros.
Stewart
The tension
Keeping me engaged in a played-out idea
Cons.
The characters outside of Stewart’s lead are one note
It is hard to tell what is going on
3.5/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 