Underwater (2020)

 

**This post contains spoilers**

The Story- Norah (Kristen Stewart), a mechanical engineer at an underwater research and drilling facility, rushes to safety after a sudden disturbance causes severe damage, killing a number of her fellow crewmates. Led by Captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel), Norah, Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie), Liam (John Gallagher Jr.), Emily (Jessica Henwick), and Paul (T.J. Miller) all struggle to survive with a limited number of escape pods and resources. Captain Lucien’s solution? Walk across the seafloor of the Mariana Trench to the Roebuck Station using special hi-tech suits.

The risky mission takes a bizarre turn, when the crew realizes they’re being hunted and picked off by deadly creatures. Pushing forward is the only option, as the crew carefully travels to Roebuck, and Norah is forced to make a difficult decision. 

My Thoughts- Kristen Stewart’s performance as Norah truly encapsulates how you would expect someone to react to an unprecedented situation, especially a situation that involves vicious monsters. The anxiety, torn emotions for making tough choices, and the emotional weight of realizing you might die, without a funeral or a proper burial. Norah is compassionate, selfless, and scrappy, the unlikely heroic character, who has to push through one brutal loss after another, when she realizes she can’t save everyone. 

Vincent Cassel delivers a solid performance as Captain Lucien. Lucien, the leader, who strongly prioritizes the safety of his crew over everything, including his own well-being, while constantly trying to reassure the crew that everyone will make it out alive. 

The rest of the crew? It’s a familiar set of characters you’ll notice from other similar horror films. T.J. Miller’s Paul is the jokester and the comic relief character, who’s obsessed with Alice In Wonderland (he also carries around a stuffed rabbit). Emily freaks out and panics at the first signs of danger. John Gallagher Jr. has a healthy sense of humor as Liam, just a step below Paul for laughs, as the guy, who lightens the mood after, or during the more serious moments throughout the movie.

Rodrigo, Lucien, and Paul are all dead. So what’s next? Cthulhu appears! Things go from bad to worse, when Norah spots Cthulhu at the Roebuck Station. Great execution, good timing, and a nice surprise for the Cthulhu reveal. The shot with Norah shooting the flare gun, leading to the flash that reveals Cthulhu’s monstrous figure really works as an awe-inspiring visual.

Norah sacrificing herself to save Emily and Liam? Not too shocking, because as soon as Norah noticed the damaged escape pod, you knew what was coming. Still, it’s a strong ending, and a thrilling emotional roller coaster. Emily pleading with Norah to reconsider her choice, the pods containing Liam and Emily racing to the top, while they’re chased by Cthulhu, and the other creatures, and that massive explosion. Norah, after Lucien’s death, filled the role of the leader, who had to make gut-wrenching decisions. 

I did get a kick of Kristen Stewart’s defiant and calm demeanor before she destroyed the Roebuck Station. Norah’s final words about being lost in the darkness, including the final “let’s light this s*** up” zinger right before the explosion engulfs Cthulhu and the creatures? That’s how you stick the landing for a fantastic ending!

Underwater is a strange case for me. The movie is set 2050, creepy and menacing creatures, and the BIG reveal towards the end for a legendary creature is a good jaw-dropper. But there’s just something missing in Underwater. Considering the material they had to work with, there’s a noticeable lack of oomph, or consistent sparks here. 

One problem for me is they relied on one too many jump scares. That, and outside of Norah and Lucien, the rest of the crew features too many thin characters. Also, I was hoping they would’ve explored the obvious coverup from the company, and the moral dilemma about drilling in the ocean, something Emily touched on earlier in the movie. 

But Underwater is still a solid and entertaining sci-fi horror film. Underwater quickly bursts out of the gate, because the chaos starts within the first ten minutes. There’s a good balance of running from and fighting off the creature’s attacks, and the crew sharing heart-to heart moments with each other, or joking around, allowing the story to breathe, when it needs to at certain points. 

Norah and Lucien’s relationship is one of the bigger highlights in the movie, with Lucien relying on, trusting, and pushing Norah to believe in herself. A strong sense of claustrophobia in tight spaces, some decent laughs, a good amount of genuinely tense scenes with the creatures, the attacks, and the main characters waiting for the right moment to make a move, fight back, or escape. The methods used for the deaths and the kills are kind of repetitive, but there’s still a lot of brutality for a PG-13 horror film, toeing the line for the necessary squirmy reactions, without needing graphic levels of gore and gruesome kills. 

And I can’t say enough about how much I loved the ending. Predictable with how everything played out? Yes, but the last stand still packs a strong enough punch to get the job done.

Rating- 7/10

Underwater (2020)(Minor Spoilers)

 **This post contains MINOR spoilers**

The Story- Norah (Kristen Stewart), a mechanical engineer at an underwater research and drilling facility, rushes to safety after a sudden disturbance causes severe damage, killing a number of her fellow crewmates. Led by Captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel), Norah, Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie), Liam (John Gallagher Jr.), Emily (Jessica Henwick), and Paul (T.J. Miller) all struggle to survive with a limited number of escape pods and resources. Captain Lucien’s solution? Walk across the seafloor of the Mariana Trench to the Roebuck Station using special hi-tech suits.

