Underwater Movie Review by Film Critic Seth Kitchen

Watched on 1/12/2019



Mysterious creatures terrorize crew members aboard a research station located seven miles below the surface of the ocean.

My thoughts

Everything interesting about this movie was already given away in the previews and backstory. We already knew there was a drill rig that was attacked by underwater monsters and they had to move across the bottom of the ocean to find a way out. There is no deviation, subplots, or purposes.

People die in predictable ways. Pop-outs and scary moments are also very predictable. It's obvious somebody would be killed by the monsters and someone might die from high pressure.

Little to no deeper meanings, character development, or artful devices.

Monsters look like something out of a 1980's video game. Terrible looks.

Director uses lack of visibility as an excuse to make action scenes hard to understand what's going on.

Science/Physics/Engineering rarely logical.

Initial Busting of Rig:

From Quora (https://www.quora.com/If-you-created-a-hole-in-the-bottom-of-a-submerged-submarine-would-it-fill-with-water-crush-from-pressure-or-just-keep-on-submarining ): "When deeper, two phenomena can occur. 1) The greater difference in water pressure can rapidly deform the hole, allowing the stronger cylindrical shape of the pressure hull to go out-of-round. When this happens the entire hull will deform and lead to what could be described as a rapid crushing of the hull. 2) The more rapid inrush of water could rapidly compress the air inside the boat. As air is compressed, it's temperature increases. The presence of combustible liquids (diesel oil, hydraulic oil, lube oils, etc.) and an oxygen source (the air in the submarine) is problematic. These oils will auto-ignite when pressure and temp rapidly rise. " - Meaning from Scene #1, the main characters would never survive or have time to run to safety and shut a bulkhead (as if that would be strong enough to hold the pressure difference). This is the same for when they are moving around in underwater tunnels. There are burst pipes and leaks that would destroy the tunnel instantly and the characters would not be able to move through them.

Escape Pods:

Much like a scuba diver has to wait to ascend to the surface due to Nitrogen bubbles expanding in their blood stream as pressure changes (ie The Benz), an escape pod would need to wait to ascend to the surface. The monsters would catch the pods and everyone would die.

Flash weapon?:

Early on a baby creature is killed by a flash weapon? But that weapon is never used again and parent creatures are unaffected by light in later scenes.

The few points are given because there is a beginning, middle, end and the conflict is "resolved" at the end. There is enough suspense that the movie can be watched fully without falling asleep.