Tag: Thriller

The Russo Brothers and Tom Holland go together like Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. Both of them have careers that sometimes intersect and sometimes produce good movies. Yes, I did come up with that comparison myself, why do you ask?

I have a big fan of the Russos since their episodes on Community, and honestly, don’t know if they have done anything bad up to this point. They have done basically all of the best Marvel movies, so it is good to see them move on to a different source material. A book I have never heard of before. And if they bring along someone hoping to break from their boyish and charming mold, then it would be hard to pick someone better than Tom Holland right now.

What is Cherry about? I bet it ain’t about fruit.

I think the Russo brothers intentionally made him look like Tobey Maguire Spider-Man here.

Cherry (Tom Holland) (I can’t really tell you if that is his first name or last or what) is a young college student, a bit off, a bit popular or cool, but still a bit out there. And he sees a girl, Emily (Ciara Bravo, also hoping to lose her kids tv channel roots) and he wants her. He has a girlfriend back at home, but she is the past, Emily is the future.

They begin to couple, and they have a time, but Emily doesn’t know if he is good for her, and decides some forced time apart is important. She goes to Montreal, so he decides to enlist, having not left in his life.

The rest of the film deals with his basic training, his time overseas, the amount of fucked up shit he sees over there, his PTSD from those events, and of course, some nice opioid and heroin addiction leading to a life of crime.

Is that not enough for you? It should be. It is quite a lot of topics for our hero (?) to hit and endure, and it is over 2 hours to make sure it has some breathing room. But not much.

Also starring Jack Reynor, Forrest Goodluck, Jeff Wahlberg, and Damon Wayans Jr.

Oh shit, and now he looks like Uncle Ben’s killer?

I described Cherry as a thrill ride already, but it really is a wild movie. A Wild Cherry film, if you will. I stole that joke from another, but it is okay, because I set them up for it when I was delirious. If I was a smarter man on that day, I would have made it on my own.

This film feels like it definitely was meant to get people to not think of Holland as some sweet kid (And so was the point of The Devil All The Time, right?).  We need to see if Holland can be a mega movie star on his own without the backing power of Disney behind him, and I truly do think he delivers. His character is fast talking, crass, and absolutely in love despite showing it in a weird way. I couldn’t catch a break for this film because the characters in the movie can’t catch them either. Some of the war scenes just totally made my heart sink, and were put in just to show the absurdity of everything in life and how people can just suck.

This is a much better film than the also recently released Chaos Walking, also starring Holland. It is so hard to describe outside of just the topics presented. It feels timely and fresh though nonetheless. It didn’t give me the same feelings of angst as other recent releases like Greenland, but it is still up there in quality. Not for the feint of heart. They use naughty language in this movie. t

3 out of 4.

You gotta pay the Troll Toll, if you wanna get into that boy’s soul. Or something like that. I could have also went with the pop culture reference of, A toll is a toll, and a roll is a roll, and if we don’t get no tolls, then we don’t eat no rolls. Not sure if any other iconic toll related quotes.

The Toll is an upcoming horror movie that deals with the scariness of having to pay a fine to cross a bridge or use a highway. (That is also a joke). In reality, a toll can be anything. A price you have to pay for hopefully a safe journey is the goal really.

In this movie, the toll won’t be be a monetary thing though. No, it will involve some death instead.

Death by Uber? That is a real thing though!Cami (Jordan Hayes) is just flying in to her hometown, a late night flight. She hasn’t been here in a good long time. And because it is the modern age, she is just going to get an Uber or some similar service to take her to her home so that she doesn’t have to wake her parents. She didn’t put the destination in the app, so she has to do it when in the vehicle and it sure is a long way away.

The driver, Spencer (Max Topplin) agrees to do it, because hey, even though it is late, it is going to be a fat payday, and better to take the guarantee. He is a bit awkward, tries to make the small talk, but Cami doesn’t really want to. She thinks he is creepy, and he thinks she is creepy too.

