Underwater [Kristen Stewart]

pixelburp

Kristen Stewart headlining this horror film, the trailer giving off very strong "Alien" vibes; the distance between inspiration and rip-off can be very short! Still, looks solid and might be a decent mid-range crowdpleaser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCFWEzIVILc

El Duda

Tagline: Underwater, people won't be able to hear you screams that well because of alternating compressions and rarefactions of the water.

Bacchus

Agreed RE Alien inspiration (right down to Ridley's shaved head look). It looks like Alien underwater basically. Still looks decent though.

pixelburp

I'm also guessing this is technically a Disney flick now, and one of those saved from the chopping block when they acquired Fox.

Hopefully the Alien comparisons are more than superficial, and there's some substance to the characters that made the 79 film so memorable.

Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Without reading comments, I thought "Alien"

But yeah, not bad film or director to be inspired by. I hope like Pixelburp said that the comparisons are more than superficial and we have interesting characters. Vincent Cassel is great so I look forward to seeing his performance.

I'm also intriqued by the deep sea motive. Space is brilliant but we have so much undiscovered in the deep ocean.

Dades

Looks good. I'm in.

Alien is 30 years old. A lot of the people this is aimed at will never even have seen it.

bkrangle

Dades wrote: »

Looks good. I'm in.

Alien is 30 years old. A lot of the people this is aimed at will never even have seen it.

Alien is 40 years old!

mikhail

bkrangle wrote: »

Alien is 40 years old!

I mentioned that to a friend recently, and he put his head in his hands and groaned at how old that made him feel. I suspect you may have just done the same thing to Dades.

expectationlost

Dades wrote: »

Looks good. I'm in.

Alien is 30 years old. A lot of the people this is aimed at will never even have seen it.

so tell them to go watch Alien, Aliens and the Abyss. :pac:

Dades

bkrangle wrote: »

Alien is 40 years old!

Whoa. :eek:

mikhail wrote: »

I mentioned that to a friend recently, and he put his head in his hands and groaned at how old that made him feel. I suspect you may have just done the same thing to Dades.

It's my bad maths that concerns me!

I was younger than Ripley's cat in 1979.

Slydice

I freakin jumped so bad in that water scene!

Skerries

this reminds me of when The Abyss came out and then we had Deep Star Six and Leviathan after

p to the e

I've seen worse trailers but it definitely did a copy paste job of a lot of Alien. Even the way the letters of the film title appear. Maybe a little of The Descent mixed in. Also I love Vincent Cassell. Good to see TJ Miller still working after his "terrorist activities".

pixelburp

I'm keeping myself quietly hyped about this, cos as blatant as it looks, you could take inspiration from a lot worse sources than Alien. Not like the actual Alien franchise has been knocking it out of the park either (which, sidebar, is also now owned by Disney). This looks to have the right measure of grungy, oppressive and lived-in environments to sell the tension. 2017's Life also took heavy "inspiration" from the xenomorph series.

Watch out online BTW, as I think there have been a fair few TV spots & extra promotions, potentially spoiling surprises.

Slydice

lol, all the reviews I've seen are something like:

- this is a solid scifi movie
- not a great scifi movie
- but a solid scifi movie
- so I don't want to stick my neck out and say it's good
- cos we all know how people do pile-ons these days
- but it's not as bad as some reviews might lead you to believe
- but it's not ground-breaking or anything
- so don't say I said that

spacecoyote

Skerries wrote: »

this reminds me of when The Abyss came out and then we had Deep Star Six and Leviathan after

I always thought of Leviathan as more of an Alien rip-off than an Abyss rip off. Remember finding it quite enjoyable

mikhail

spacecoyote wrote: »

I always thought of Leviathan as more of an Alien rip-off than an Abyss rip off. Remember finding it quite enjoyable

I watched it largely because Ron Cobb did the set design. I'd agree it's more inspired by Alien than The Abyss, but I would imagine it was sold to the studio as another undersea adventure like The Abyss because that's how studios think.

