Underwater 2020 * * Stars

Director: William Eubank
Year: 2020
Rated PG-13
Rating: * * Stars
Cast: Kristen Stewart, T.J. Miller, Vincent Cassel

"You're descending seven miles to the bottom of the ocean". Sounds like a hoot. That's a quote from my first review of 2020 titled Underwater. Kristen Stewart stars in Underwater as the short-haired, athletic heroine named Norah Price. Aside from looking like a female Roy Batty, Kristen has screen presence and is embroiled in "underwear". Sadly, her line readings are a little garbled.

Anyway, Underwater is draggy even with a running time of ninety-five minutes. Yup, it's not fully epic despite having shades of 2005's The Descent. In fact, Underwater resembles a lot of flicks such as Leviathan, The Abyss, DeepStar Six, Alien, Life, and (gulp) Event Horizon. Here's the problem: Underwater came after all that stuff so that deems it a little last-ditch. What a shame.

Now has Hollywood run out of ideas in the regurgitated, sci-fi realm? Oh yeah. And is Underwater the outline of true life form leftovers? Almost.

The director of Underwater is Massachusetts native and former HD technician, William Eubank. His vision of Underwater is murky cinematography, choppy editing (no pun intended), pouncing jump scares, not a whole lot of critter striking, and not a whole lot of character development.

Underwater has virtually no buildup as we the audience watch the film from perhaps the middle or second act. Besides some cringe-worthy comic relief from goofball (and Hudson wannabe) T.J. Miller, the personas are virtually non-indelible. They are slack passengers just waiting for the parasitic slaughter.

Distributed by 20th Century Fox and containing a decent musical score by Marco Beltrami (Free Solo, A Quiet Place), Underwater is about heinously morphed creatures who terrorize some research crew members far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

Look for a backhanded ending (which I liked) and some science fiction dialogue that reeks of vessel deja vu (that I didn't like). Underwater was released in January and was shot almost three years ago. That's some bad cinematic juju if you ask me. Rating: 2 stars.

Written by Jesse Burleson