Eventually, once they get more to the boonies, the GPS has him take a path that she is not used to, but she agrees that he can just follow it, should be no big deal. And then eventually, after some weird moments, they find themselves stranded. Cami doesn’t trust her driver, and thinks this is all a ruse to “get her” and her driver is annoyed at all of this and isn’t sure how to handle the situation either.

But eventually, there are going to be people or things in the dark, and if they want to get out of it, there will be a price to pay.

“I would give this trip zero stars if it would let me.”Without knowing the plot of the movie as I went into it, the intro to the film was very interesting to me. It felt like a normal intro to a horror movie. One that would be 5 to 10 minutes top, then the scary bad guy or entity would get the kill, and then we would switch to the main characters to continue with the plot. A lot of films do something similar.

And this one didn’t. The intro the movie was the intro to our main characters and we just hop immediately into their story. It was a gradual realization, one that really finally hit me about 30 minutes in.

This is a film that really takes its time to build up the initial scares and weirdness. We get regular creepy Uber driver vibes early on, but when it transforms into something else, it is a good transformation for us to make.

The main two leads did a good job of really selling the situation they were in. I enjoyed it for at least two-thirds of the movie. I think it was very messy by the end of the movie. It didn’t make as much sense to me, although it did save a final twist when I was no longer expecting twists. So that is fun. That little bit saved the film for me, because the ending wasn’t pacing out to be that great of a movie. I disliked a lot of the parts of the movie when they left the vehicle and the mythos actually unfolded, but there was enough at the  end to keep things interesting.

Overall, the film is okay, but could have easily been terrible. It is thanks to the two leads, and the slow build up to really set the atmosphere right.

2 out of 4.

The tale of Narco Sub coming out is not longer or more arduous than other films, but it is still notable. It is just one of the many films that was set to come out early in 2020, hit some festivals, and then maybe get a wider release in theaters.

The director, Shawn Welling, was unable to release the movie in theaters, at a time when theaters are definitely hurting and wanting more and more new material. Instead, it ended up being released on Amazon, not as a part of Amazon Prime, but just a thing you can buy and rent for a pretty high price.

Pretty ballsy of an approach, given that the director has a ton of work that most people would say they haven’t heard about before.

Look moody and mean. That’ll show them. Bruce Stryker (Tom Vera) is a narcotics officer, trying to bring an end to all this drug stuff coming in to our USA from the South Americas. He is good at what he does, and sometimes he has to go on ground missions to really help save the day.

His job has took him to literal Columbia, where he moved his wife (Sydney Ruddock) and daughter (Alexis Arnold) in order to combat the drug crisis. Seems like a strange idea, but okay. And sure enough, after helping put an end to a hostage crisis that involved a Senator’s daughter, he finds his own family in hot water.

Now the cartel has taken his wife and daughter and might kill him! But they won’t, if he totally gets on a sub full of drugs, and helps get it to America in one piece, to sell all of the drugs to the citizens. So I guess our agent now has to go against the law, good times.

Also starring Tom Sizemore, Lee Majors, Robert LaSardo, Jim Jimenez, and Jon Fiore.

I don’t think a single actor in this picture is noted in my tags. There is some bias here, I will say, because this is not the first Welling film I have seen. It is the first to get a review on the website, but not the first I have had to write about in other sources. This is maybe my sixth film of his. The others were all gigantic wastes of time, similar to how I currently find Terrence Malick films, except for at least Malick films I can see a reason why someone might enjoy them.

This one doesn’t feel the same as his previous work. Gone are the weird visuals and big music background numbers. It is an action film and going for that. Unfortunately, the film didn’t become good along the way with the change in directorial style.

This plot is absolutely terrible. From moment a to b to c, it has characters making strange decisions and a lack of payoff by the end. There are quite a few changes in the plot, so it was a bit hard to even type up the outline above, because it went a lot of places to get to the point in the story that the plot cared most about. The ending itself is so quick and disappointing as well. Not the worst ending of the year, but up there.

