Underwater

Year of release : 2020

Run time : 1h35min

Genre : Sci Fi / Horror

Cast : Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, T.J. Miller

The year is 2050, the place, The Kepler 822, a Tian Industries research and drilling facility at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest oceanic trench on earth, located in the Pacific Ocean.

Norah is in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, when she keeps on hearing things, seeing the lights flickering and going off. She then sees the cabinet mirror-door opens. And then everything starts falling apart, as the station seems to be collapsing, the water flooding it.

She finds another colleague, and she manages to shut the door as parts of the station are being flooded (looking as if they are exploding), trying to keep the whole rig from collapsing.

The characters think it's been a major earthquake with its aftershock waves, as the underwater station is collapsing. They need to evacuate or die. They suit up as they have to walk at the bottom of the ocean to the other underwater drill station to find pods to get to the surface.

The movie looked good, but I watched it quite a few times since its release and always manages to make me sleepy.

The movie is action packed, and doesn’t have moment of respite. Everything is falling apart, while her and another colleague pick people up from the debris. When she reaches the other underwater station, she goes back for the ones she left behind.

SPOILERS As they walk underwater,they discover these humanoid creatures which apparently reside in a bigger creature the way kangaroos keep their babies in their pouch. This creature,as big or bigger than their station,like a kraken,had these humanoid beings living inside its skin like a pod of lotus.

The creature seemed to have had something against them personally,which means,as the intro suggests,that they probably destroyed its layer with their drilling, and was on a vengeance mission.END OF SPOILERS

The actors are very good,especially Kristen Stewart,as the characters are in a continuous state of fear,panic,shock and exhaustion. At the beginning of the movie, there’s a scene in which the walls are collapsing as if there’s explosions and she runs as it happens, falling on the slippery water floors.

I liked the soundtrack.

The visual effects were great. The movie was not filmed underwater, but on dry land, by using the black screen method.

Underwater received mixed reviews (with an equal score of 48 from the critics of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and of 60% / 6.1 from their audiences ), and grossed almost 41 million dollars at the box office against a budget of 65 million, being a flop.

Cinema Score audiences rated the movie a C, while the IMDB a 5.9.

Rating : Could have been a contender !