|
New movie reviews, DVD reviews, interviews, and all things film.
Home | Archive | About | Cinematical.com | Lists | News | Links | E-mail me | Sign up for my weekly newsletter! Remember Me **1/2 She's Out of My League *** 2009 Oscars More Blank Generation The Box Capitalism: A Love Story Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak Up in the Air The 25 Best DVDs of 2009 More The Decade's Ten Best Films: 2000-2009 My 2003 Interview with Brittany Murphy San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards 2009 Richard Linklater John Woo Jared and Jerusha Hess Essential Halloween Movies Michael Stuhlbarg Jane Campion Bobcat Goldthwait Hugh Dancy Kathryn Bigelow Willem Dafoe: The 2009 CineVegas Interview David Carradine A 2002 Interview with Edward Asner Vinessa Shaw Henry Selick 2008: The Year's Ten Best Films The San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards 2008 The 25 Best DVDs of 2008 Bruce Campbell Darren Aronofsky and Marisa Tomei Josh Brolin A Tribute to Paul Newman Steve Coogan on Hamlet 2 Manny Farber (1917-2008) Bernie Mac (1957-2008) Emily Mortimer Brad Anderson Don Cheadle at CineVegas Abel Ferrara at CineVegas Tina Sinatra My Top 100 Films [Updated] My Top 60 Directors [Updated] The Top 50 Movies of the Past Ten Years (1997-2006) Terry Zwigoff on the new Bad Santa Director's Cut Alfonso Cuarón Interview Guillermo Del Toro Interview Christmas Movies Combustible Celluloid's Big Guide to Halloween & Horror Movies Cult Movies Actress Interview Gallery The Top 100 More Features and Interviews James Agee: The Library of America Collection, by James Agee Just Making Movies, by Ronald L. Davis Guide to Essential Movies, by Joe Leydon Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, by Robert S. Birchard Profoundly Disturbing, by Joe Bob Briggs A Third Face, by Samuel Fuller Dark Lover, by Emily Leider Agee on Film, by James Agee Lulu in Hollywood, by Louise Brooks Negative Space, by Manny Farber 5001 Nights at the Movies, by Pauline Kael More Books Reviews A-C Reviews D-F Reviews G-J Reviews K-M Reviews N-Q Reviews R-T Reviews U-Z The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!
© 1997-2009 Combustible Celluloid |
Below (2002)Rating: 3 Stars (out of 4) Hell and Deep WaterBy Jeffrey M. Anderson
In the last five years, Proteus evolved into Below, and Aronofsky appears as one of three screenwriters and one of a boatload of producers. The new director is David Twohy (The Arrival, Pitch Black), a cult favorite among sci-fi and horror fans. Desite the complications, Below turns out to be a solid little thriller, joining a new breed scary of movies like The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project, The Others, Session 9 and Wendigo. Its scares depend on well-crafted storytelling rather than copious amounts of blood or severed limbs. It's also the second submarine movie this year, after Kathyrn Bigelow's underappreciated K-19: The Widowmaker. Set in 1943, Below takes place on an American sub, the U.S.S. Tiger Shark, which has been on patrol for seven weeks when it comes upon three British survivors of a sunken hospital ship. Things aboard the sub haven't been going right; Lt. Brice (Bruce Greenwood) has assumed command after the sub's captain disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Crew members whisper different versions of the events, trying to sort out the truth, while levelheaded ensign Douglas O'Dell (Matt Davis), on his first mission, tries to keep the men calm. And even though the men consider the female member (Olivia Williams) of the British crew a jinx, she's hardly to blame for what happens next. The Tiger Shark keeps running into a German sub, its air begins running out (the hydrogen mix gets too strong), and someone keeps putting on a Benny Goodman record whenever Brice orders silent running. Half of what goes wrong can be blamed on technical malfunctions, but the other half is just downright spooky. (One scene involving a mirror gave me the willies.) Even with the film's low budget, Twohy and his writers do everything right. Minimal sets used to maximum advantage keep us off-balance, continually bringing up but never answering the question of whether supernatural forces are at work. A crew member who's an avid comic book reader even proposes his own supernatural ending: "What if we were killed during that explosion and those noises we're hearing are rescue workers from the land of the living?" Because the film actually brings it up, we know we can rule out that ending... but not before we consider it for a moment. Thankfully, the correct answer doesn't come out until the very end. Only a silly little epilogue keeps us from leaving the theater still trembling in our swim fins. Starring: Olivia Williams, Nick Chinlund, Matt Davis, Bruce Greenwood, Holt McCallany, Scott Foley, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher |
| Home |
News |
Search Reviews |
Classic Movies |
DVDs |
Features |
Film Books |
Gallery |
Links |
About |
The Rating System |
Email Me |