There is nothing positive about the film to note, and it is a waste of not just your own time, but frankly the people who were in it who had to wait for it to eventually come out.

0 out of 4.

I have had to google this title so many times since I received a screener for it. I cannot have my mind wrapped around The Mauritanian. When I try to type it without looking at the title, my mind goes to The Martian, and that damn The Manchurian Candidate.

Saying it isn’t that bad, while reading it, but then it goes through my brain and out the other. I hope I accidentally type this enough times with the posting of this review so that I will be able to remember the damn movie name.

Mauritanian. Mauritanian. Maurtanian. Mauritanian. Mauritanian. Martanian. Martian. Fuck.

Oh, this intro is rambling, I literally knew nothing about this movie going in to watching it, so let’s get on it with it.

 

Yeah. Hurry up and shine a light on the movie’s plot. 

Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Tahar Rahim) is stuck in (had to google the spelling) Guantanamo Bay. He has been for years, despite no charges being placed against him. Everything they want him to talk about he denies, and he gives them info when he can, but he seemingly is not the high stakes Al-Qaeda member they think he is. 

Damn it. They need people to blame and punish for 9/11, and they are sure he is one of them. 

Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) is a lawyer who has been a defender of the constitution and often goes for clients who no one else  wants to touch. She doesn’t know if she can trust Slahi or if he is innocent. But she does know no one should be contained in a facility, and probably tortured, for any length of time without charges or a chance of a trial. 

So they will have to take on the American government, and George Bush, and the war machine driven by patriotism post 9/11 at the risk of basic freedoms for people who need help the most.

Also starring Shailene Woodley, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zachary Levi, Corey Johnson, and Denis Ménochet.

“Is that someone breaking the constitution I see?”

The (looks at the top of the review) Mauritanian would pair really well with The Report, which also dealt with finding out information about the torture that was taking place in (looks up earlier in review) Guantanamo Bay. We know it now, and honestly, it still doesn’t feel like a big deal, and that really sucks. In The Report, I walked away thinking that the methods were really gross and uncomfortable and my life didn’t change. After watching The (looks up again) Mauritanian, I am even more disgusted and disturbed and I fear nothing will change.

Like, parts of this movie are going to be extremely triggering for people. We have the standard stuff you might be imagining: Blinking erratic lights, sleep deprivation, food water/scarcity, lack of bed, loud metal music, long periods of standing.  But they did a whole lot more too. We have rape. We have threats of harm to family members. We have threats involving bringing family members to Guantanamo, frail old ones, who will then also be raped, and hurt. Just to get info out of someone who knows nothing. 

Oh, this is a true story by the way. The Guantanamo Diary tells the story of a prisoner’s life for 14 years, of his torture, of his lack of rights and his struggle to just stay alive. Fuck.

The acting from Rahim is top notch in this film, and its saving grace, because everyone else is forgettable. (I did enjoy Cumberbatch’s accent though). He is hard to hate and easy to love, and you hate that this is happening to a person on America’s watch. And we know a lot of this happened, to many people, good or bad. It is disgusting. 

I would say some of the camera work in the flashback scenes are something that almost dropped this movie another rating. But I like the story, and think it is important story worth seeing and experiencing. It is okay going into it knowing eventually he will be freed, but despite that, the struggles are still felt. 

The (damn it) Mauritanian might just be forgotten about over time, like The Report quickly was, and what constantly happens about torture. But for now, it is rough, and worth the watch. 

3 out of 4.

 

The Little Things, if I do say so, was probably the most hyped up movie coming out in January, 2021. Sometimes it is hard to say that with certain, but for movies that hit theaters and online at the same time, I think I saw more advertisements for this on social media than any other movie this month. Heck, I was excited to see it. But the more ads, the worse some of them look.