pixelburp

Yet another film my local IMC isn't showing. In recent times that makes JoJo Rabbit, The Lighthouse and now this. Plenty of screenings for Dolittle though. Jesus wept.

correction

Went to see it Friday night but there was some weird problem with the copy the cinema had. The dialogue audio was not in the film. Every other piece of audio was fine. The film starts with a bit of inner monologue and you can even hear that but when characters were actually talking to each other it was inaudible. Staff were all apologies and everyone got free tickets for any other film in the future. It definitely looked like something I'd be into tbf but we did not stay long once we knew it could not be fixed.

Outlaw Pete

An enjoyable enough popcorn flick. Perfect runtime, not needlessly drawn out as can be the case with a lot of similar type movies.

Skerries

correction wrote: »

The dialogue audio was not in the film. Every other piece of audio was fine. The film starts with a bit of inner monologue and you can even hear that but when characters were actually talking to each other it was inaudible.

In film, no one can hear you talk!

Fysh

Saw this tonight, it was enjoyable enough. It doesn't outstay its welcome and drops you pretty much straight into the action. A bit daft at times and more jump-scares than I thought the material needed, but good performances throughout and a better quality of dialogue than this kind of film usually gets.

WrenBoy

A last minute decision to go see this I saw one trailer weeks ago and had low expectations. There are some Alien references some subtle ones

The shapes in the cement wall at one stage look like the xenomorph facehuggers

and I got a big The Thing vibe with the opening music on the establishing shot. I found I really liked TJ Miller's character and he was actually funny (I usually just find him annoying) and I liked the pacing. I thought the set design and the look of the suits were great.
Lots of jump scares though which is a gripe I have with current "horror" as I find it cheap. They have a place but after a while they become predictable and boring.
Definitely a film which benefits from theatre viewing imo as the surround sound and darkness add to the emptiness and tension of exterior underwater scenes. I saw this in a near empty theatre.

I found myself getting a little confused towards the end though.

What did the giant monster blow up with his hand? I assumed it was the facility they were attempting to enter but they then entered it afterwards and where did the other 2 go to avoid the explosion ??

All in all a solid little Sci/Fi Horror Action flick.

Homelander

The design was the best part of the movie - it looks pretty good, but it's fairly hollow and uninspired. Not terrible but not good, unremarkable acting, weak script, just leaves no lasting impression at all. Had the potential to be a wonderful underwater homage to Alien, but ends up being one of those soulless Italian rip-offs - a fun watch, but nothing worth talking about.

don't bother watching this - it offers nothing really.

completely pedestrian, cliche-ridden and boring.

not a thrill to be found.

Stewart's performance was ok but it's just a poor film.

3/10

pixelburp

Wears its xenomorph influences so brazenly on its sleeve, it only invited more comparison to its genetic cinematic antecedent. Alien by way of 7 miles under the ocean, from its admittedly striking industrial aesthetic, right down to the shaved head of its lead protagonist. Very boilerplate stuff and passingly entertaining, sure. And it obviously had a healthy budget for its world-building which - in a world of franchise blockbusters - is worth noting. But beyond looking for similarities, there wasn't a lot to consider really. Competent with good, grounded production design and kept its action moving forward; that's kinda it. Aggressively one dimensional stuff.

The crucial flaw here was a complete absence of character: dropping the viewer right at the point of disaster was a ballsy move; but at only 90 minutes runtime, there was space enough for 20 minutes of geographic & personality introductions. It was arguably the biggest part of Alien not entirely cribbed. Back then, we got to know the crew & internal politics of the Nostromo before the axe fell, heightening the sense of place and tension. Here it just felt like a checklist of empty vessels, with clumsy exposition backfilling characters - sometimes after they were killed off, which was a particularly strange writing choice.

I can see why this 2017 production was shunted around Fox for 3 years. Not egregiously awful, but nothing remotely special either, even for a fan of that low-fi "working stiff" era of SciFi. That it exists at all when we're surrounded by $150 million event movies is probably the most praiseworthy aspect.

