Leviathan

Directed by George P. Cosmatos, Leviathan details the chaos that ensues aboard a deep-sea mining station following the discovery of a Soviet wreck – with the film revolving around the crew’s ongoing (and increasingly desperate) efforts to survive. It’s almost impossible to discuss Leviathan without making a reference (or three) to James Cameron’s far, far superior Aliens, as the movie, written by David Webb Peoples and Jeb Stuart, boasts a storyline and atmosphere that often seems to be going out of its way to harken back to Cameron’s first Alien sequel – with the familiar vibe, at the outset, not as problematic as one might’ve feared. There’s little doubt that the film benefits substantially from Ron Cobb’s consistently impressive production design and the better-than-expected performances, with, in terms of the latter, the movie’s eclectic cast boasting strong work from folks like Peter Weller, Richard Crenna, and Daniel Stern. The watchable feel persists up until Leviathan rolls into its egregiously padded-out midsection, as Cosmatos ultimately spends far too much time dwelling on the various characters’ day-to-day exploits aboard the mining station – to the extent that it becomes impossible not to wish that the aforementioned threat would hurry up and make its appearance, already. By the time all hell does break loose, however, the viewer has long-since lost the ability to work up any real interest in the fates of the various characters. And although Cosmatos has infused several of the kill sequences with an appreciatively gory sensibility, Leviathan, in the end, comes off as a stale rehash of far too many prior like-minded, thematically-similar science fiction thrillers.

** out of ****