For example, most ads ended up looking something like this. Great, cool, advertising the three leads, looks suspenseful, that is what it is going for.

But I also saw an ad like this for Cinemark. In teacher land, sometimes we ask questions to get students to discuss, usually “What do you notice, what do you wonder?” And well, I found the Cinemark ad odd, given that it focused on two thirds of the leads, leaving out the one who happens to be black.

Is it to highlight academy awards? I hope not, because Denzel has two for acting, compared to the others having one each. (And arguably those single Oscars are pretty debatable for each of their roles). It is just something I notice and wonder. You know. The Little Things.

Yes, yes, I was in Suicide Squad. Please, please. No Autographs.

Joe ‘Deke’ Deacon (Denzel Washington) is small town sheriff far outside of the city of LA, working where things are calm most of the time, but still good at his job. He is asked by his superior to head to the city though, to pick up some evidence they have for a case.

Turns out, Deke used to work at that same precinct about 5 years back before an incident. He became transferred from the area, and accepted his new life of solitude. He does minimal snooping around, because he’d prefer to be there and out and not stay and hang with his former coworkers. But, there is an interesting new case. And Jim Baxer (Rami Malek), a young hot shot detective who wears suits and has a family and charisma, who got the job with Deke being ousted. Jim just finds Deke interesting and wants his input.

There’s a serial killer afoot it turns out. They might have a live witness too. And some bearings of the kills and bodies might be connected to what Deke was investigating years earlier.

So of course, Deke puts in some vacation days and decides to hang out longer. He will find this guy, damn it. Also they think it is a person played by Jared Leto.

Also starring Chris Bauer, Michael Hyatt, Sofia Vassilieva, and Terry Kinney.

Don’t cross the tape they say. Don’t murder they say.Acting. Acting is important. And the advertisements for this film really wanted to make sure you knew that for the main three roles of this movie we had three academy award winners for acting. That way the viewer can walk up and go, “Hot damn, look at all that acting talent, I am in!” at the theaters or, more likely, on HBO Max.

And sure enough, Washington, Malek, and Leto, act pretty darn good. Washington doesn’t just play a serious good cop, you can tell he is also obsessive and willing to skirt the law. Malek normally plays more serious characters, or friendly characters, I don’t think I’ve seen him play the young hot shot charismatic type before. (Yes, this is very different than Freddie Mercury). Leto just has to play a mysterious and smart normal person who may or may not be a serial killer. Seems like that is in Leto’s normal wheelhouse.

So if you want to see two hours of some cop drama and investigating with some pros (mostly Denzel is the driving force here), then sure, go for it.

But damn do I hate the overall plot and final act of this movie. It throws in some surprising (ish) moments and it leaves some things up in the air, but not in a satisfying way. Prisoners, for example, was a long cop drama, with questionable actions along the way, with an ending that wasn’t fully explained or finished, but still extremely satisfying and fulfilling at the same time. This ending feels hollow and absent. This ending doesn’t make me want to see the movie again. It just leaves me disappointed.

And you don’t want to leave a movie feeling unfulfilled and disappointed, even if the acting was top notch. Jut the mystery wasn’t worth the time.

2 out of 4.

Well clearly Netflix is just cruel. Less than two weeks after the tragic news, they go out and release the film The White Tiger. Couldn’t they have waited? Do they have no shame or heart?

I am of course talking about the death of Siegfried Fischbaker, who died on January 13, 2021, which happened within a year of his partner, Roy Horn, dying on May 8, 2020. So soon after the duo has left our world, they decide it is appropriate to release a movie about their tigers? Is there even a god?!

…

Wait, this movie has nothing to do with the tragic act of Siegfried and Roy, but is just based on a novel of the same name, and dealing with a part of the world where white tigers are occasionally a thing. My bad. But I will still be sad about the magic duo leaving our world, if you don’t mind.