Dades

I don't disagree with any of the above.

But it was fun to watch. And to be fair to Kristen Stewart she was excellent in her Ripley role.

pixelburp

Honestly if they just spent 15, 20 minutes with the cast before sh*t hit the fan, I would have probably liked the movie more. Opening on a superficially philosophical voiceover was a weird choice too. The writers probably thought they could fill the blanks as the plot went on, but it didn't work IMO. And the best piece of character work (

The Captain's daughter

) was buried in a passing moment after the character was offed.

Dades

Maybe the Alien comparisons would have been off the scale if they'd had them sitting around bouncing off each other. In a way they've avoided a cliche, though maybe not to their gain.

Mind, Alien is over 40 yrs old. It's like Forbidden Planet era SF to most of the people who watch this.

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

Honestly if they just spent 15, 20 minutes with the cast before sh*t hit the fan, I would have probably liked the movie more. Opening on a superficially philosophical voiceover was a weird choice too. The writers probably thought they could fill the blanks as the plot went on, but it didn't work IMO. And the best piece of character work (

The Captain's daughter

) was buried in a passing moment after the character was offed.

yes, that jarring opening was also a fail for this movie.

Inviere

pixelburp wrote: »

Honestly if they just spent 15, 20 minutes with the cast before sh*t hit the fan, I would have probably liked the movie more.

This. There was zero engagement with any of the characters for me, And as a result, the film very quickly became a hot pile of garbage. A thoroughly unoriginal waste of time.

Josey Wales

pixelburp wrote: »

Honestly if they just spent 15, 20 minutes with the cast before sh*t hit the fan, I would have probably liked the movie more. Opening on a superficially philosophical voiceover was a weird choice too. The writers probably thought they could fill the blanks as the plot went on, but it didn't work IMO. And the best piece of character work (

The Captain's daughter

) was buried in a passing moment after the character was offed.

What was the story about the

Captain's daughter

? I kind of zoned out a one point and then missed it.

pixelburp

Josey Wales wrote: »

What was the story about the

Captain's daughter

? I kind of zoned out a one point and then missed it.

Basically

during a chat the captain said his daughter was 14, but NotRipley corrected him saying she was 21. He laughs in an "oh yeah, right enough" sorta way. Later, after the captain's death, we get a close up of NotRipley going through his locker and inside is a funeral card for .. his daughter, died age 14

So not particularly exciting, but structured really messily so that, as you demonstrate, it was easily missed; explained after the character died, so completely pointless. Again, the sort of thing you'd set up during those 20 minutes introductions, before having the twist later before the character is offed.

I wonder if there's a better structured version in the editing room. The film was shot in 2017 and sat in limbo before Disney shoved it out as a last gasp of the Fox label IIRC. Could well have gotten butchered in a hasty theatrical edit. Not like there wasn't money put into it, the film looked great.

StringerBell

Trailer looks, ok, with this quarantine I'm watching a lot of stuff I probably wouldn't otherwise so I might download this later for a bit of mindless entertainment

StringerBell

StringerBell wrote: »

Trailer looks, ok, with this quarantine I'm watching a lot of stuff I probably wouldn't otherwise so I might download this later for a bit of mindless entertainment

unfortunately it's not even worth it as mindless entertainment....

Dades

glasso wrote: »

unfortunately it's not even worth it as mindless entertainment....

Opinions differ. Most would have enjoyed it as mindless entertainment. Picking apart some obvious choices that could have elevated the film, does not mean it isn't worth a watch when we're all stuck at home.

StringerBell - go for it.

Inviere

glasso wrote: »

unfortunately it's not even worth it as mindless entertainment....

I have to agree, & I'm fairly easily pleased when it comes to films There are FAR better entries in the genre than this.

if you want something to scratch this type of itch I actually thought that

Life - 2017 was actually quite good. If you haven't seen that definitely watch it over this underwater drivel.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5442430/