I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The first must-see film of the year.

Finally got around to seeing 'Leviathan' and was duly unimpressed. While extracting gold and silver the workers at an undersea mining facility discover a sunk Russian ship and collect a few items from it including a bottle of vodka. Some of them drink it and release a something which goes around killing the few workers because it needs...yes, human blood. So follows a series of clichés taken from other science fiction and horror movies including the last minute no- it's-not-dead-yet cliché. It was not exciting and even the legendary Jerry Goldsmith's music score was a damp squib. The facility itself is huge and only eight people run it. It is a well designed series of sets and miniatures that convey it's huge size. The creature effects are quite good, suitably icky when necessary. Apart from that it was just about bearable. Fine actors like Peter Weller, Hector Elizondo, Daniel Stern and Richard Crenna floundered about and Meg Foster is shamefully under used. Amanda Pays looked pretty though.The plot didn't make sense. What was the monster anyway apart from being a monster? It is also amusing to see how newly formed monsters learn horror movie tropes so quickly. It also struck me that when they first built that huge underwater facility why did they never came across the Leviathan then which was only a five minutes of oxygen in a tank's walk away? Anyway, as a film about the dangers of drinking vodka I suppose it will do.

I give it a 3 because the effects of the monster-mutant thing creature(s) are pretty convincingly done.But this movie is pure B-movie schlock, just with a studio budget. It's a jumble of bits of other, better movies; and is about as generic and predictable as it gets. You feel no tension at all; firstly because it takes half the movie for anything to happen, and secondly you know what's going to happen and who's going to bite it well before the tentacle monster gets them.It really is just "Alien" meets "The Thing" under the sea. Heck, the crew are even mining minerals. All it needed was a nuclear self-destruct.I'd compare it to "Life"... which is practically the exact same movie, now in space, with an even bigger budget.

Leviathan (1989) is my personal favorite film it is an underrated creature film from the 80's starring Peter Weller (RoboCop) and directed by George P. Cosmatos who directed my all time favorite classic sequel Rambo: First Blood Part II and he later worked with Stallone again on Cobra (1986) my two favorite movies. So Leviathan become one of my all time favorite classic creature films and I love this movie to death! I wish they would make more movies like this to day and it is really a shame because special effects that time in the 80's were really good.Stan Winston's creations, while on a second-tier level to some of his other work, are still shudder-worthy. Jerry Goldsmith's score is quite effective and it provides more prestige than this B-movie probably deserves.Leviathan was worth the hassle of those repeat visits to the rental store. The movie transcends its derivative plot structure ("John Carpenter's The Thing wins an ocean vacation and pretends to be Ridley Scott's Alien.") A lot of people are complying that the movie was a rip off Ridley Scott's Alien and John Carpenter's The Thing I personally enjoy it every time I watch the movie. I had an identical experience with Leviathan's underwater monster counterpart The Abyss and DeepStar Six the movie I watched previous month and I thought the movie was a boring, lame a time waster and identical copy of this movie.Plot: Underwater deep-sea miners encounter a Soviet wreck and bring back a dangerous cargo to their base on the ocean floor with horrifying results. The crew of the mining base must fight to survive against a genetic mutation that hunts them down one by one.I love the cast, I love the set, production design, the story and the plot, the horror and action. I do enjoy the creature effects, a lot of people don't care about the creature effects, I disagree. The music score is beautiful, the film goes fast paced around, I am never bored with it. The acting from all the actors are good and enjoyable.All the people that were involved with this film are no longer with us anymore. R.I.P. George P. Cosmatos, Stan Winston, Jerry Goldsmith, Michael Carmine and Richard Crenna. It is really a shame that they are no longer with us anymore.We have the cast that I love: Peter Weller (RoboCop 1, 2), Richard Crenna (Rambo Trilogy), Amanda Pays (The Flash), Daniel Stern (Home Alone 1, 2, Bushwhacked), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters 1,2), Lisa Eilbacher (Beverly Hills Cop), Hector Elizondo (Beverly Hills Cop III) and Meg Foster (They Live).Peter Weller is believable as the calm-mannered supervisor who must maintain a cool head while managing any potentially volatile problems with the crew in an enclosed location where the slightest mistake could have deadly consequences. Amanda Pays, who was the ultimate object of infatuation for nerdy guys like me who enjoyed the The Flash TV series in the 90's and I still do enjoy her in the new Flash, is gorgeous and cool in Leviathan as a mining operative who plans to begin astronaut training after her undersea duty, and this role cements my opinion of her as one of the top 10 most beautiful women of the 1980s. Richard Crenna, excels as the seemingly-shady doctor who, like Ash in Ridley Scott's Alien, may or may not have an agenda all his own. Ernie Hudson and Daniel Stern lend some needed personality and levity to the equation. Lisa Eilbacher is competent in her role that provides one of Leviathan's most unsettling moments.Leviathan is a 1989 Italian-American science fiction horror film directed by George P. Cosmatos and written by David Webb Peoples and Jeb Stuart.Such negatives are distracting. Your ability to ignore such distractions will ultimately determine if you give this a 5 or a 9. Were it a little more humane as it stands, I give it a 10 because It is one of my favorite movies and it is very underrated.