Those American girls with their low cut shirts and hatred of modern slavery, what gives?!Our story is mostly told through flashbacks, so I will not talk about the overall narrator level of the story, just what the flashback story is about. Which is about Balram (Adarsh Gourav). He grew up a poor kid in a poor area to a poor family. Family means everything in India, as does respecting your elder members, and giving back what they gave you eventually. People grow up and usually don’t find success, but still have to bring money home to help support the family.

Balram has big ideas and dreams though. He is going to defeat the caste system, and become rich and powerful. Which is generally impossible in a strong caste based society. But he has the drive, (literally he learns to do just that) in order to become a driver with a rich and successful family. Because he knows if he has an in, he can grow further and change his destiny.

But at what lengths will Balram go to achieve success? And if he does the unspeakable, will he feel guilty about the final result, or proud at overcoming corruption?

Also starring Rajkummar Rao, Priyanka Chopra, Mahesh Manjrekar, Vedant Sinha, Kamlesh Gill, Vijay Maurya, and Sanket Shanware.

This is a story about a rise to power, and a growth to moustache. 

I went into The White Tiger expecting nothing, and I was surprised to find something far greater than nothing. Seriously. I am trying to review some movies that are bad here, and checking out new Netflix releases usually gets me something, but for the most part this month they have been on it, and everything is at least decent if not great. How dare you Netflix up your quality. Where is the bad shit? Where?!

Ahem. The White Tiger was good Gourav is a charismatic lead and narrator, and you want to know his story. His rise to power seems impossible so it is a compelling story to see how he goes from basic Indian servant to someone who answers to no one. It does a good job of teasing the eventual conclusion along the way, and giving snippets of what our main character is capable along the way.

But more importantly, I LOVE the ending. When the narrator compares it traditional Indian narratives, and how this story is different, it goes really hard with its message and I am all here for it. Go you fictional character, go you!

The supporting cast is fine as well, but no one really musters up to Gourav, because they aren’t going to be given a chance. They really are just supporting characters in one man’s story.

The White Tiger gives me a look on India/Delhi that is not entirely accurate, but certainly a look you don’t get often in Bollywood pictures.

3 out of 4.

Ya’ll ever hear about the Mothman? You know, the large moth like creature the size of the man? With its glowing red eyes and soft gentle plan? With its wings like a moth and its chicken frying on the pan? With its beacon of doom and its skin never tan?

Sorry, I wanted to rap a little bit about Mothman.

A lot of people know about the Mothman thanks to the book and movie called The Mothman Prophecies. It had Richard Gere and Laura Linney! That is definitely when I first heard about it, dealing with events leading up to a bridge collapse in West Virginia in the 60’s.

Maybe if you read the book before that you heard of it, or lived in West Virginia, or near West Virginia. It is there Loch Ness Monster up in the woods. It goes back decades and people like to talk about seeing the Mothman and how it is a bringer of doom, or a warning, or a symbol.

In this documentary, The Mothman Legacy, they examine the legacy of the….uh….Mothman.

Actual Mothman picture. No, just kidding, just another graphic.

In this documentary we have interviews with people who claim to have seen the Mothman when they were younger, or when they were old, and how it led to something in their life. How they can swear they never heard about it before but described it to their siblings who say they saw the same thing.

We also have interviews with people who were there in the 60’s and saw or dealt with the bridge collapse, and the mood of the town at that point. We have people who have their own Mothman museum and the Mothman festival that happens yearly. And heck, we even got an expert about Native American tribes in the area and the reason why their mountains were left alone.

And that is what the documentary gives you. If that sounds like a hoot and a holler, then go for it. But I can only take so much ominous noises as background music, with artist rendered Mothmen, and hear these stories over and over before wanting something different.

And sure, it tried to break it down into sections and themes, but they didn’t feel different enough to me to basically keep giving the same format. Sure, they had a specific topic or time frame or whatever. But by golly, and I don’t mean to swear, it was a bit drab. Boring. Sleep inducing.

