If The Dive’s final stretch feels a bit less urgent than what precedes it, one appreciates that the filmmakers did not pile on the usual melodramatic gotchas, hewing to a relatively realistic course of events.
What follows is a race against the clock, cleverly constructed by director Maximilian Erlenwein and co-writer Joachim Hedén. Their script throws in plenty of calamities to nobble the diver’s escape, but didn’t quite manage – for me at least – to spark a vertiginous clammy terror.
The film itself has a commendable logic and credibility, but perhaps lacks a little of the pulse-racing intensity that might have made it a more obviously commercial proposition.
The Dive uses its underwater setting to add new thrills to a formulaic survivalist story, even if its attempts at emotional depth end up feeling a little shallow.
50
RogerEbert.comBrian Tallerico
RogerEbert.comBrian Tallerico
The Dive feels routine, a soggy journey from point A to point B that doesn’t do anything interesting enough to make it stand out in the dog days of summer.