So back in 89 there was a spate of deep sea movies which included James Cameron's 'The Abyss', that movie was the only one to actually do well. I guess its a little ironic that the only other deep sea flick that was of any worth at this time was this movie which just happened to completely and utterly rip off Cameron's previous two mega hits of the era.So the plot here is basically 'Alien' combined with 'Aliens' and 'The Abyss' along with various other horror movies such as 'The Thing'. A small team of undersea miners are on the ocean floor erm...mining stuff, when along the line one crew member discovers a sunken Russian vessel which contains a deadly secret. This turns out to be a mutagen of some kind that infects a crew member killing him, his body then begins to mutate into a sea creature and I'm sure you can guess how this goes.The general idea is not completely identical to the James Cameron 80's filmography, the creature is basically a toxic mutant which is made up of the various dead crew members. This thing absorbs its victims intellect and is physically formed by the crew members bodies...or something like that. The crew members don't appear to be completely dead, more like trapped within this creatures body or they are being slowly absorbed/digested (?). Anyhow the visual design is not entirely shown in the movie, its kept out of sight and hidden behind lots of steel pipes, but what you do see revolves around tentacles (as usual) and snapping maws. The look of of the beast and the way it mutates does run along similar lines to John Carpenter's 'The Thing' where as everything else is 'Alien' within the set of 'The Abyss'.Put it this way the special effects are a solid example of old fashioned hands-on craftsmanship with plenty of blood gore goo and body shock horror, the good old days. Despite the fact Stan Winston, Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. worked on the effects they aren't the best you will see, like I say they are solid and fun for fanboys of the craft but the other movies of the day were better examples. I think the creature is mostly hidden because they knew it wasn't too good, earlier in the film the smaller leech type things were effective but the main creature is a bit of a lifeless lump.The deep sea base set does actually look pretty good with some obviously solid production values in play. Again if you think of the Nostromo and the Deep Core combined then you have a good idea of the visuals. Lots of metal corridors, pipes, gratings, the odd beige coloured medical bay, beige living quarters etc...its all too familiar really. I did like the deep sea diving suits they use which have a nice futuristic realistic look, more like space suits admittedly but that tends to be the way with these types of movies.Although not actually filmed under the sea the film does look very good with some brilliant use of indoor sets, heavy mist and lighting, it does look as though its on the ocean floor. This is helped by good camera angles with the crew in their suits when walking around, a great submerged Russian shipwreck and lots of little floating bits in front of the camera to simulate the deep moving ocean.I guess overall this movie is just way too much of a carbon copy of the other movies I've mentioned. The characters are all extremely clichéd and look like they've just stepped off the set of the 'Alien' franchise. Richard Crenna would be the Ash/Bishop character, Ernie Hudson is Parker, Daniel Stern would be Brett/Hudson, Eilbacher would be Lambert etc...and yes I did just mention Daniel Stern who was totally miscast incidentally oh and his characters name is Sixpack. Along with that the plot trundles by exactly the same as the Scott/Cameron flicks. I mean exactly the same right down to the self destruct finale with loud computer countdown, the company knowing all about the mutagen and setting the crew up and ridiculously similar weapons including the obligatory flame thrower. The finale doesn't really help its case either with a brief shark attack that ends just as quickly as its starts, the coastguard flying overhead at the exact moment the survivors surface and the fact the beastie seemingly comes back from its watery grave. Its a bizarre finale really as we see the creature getting crushed and then the entire deep sea base implodes...yet it manages to survive.The movie then still continues as we see Peter Weller getting his own back on the company director or representative by punching her out!! he knocks out a woman! Everything about the finale just feels tacked on and rushed, as though they weren't sure what to do...and it really shows. It is a fun deep sea thriller but its not very scary truth be told and in an era of sci-fi classics this movie fell well short I'm afraid, but its not a total loss.6/10