I wasn’t going into this expecting to be convinced about an urban legend or anything. I was expecting just…something more exciting. But this is presented in its best made for TV special format, with easy to insert commercial breaks, like something that could be on the History Channel. And I mean the modern History channel, not the old one.

Moths were already relatively uninteresting to me, but I guess so now are the Mothman stories.

1 out of 4.

On the second night of Fantastic Fest my screeners gave to me, a film with a non-descript title!

Girl premiered on Friday, September 25, the second night of Fantastic Fest, but the review is coming late (despite me watching it early) because I wanted to also be able to link a review with the director. That interview is here.

Girl is unique in that out of all the movies coming out this week for the festival, it already has a publisher (out in November) and actually has some actors your are likely to recognize! And that probably makes it the most hyped up film of the festival.

This is the most non-descript Thorne has ever looked. Girl (Bella Thorne) travels home. Girl has letter. Girl mad at someone? Girl mad at daddy. Girl want kill daddy!

Girl in small town. Girl don’t remember others. Girl go to house. Girl can’t find daddy. Girl eventually find daddy. Daddy dead! No! Girl want kill daddy! Daddy already dead. 🙁

Girl tell cop (Mickey Rourke). Girl tell others. Girl fend off Charmer (Chad Faust). Girl sleuth. Girl figure out mystery. Girl find daddy killer.

Also starring Lanette Ware, Glen Gould, and Elizabeth Saunders.

A lot of zoomed in faces, what is this, Les Miserables? Girl gives off a real small town vibe in a few ways. One, small amount of locations. Two, the locations used are run down. And three small amount of characters.

Speaking of characters, they all are not given names that are given to us, but referred to by other things like Girl, or Charmer. It gives a unique “everywhere” feel to the film, and lets you insert your own character names into the roles if you’d like. It also makes the IMDB page for these actors look like they did when they first were getting roles in tv and film.

The story for this movie is really simple, but one that has emotional weight. This is all mostly due to Thorne in the lead role. I know she has a lot of flack lately for various reasons, but she does nail this role.

Given the simplistic nature, I did want something a bit more overall still. I personally could never feel attached to the store and only maintained a small interest in its resolution. I needed some other hook to really go hard with the emotional journey they went on.

It definitely is a film with promise and does a lot with its presumed limited resources at the disposal. And worth it for those fans of Thorne.

2 out of 4.

The Vast of Night is certainly not a film I had heard of before receiving a screener. Starring no one famous, by a first time director, with a low budget, not going to theaters.

“But nothing is going to theaters now!” Well, yeah, I know that. But this might have never gone to theaters if they were open. Instead, it is on Amazon Prime (as of Friday, May 29).

And now you know why I am just going to start the intro.

And after this review, we will plug you back into your regularly scheduled scrolling on your social medias.

DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) and Fay Crocker (Sierra McCormick) are two younger kiddos living out in New Mexico in the 1950’s. They are both hip in the tech world too. DJ Everett is the host of his own radio show in his local community, full of interviews of people from town and elsewhere, hoping to make it big and leave his small community. Fay is interested in the future of technology and getting better at it herself, and is his switch board operator for the show.

During one night, most of the community is caring more about a local basketball game, but the show must go on. And in the early parts of the show, Fay hears a strange noise, one she has never heard before, nor has anyone she asks. In fact, when she brings this to Everett’s attention, this becomes their new focus, playing it for others to see if they can help them figure out what made that noise.

And they get a call. A mysterious person. Saying they heard the noise before, long ago, but afraid to let that story go public. This leads to another story, more secrets, more missing people, and more disbelief.

But this is 1950’s New Mexico and a small town, what could possibly be tormenting this town?

Also starring Gail Cronauer and Bruce Davis.

Yes, we get people talking on the phone, get hyped!

This is clearly a film on a small budget. Don’t worry, it is obvious to the viewers what must be going on really early on, and only isn’t obvious to those in the movie given the time period it is taken during. A lot of it is a set up for the ending, but despite the budget, you will get to see something for those afraid they won’t.

