Underwater
starring Kristin Stewart, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher, Jr., Mamoudou Athie and T.J. Miller
screenplay by Brian Duffield and Adam Cozad
directed by William Eubank
Rating: ◊◊◊◊◊
I really disliked this movie. For starters, “Underwater” is not a noun. In fact, there is no such word in English. It should be “Under Water.” Like The Abyss (1989, starring Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, directed by James Cameron), Underwater is a bottom-of-the-ocean science fiction horror-disaster movie. But, The Abyss is a much better film. I’ve watched it several times and still recommend it.
Kepler 822 is a research and drilling facility operated by Tian Industries at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. It is struck by a strong under water earthquake. The action starts very, very fast. The only backstory provided to explain the setup is in the opening credits, so pay attention to those. Kristin Stewart plays mechanical engineer Norah Price. At the start of the film, Norah races through the under water station trying to collect people, because the station is coming apart at the seams, and everyone has to get to an escape pod P.D.Q. A small group of survivors gathers, and escape is impossible. Nevertheless, they devise a plan to escape. That’s the point of the movie, after all. They decided to exit the station and go walking around the ocean floor at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Right! So, they put on deep sea diving suits, exit the station, and literally walk a couple miles in the pitch blackness of the ocean floor to a nearby substation where, they hope, functioning escape pods will be found.
The crux of the story is whether there really is an under water earthquake, or whether it’s weird monsters who are attacking the station - monsters woken from the depths of the earth’s crust by the ongoing drilling. There are certainly monsters out there, and the idea of the earthquake is slowly abandoned as the monsters become the focus. The movie consists mostly of scared people walking through thick blackness at the bottom of the ocean while unseen octopus-like creatures are attacking them. When I was a child I used to play a game like this with my brothers at home. We turned off the basement lights and went running around the pitch blackness with outstretched arms, screaming, trying to locate other brothers in the dark. We called it “Murder in the Dark.” That’s pretty much what Underwater is.
Like a lot of Stephen King’s writing, it was mostly just boring!