20s Movie Review - Underwater

Director: William Eubank
Genre: Action/ Horror
Runtime: 95 minutes
Year: 2020
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, T.J. Miller, John Gallagher Jr. Jessica Henwick, Mamoudou Athie

Description: A group of oceanic researches working for a deep sea drilling company try to get to safety after a mysterious earthquake devastates their deepwater research and drilling facility located at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.  

Review: “Underwater’ gets off to a nice, quick start. It only takes a few minutes before disaster strikes: an enormous drilling platform is destroyed by and earthquake, or something similar. It is chaos, but at a depth of about eleven kilometers, in the infamous Mariana Trench. All the rescue pods have been rendered useless on the spot an communication with the surface is no longer possible. The six survivors are trapped.
Captain Lucien sees only one way to escape certain death, but his plan is quite riskyL he and his crew want to make the crossing to the nearby Roebuck base. Thus begins a walk across the ocean floor, neatly ticking off all the setbacks that come with a deep-sea mission of this caliber. From imploding diving masks to malfunctioning oxygen tanks. But there is more hiding in the dark, murky water. The film might not be the most original of its kind, but it works just fine.
Director William Eubank occasionally manages to turn this into an exciting and claustrophobic experience. He often film his heroes close to the skin, and even places the camera in the diving helmet so you see it from their perspective. Fear and panic are therefore very tangible. The evil that presents itself, gives you a H.P. Lovecraft vibe.
Actress Kristen Stewart has been trying to shake off the image of her role in the “Twilight” films and over the years she has managed to do so quite well. In this sci-fi horror she gives shape to Norah, a mechanical engineer who is not easily intimidated. She kind of reminded me of Ripley from “Alien”. And Stewart is really good in this film.
Even though the film doesn’t do a lot of new things, “Underwater” is still a pretty good film to watch. Short runtime, fast pace, exciting and scary because of the claustrophobic feel and the unknown. I recommend.

Rating: 3,5/ 5