'20 Ft Below: The Darkness Descending' was another film seen with not high expectations. Was worried as to whether it would be silly and do nothing new with a tired concept. It was though another film seen out of curiosity for primarily Danny Trejo, who can save bad projects and is one of those watchable enough actors too often poorly used.
It was a good thing that expectations were not high because '20 Ft Below: The Darkness Descending' fails to deliver in many, make that most or even almost every, ways. It is not one of the worst films seen, of its genre and overall. It's not even among the worst of my recent film viewings which has seen a lot of above average to gem standard stuff and just as much wastes of potential.
That Trejo is the best thing about it, being the actor who tries most without over-compensating and there are signs of his bad-ass persona, but criminally underused in a caricature role with a far too short screen time says a lot about the film's quality. Generally the actors try too hard and come over as cartoonish.
Didn't find anything intriguing, investable or rootable about any of the characters and the dialogue is both stilted and over-heated. The direction is flat.
Furthermore, the story just doesn't grab the attention, gets pretty silly to the wrong side of camp and hammy and is not easy to follow at times due to being an under-explored kitchen sink of different tones and ideas. It looks poor, very murky and drab in lighting and filmed with next to no care or coherence.
In summary, fails to deliver and even Trejo can't save it. 2/10 Bethany Cox
It was a good thing that expectations were not high because '20 Ft Below: The Darkness Descending' fails to deliver in many, make that most or even almost every, ways. It is not one of the worst films seen, of its genre and overall. It's not even among the worst of my recent film viewings which has seen a lot of above average to gem standard stuff and just as much wastes of potential.
That Trejo is the best thing about it, being the actor who tries most without over-compensating and there are signs of his bad-ass persona, but criminally underused in a caricature role with a far too short screen time says a lot about the film's quality. Generally the actors try too hard and come over as cartoonish.
Didn't find anything intriguing, investable or rootable about any of the characters and the dialogue is both stilted and over-heated. The direction is flat.
Furthermore, the story just doesn't grab the attention, gets pretty silly to the wrong side of camp and hammy and is not easy to follow at times due to being an under-explored kitchen sink of different tones and ideas. It looks poor, very murky and drab in lighting and filmed with next to no care or coherence.
In summary, fails to deliver and even Trejo can't save it. 2/10 Bethany Cox