The risky mission takes a bizarre turn, when the crew realizes they’re being hunted and picked off by deadly creatures. Pushing forward is the only option, as the crew carefully travels to Roebuck, and Norah is forced to make a difficult decision. 

My Thoughts- Kristen Stewart’s performance as Norah truly encapsulates how you would expect someone to react to an unprecedented situation, especially a situation that involves vicious monsters. The anxiety, torn emotions for making tough choices, and the emotional weight of realizing you might die, without a funeral or a proper burial. Norah is compassionate, selfless, and scrappy, the unlikely heroic character, who has to push through one brutal loss after another, when she realizes she can’t save everyone. 

Vincent Cassel delivers a solid performance as Captain Lucien. Lucien, the leader, who strongly prioritizes the safety of his crew over everything, including his own well-being, while constantly trying to reassure the crew that everyone will make it out alive. 

The rest of the crew? It’s a familiar set of characters you’ll notice from other similar horror films. T.J. Miller’s Paul is the jokester and the comic relief character, who’s obsessed with Alice In Wonderland (he also carries around a stuffed rabbit). Emily freaks out and panics at the first signs of danger. John Gallagher Jr. has a healthy sense of humor as Liam, just a step below Paul for laughs, as the guy, who lightens the mood after, or during the more serious moments throughout the movie.

Underwater is a strange case for me. The movie is set 2050, creepy and menacing creatures, and the BIG reveal towards the end for a legendary creature is a good jaw-dropper. But there’s just something missing in Underwater. Considering the material they had to work with, there’s a noticeable lack of oomph, or consistent sparks here. 

One problem for me is they relied on one too many jump scares. That, and outside of Norah and Lucien, the rest of the crew features too many thin characters. Also, I was hoping they would’ve explored the obvious coverup from the company, and the moral dilemma about drilling in the ocean, something Emily touched on earlier in the movie. 

But Underwater is still a solid and entertaining sci-fi horror film. Underwater quickly bursts out of the gate, because the chaos starts within the first ten minutes. There’s a good balance of running from and fighting off the creature’s attacks, and the crew sharing heart-to heart moments with each other, or joking around, allowing the story to breathe, when it needs to at certain points. 

Norah and Lucien’s relationship is one of the bigger highlights in the movie, with Lucien relying on, trusting, and pushing Norah to believe in herself. A strong sense of claustrophobia in tight spaces, some decent laughs, a good amount of genuinely tense scenes with the creatures, the attacks, and the main characters waiting for the right moment to make a move, fight back, or escape. The methods used for the deaths and the kills are kind of repetitive, but there’s still a lot of brutality for a PG-13 horror film, toeing the line for the necessary squirmy reactions, without needing graphic levels of gore and gruesome kills. 

And I can’t say enough about how much I loved the ending. Predictable with how everything played out? Yes, but the last stand still packs a strong enough punch to get the job done. 

Rating- 7/10

Cloverfield (2008)

**This review contains spoilers**

In New York City, Rob (Michael Stahl-David) is preparing to take a new job in Japan, so his brother, Jason (Mike Vogel) and Jason’s girlfriend, Lily (Jessica Lucas) decide to throw him a surprise going-away party. Rob’s best friend, Hud (T.J. Miller) is the camera man, who films everything, including good-bye speeches from all of Rob’s friends.

But the party takes an awkward turn, when Rob’s longtime friend, Beth (Odette Yustman) shows up with another guy named Travis (Ben Feldman). In the hallway outside of his apartment, Rob and Beth exchange some harsh words in a heated argument. Recently, Rob and Beth had a one-night stand, and to Rob’s disappointment, Beth didn’t have any plans to take their relationship to the next level afterwards. Furious, Rob wishes Travis “good luck,” as he leaves the party with an angry and embarrassed Beth.

After Rob’s blowup with Beth, a series of random explosions and thunderous roars end the party. Rob, Jason, Lily, Hud, and a mutual friend named Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) run outside to join the crowd of panicked New Yorkers. Suddenly, the head from the Statue Of Liberty rolls down the street, and eventually, Rob, Jason, Lily, Hud, and Marlena learn the shocking truth: a giant monster is wreaking havoc in New York City, destroying everything in its path.

As they try to escape on the Brooklyn Bridge, the monster attacks, destroying the bridge, and killing Jason in the process. Rob receives a voice mail from Beth, pleading with him to come to her apartment, and rescue her before the monster returns. Using guilt and the possibility of one last chance to tell Beth how he truly feels as motivation, Rob leads, Lily, Hud, and Marlena through New York and the monster’s path of destruction to find and save Beth before it’s too late.

T.J. Miller provides some much needed comic relief in Cloverfield. Hud is responsible for 90% of the humor in Cloverfield (you could give the other ten to Lizzy Caplan. Marlena’s argument with Hud in the subway about Superman and Garfield is hilarious), and Miller gives you a break from the constant “OH MY GOD!” or “WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THE MONSTER!” hysteria from the rest of the cast. No real complaints about performance quality from this cast, because I can’t think of anyone, who was noticeably bad, or someone that “dropped the ball” so to speak.