Most of it is teasing to the ending, as I just said, so we are relying on characters literally just talking to each other. Thankfully, the director decided to go with long takes for most of these conversations, so they ooze out natural pacing and behavior. One of the two main story tellers is only able to be heard on the phone, but Davis has a nice voice to listen to and helped really start the build of the tension. I know what you are thinking. A movie with people talking on the phone for awhile? Is it like Locke? Eh, not really.

It is relatively slower paced early on and really takes awhile to feel tense, but by the end tense it is despite the still relatively low stakes. The cinematographer and composer really put in good work to make the build up. It was an average movie for most of it until it built up by the end.

The leads of Horowitz and McCormick work extremely well together and do a lot of work with not just their words, but their faces as well. They have that curiosity and drive to solve their own mystery with their own individual reasons behind it.

The Vast of Night is a low key film that will build up the thrills by the end, dealing with strange sounds and radio waves, and great performances from its leads.

3 out of 4.

To start this review, let’s talk about Underwater as a concept.

What does it mean to be underwater? Usually, someone who says that they are underwater means they have water above them. And they are rarely actually under water while speaking, because that is hard to do when surrounded by water.

But if you have water over you, there is a good chance you still have more water under you too. Right? To be under something you really just need to be under a little bit of it apparently. You can be completely surrounded by water, so why would you be so weirdly specific in order to just say you are under it?

Seems ridiculous. Speaking of being ridiculous and not super specific, let’s get on to the review.

Not much water surrounding these folks!

As you will try to read very quickly at the start of the film, as newspaper headlines/taglines/regular lines flash across the screen with the occasional strobe, there are big underwater research/drilling sites. Super big, bottom of the ocean, with drills going far down. Why? Energy or something. And I guess some earthquakes are happening and weird things. But we don’t have time for that.

We only have time for Norah (Kristen Stewart), who is contemplating what it means to exist and sleep and work, when the explosions immediately start rocking the ship. Panic, running, and immediately she helps save the day by blocking the water from blowing up the whole place. Norah, along with some stranglers she meets (Mamoudou Athie, T.J. Miller) make it up to the escape pods, and darn it, they are already gone.

She does meet the captain (Vincent Cassel) and some more crew members (Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr.) and realize they don’t have much time to get out. The top is collapsing. The bottom is flooded. They make a quick plan to descend to the sea floor, get int these sweet underwater suits, and walk a long distance to an older station that should still have some escape pods. It is their only chance.

But what caused the explosions down there? What made the horrible sounds in the last drill recording, what is banging on their walls, and what is out for their blood?

Not great for speed swimming, but good for not blowing up purposes.

I expected Underwater to be much worse than it actually ended up being.

I saw a giant standee for it a few months ago and sent it to my wife that it would be bad. It had T.J. Miller on the standee, third name! What? The Bomb threat guy? The one who beat his girlfriend? The drunk and wants to fight man? Why is he in a movie right now?

Oh, turns out this was made in 2017, before a lot of that, and took forever to come out.

Now surprinsgly, it wasn’t completely terrible. Miller was terrible yes. And the film early on had an issue where it refused to let the audience fully react to scenes or let us see how characters got out of a jam. Quick jumps in time, that gets us through potentially boring struggles I guess? One quite annoying one had them crashing to the sea floor on a ride, hurrying to get the door open to jump, and then the next instant they were all on the sea floor running. What the hell? Where’s my jump?

A lot of the film uses the dark depths and hard to distinguish up/down to its advantage to confuse the viewer. But honestly, the monsters were really a cool design. I love what they did with them. Reminded me of underwater ghost vampires in a way, and sure, Cthulhu in another.

This film gets straight to the point at the beginning, and isn’t a long run time. It is relatively predictable, but it has some sweet visuals that can produce some scares and some relatively fun moments.

2 out of 4.