Underwater A Basic Forgettably Bland Sci-Fi Film We’ve Seen Many Times Before Grade: C-

Source: IMDB

Underwater tells a story about aquatic researchers, who have encounter a terrible accident underwater. Majority of their laboratory is destroyed, as they must travel many ways to get to safety, with minimum oxygen left in their tanks. Curiosity arises with the crew as to what may have happened to their lab?! Was it a earthquake? Was it new species?! Find out with Underwater... Wait, it already revealed what it was in the trailers?! Never mind. The Cinematography and Set Design were underwhelming, as I kept thinking I was watching Prometheus. The sets, color pallet, and even the camera work besides those bad slow motion scenes, kept reminding of a once beloved Sci-Fi I would much rather watch than this. The Score was forgettable, it’s been a couple days since I watched this and I don’t remember much of the music. The cast all in all were ok. Kristen Stewart playing the lead character Norah was fine, the character itself was pretty cheesy especially when given narration in the beginning and end. T.J. Miller playing the annoying comedic relief was incredibly obnoxious and annoying, every single attempt of comedy falls extremely flat, as you honestly woudkl root for his death... It was that painful. But even so in a serious situation like this crew is in, it would be rather annoying hearing poor attempts at laughs over and over again, it’s just Miller puts the icing on the cake, making it unbearable to sit through. Underwater can easily described with one word: Forgettable. I don’t think this movie is good nor is it bad, it just will be easily forgotten. Maybe due to the fact this film is heavily inspired by other films, that are clearly much better and more exciting than this. The characters I can honestly care less about any of them, they all felt like a blank page for me. Not poorly written in anyway, it’s just conventional characters I’ve heard many times before, offering nothing unique to the table as I’ve forgotten all their names within minutes. The action and horror elements of this film were ok, I didn’t really care too much for the creature designs in this film, though can be frightening in real life but on the big screen it’s whatever to look at. The story of this film was pretty basic as it follows a simple formula. A terrible event happens, characters introduce, traveling many ways to safety, encounters with entities, struggling to find a solution, has epic montage to get ready for the epic conclusion, the end... Doesn’t really do much for me at all. I get this film is dumped in January, but honestly does it really deserve a theatrical release?! Doesn’t Disney own Fox now?! Why don’t they just dump this film on their Disney+ service?! It’s PG-13, they have many PG-13 selections to choose from, why not dump it there? I guess they just don’t care about Underwater, like many of us that have watched it do so as well. Overall, Underwater is forgettably mediocre. I don’t recommend this film, just watch Prometheus instead. -Mitch Smietana