Most found-footage films abuse the shaky cam crap, and unfortunately, Cloverfield is no different. The nauseating and convulsive shaky cam style is annoying, BUT Matt Reeves (the director) deserves some credit for not showing too much in Cloverfield. Yeah, you’ll see a full view of the mini monsters (the big monster releases little monsters from its body to help destroy New York City) before the end, but you don’t actually see full close-ups of the big monster until the very end. The conserved approach keeps you guessing throughout the whole movie. What is this thing? What does it look like? How big is it? Depending on what scares you and what doesn’t scare you, the final close-up reveals for the monster might shock, or disappoint you. Either way, you’ll want to stick around until the end, because with all the teasing, you’ll reach a point where you have to see what the monster looks like.

One of the main reasons why I still have a strange obsession with Cloverfield is, because ’til this day, I can still vividly remember the marketing campaign. It was so mysterious and vague, but I couldn’t fight the urge. I HAD to see this movie. The trailers and TV spots barley showed anything, but the little they did show was enough to hook me in (explosions, firefights with the military, the head from the Statue Of Liberty rolling down the street, etc.). And like a week before the movie hit, they started a countdown with the TV spots, and they added the words “we fight back” on the release date for the movie. You were lead to believe you were going to see an action packed and epic found-footage film, that showed mankind’s last stand against some evil and unstoppable force. To add to all of this, in the preliminary stages, they marketed Cloverfield as 1-18-08 (the release date). It felt like a big event, and you knew you just had to be in a theater to watch Cloverfield on this date.

Although, when it comes to Cloverfield’s marketing campaign, it’s kind of a double-edged sword. They did a wonderful job of hyping up the movie and the mystery behind Cloverfield to the point, where you had to see it no matter what. But the trailers and TV spots were VERY misleading. Yeah, the military fights, and drops bombs on the monster with “Operation Hammer Down” at the end, but that’s the problem. The leading cast isn’t fighting the monster, the military is. And on top of that, the “fighting the monster to save New York and the world” storyline is just used as a backdrop for the main story: Rob, Lily, Hud, and Marlena are risking their lives to rescue Beth, and save her before the monster returns. Don’t be fooled. Rob going after Beth, and falling in love with her again towards the end is the main story. Fighting the monster takes a backseat as a sub-plot. The camera constantly malfunctioning throughout the movie, and showing flashbacks of Rob and Beth together is a prime example of this.

And speaking of Rob, character wise, he’s a real bitch. He risks the lives of his friends to save Beth, and of course, Marlena is attacked and bitten by one of the mini monsters in the subway. When they finally make it to a military checkpoint, Marlena succumbs to the venom from the monster, and to avoid an outbreak of the infection, the soldiers have to kill her on the spot. AND when Lily, Hud, and Rob go outside, Hud starts crying over Marlena’s death. Long story short, Hud had a crush on Marlena, and they actually started to develop a bond before and after the bite. Anyway, like a dick, Rob rushes Lily and Hud, as Hud continues to sob, refusing to give Hud a brief moment to grieve, because you know, “WE HAVE TO SAVE BETH AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT!” So Rob, Lily, Hud, and a wounded Beth make it to the last set of helicopters leaving New York. Lily gets into one, and flies off. Rob, Hud, and Beth get into another helicopter, but the monster swats it to the ground. And guess what? The monster kills Hud on the ground.

None of this would’ve happened, if Rob didn’t decide to risk the lives of his friends to save Beth, and for me, Rob is easily the most unlikeable character in this movie. Yeah, I know. For those of you that watched Cloverfield, Rob gave his friends a choice to go with the military, so Rob could rescue Beth by himself, or come with him to rescue Beth, but come on now. Rob already knew the answers before he asked the questions. Lily is your brother’s girlfriend, Marlena is a real friend, and Hud is your best friend. Real friends wouldn’t let one of their own walk through a ravaged city with a monster running around alone.

Some of the deaths are unreal in Cloverfield. When the soldiers kill Marlena, they drag her into this room with a curtain. Behind the curtain, they show the silhouette of Marlena being put into position by soldiers and doctors, and then, in the blink of an eye, a splatter of blood splashes against the curtain, as Hud cuts away with the camera. The other is Jason’s death on the Brooklyn Bridge. He’s standing over the crowd trying to get Rob’s attention from the other side. The monster attacks, and out of nowhere, a huge hunk of the bridge falls, and crushes him instantly. A handful of jaw-dropping moments in Cloverfield, but those two stand out amongst everything else.

Cloverfield is an intense and shocking found-footage monster movie, featuring a few crafty action sequences. It doesn’t matter how many times I watch it, the beginning to Cloverfield hooks me in, and after that, I have to stick around until the end.

Oh, and a little extra tidbit. Pay close attention to the final home movie with Rob and Beth on the Ferris wheel at the end. Look in the background at the ocean, and you can see the monster falling from the sky, and dropping into the water. It happens quick, and it’s kind of small (because the view of the background is out of focus), but if you look real close, you can see how the monster came to Earth, and eventually New York City. I’ve probably seen this movie six times or more, and I just caught it on my most recent viewing.  

Rating: 7/10