My quick rating – 3.5/10. I haven’t seen a movie that has me questioning my own eyes in a while. Beneath did that to me in the first thirty seconds. I was gearing up to make a joke about the opening shot looking like someone used stock CGI footage of a spaceship, if such a thing existed, only to realize the entire movie is CGI. That discovery hits right about the time the characters appear, sporting some of the most awkward animated facial expressions I’ve seen since Chandler tried to smile on Friends. I felt like I was watching an extended episode of Love, Death & Robots, just…a mediocre one.
The premise itself isn’t the issue. An exploration mission to an ocean moon of Saturn goes sideways, trapping the crew beneath the ice and dragging them deeper into pressure-crushing waters. They’re running out of air, running out of options, and something toothy is lurking out in the dark. On paper, it’s a fun setup. In execution, it’s a rough ride.
The sharks, if we can call them that, look strangely fake, and not in a stylistic or animated way. More in the “cheap special effects test render” way, you hope no one will ever see. The animation quality varies wildly scene to scene, punctuated by herky-jerky movements that pop up without warning and yank you straight out of the story. Whole sequences feel like placeholders, and by the halfway point, I genuinely wasn’t sure if I was watching an unfinished cut of a movie or stitched-together footage from a video game’s cinematic mode.
The odd part is that the voice acting ends up being the strongest component. Javarius Conway and Helen Stryder – two names I wasn’t familiar with going in – deliver performances that are honestly better than this production deserves. They give the characters a depth that the visuals can’t support, and every time the script leans on them instead of the animation, the film briefly feels alive.
But those flashes aren’t enough. Beneath carries the vibe of something that escaped the editing bay before quality control even got a chance to clock in. The ideas are there, the atmosphere occasionally clicks, but the execution never catches up. It’s too sloppy, too inconsistent, and too unpolished to land in the mainstream in its current form.
I can’t recommend this version, but I am curious, morbidly so, to know what this project is supposed to be. Is this an early cut? A proof-of-concept? A piece of something larger and more refined that’s still coming? Whatever the case, if a more finished product surfaces, I’d be willing to take another dive. As it stands, though, Beneath sinks long before it ever reaches depth.
