A surprising dud, this contribution to the late 80s slew of "Aliens Under the Ocean" flicks - a cycle which also includes The Abyss (1989), Deep Star Six (1989) and The Rift (1989) - has a bigger budget and better cast than most, but wastes it's potentially interesting premise on a clunky script and feeble direction, failing either to generate sufficient atmosphere or tension and collapsing into hopeless self-parody by its final act.
The plot plays like a creative mash-up of several previous genre hits, with the obligatory brorrowings from Alien (1979) mixed with elements of The Thing (1982), plus a helping of submarine-movie clichés and traces of Shivers (1974); a futuristic deep-sea mining crew come across the wreck of a Russian naval vessel, and after scavenging the shell they inadvertently bring back a failed Secret Experimental Bio-weapon (those pesky Russkis, always at it with the reckless bio-engineering experiments), in the form of a virulent genetic pathogen that mutates, absorbs and transforms its victims.
If that sounds like a promising set-up, well it is as far as it goes, and for at least the first half-hour Leviathan does the job. However, once the creature-feature elements start to kick in, the film quickly self-destructs into a remarkable mess of incoherent plot dead ends, stilted, poorly framed scenes and repetitive dialogue. While the ick factor is high, and the effects convincing, several key connecting scenes appear not to have made the final edit, and the major action set pieces are handled with so little skill it looks like the director and cinematographer took a toilet break while they were shot.
The monster (or monsters, for they are many) when it appears is an impressive Stan Winston creation, and the concept of live victims remaining conscious and alert even though absorbed into its hide is a pleasingly horrific touch. Unfortunately, again, it's handled so poorly from a visual perspective that it creates little impact, undermining both the design and concept, and the final "it's not over" scare is both cheesily telegraphed and clumsily executed.
With a little more patience, a better director and more creative script this could have become a superior genre film. As it is, it's a tired and listless rehash of other ideas done better elsewhere, whose glossy production values can't conceal the creative bankruptcy at the heart of the project.
The plot plays like a creative mash-up of several previous genre hits, with the obligatory brorrowings from Alien (1979) mixed with elements of The Thing (1982), plus a helping of submarine-movie clichés and traces of Shivers (1974); a futuristic deep-sea mining crew come across the wreck of a Russian naval vessel, and after scavenging the shell they inadvertently bring back a failed Secret Experimental Bio-weapon (those pesky Russkis, always at it with the reckless bio-engineering experiments), in the form of a virulent genetic pathogen that mutates, absorbs and transforms its victims.
If that sounds like a promising set-up, well it is as far as it goes, and for at least the first half-hour Leviathan does the job. However, once the creature-feature elements start to kick in, the film quickly self-destructs into a remarkable mess of incoherent plot dead ends, stilted, poorly framed scenes and repetitive dialogue. While the ick factor is high, and the effects convincing, several key connecting scenes appear not to have made the final edit, and the major action set pieces are handled with so little skill it looks like the director and cinematographer took a toilet break while they were shot.
The monster (or monsters, for they are many) when it appears is an impressive Stan Winston creation, and the concept of live victims remaining conscious and alert even though absorbed into its hide is a pleasingly horrific touch. Unfortunately, again, it's handled so poorly from a visual perspective that it creates little impact, undermining both the design and concept, and the final "it's not over" scare is both cheesily telegraphed and clumsily executed.
With a little more patience, a better director and more creative script this could have become a superior genre film. As it is, it's a tired and listless rehash of other ideas done better elsewhere, whose glossy production values can't conceal the creative bankruptcy at the heart of the project.