Summary
After a long delay, this sci-fi thriller finally makes its way to cinemas. Despite some gorgeous production design and a top cast, it doesn’t so much make a splash as dampen some of our spirits.
William Eubank’s (Love) film will go down in history as the last film to be released under the 20th Century Fox banner following its acquisition by Disney. Despite shooting back in 2017, some of those machinations have kept it on the shelf until 2020.
The basic premise has all the makings of a cult favourite. Mechanical engineer Norah (Kristen Stewart) is aboard a deep sea drilling operation/laboratory. When unexplained shaking starts to bring the structure apart, Norah must journey with Captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel) and the surviving crew (T.J. Miller, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Mamoudou Athie, and Gunner Wright) and walk across the ocean floor for a chance at rescue.
The tension around the underwater escape is enough of a ticking time bomb to sustain a film, especially one that is only 95 minutes long. Yet a sharp left turn is taken into creature feature territory, and this creates a disconnect further down the trail.
Despite the various delays and behind the scenes machinations that kept this in release hell for a few years, the final product is a pacey thriller. Of course, some of that is due to entire swathes of plot being evidently excised in the pursuit of brevity. Following the introduction of Lucien, for example, there’s a noticeably abrupt cut that sees rest of the cast turn up. It’s not an isolated incident either.
Which is a shame because this is one of the more attractive pieces of production design I’ve ever seen. Take the deep sea diving suits, for example. Dorotka Sapinska’s designs combine Alien with the complexity of a Japanese influenced manga design. Later in the film, there’s a scene where the group attempts to enter a building surrounded by creatures and it is one of the most beautifully subtle pieces of horror staging in recent memory.
Major props also need to go to Stewart, who continues to forge a path as a badass action hero. It’s a little unfortunate that Eubank keeps her in her underwear for large chunks of the film, although I’ll take this as another tip of the hat to the original Alien.
Without getting too much into spoiler territory, the ending gets a little bit Lovecraftian. By itself this would be fine, even if it doesn’t quite gel with what’s come before. One has to wonder what the original vision for this film was, as the coda – a series of headlines and redacted documents – continue to tell the story long after the film has given up on it. Which is where UNDERWATER ultimately lands: as a potentially bold new sci-fi that someone let slip through the cracks.
2020 | US | DIRECTOR: William Eubank | WRITERS: Brian Duffield, Adam Cozad| CAST: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Mamoudou Athie, T.J. Miller | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney (AUS)| RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 January 2020 (AUS)
