Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

'20 Ft Below: The Darkness Descending' was another film seen with not high expectations. Was worried as to whether it would be silly and do nothing new with a tired concept. It was though another film seen out of curiosity for primarily Danny Trejo, who can save bad projects and is one of those watchable enough actors too often poorly used.It was a good thing that expectations were not high because '20 Ft Below: The Darkness Descending' fails to deliver in many, make that most or even almost every, ways. It is not one of the worst films seen, of its genre and overall. It's not even among the worst of my recent film viewings which has seen a lot of above average to gem standard stuff and just as much wastes of potential. That Trejo is the best thing about it, being the actor who tries most without over-compensating and there are signs of his bad-ass persona, but criminally underused in a caricature role with a far too short screen time says a lot about the film's quality. Generally the actors try too hard and come over as cartoonish. Didn't find anything intriguing, investable or rootable about any of the characters and the dialogue is both stilted and over-heated. The direction is flat.Furthermore, the story just doesn't grab the attention, gets pretty silly to the wrong side of camp and hammy and is not easy to follow at times due to being an under-explored kitchen sink of different tones and ideas. It looks poor, very murky and drab in lighting and filmed with next to no care or coherence. In summary, fails to deliver and even Trejo can't save it. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Angel (Danny Trejo) is a tough intellectual anarchist who rules the deep underground of NYC. In the opening scene he kidnaps and kills the wealthy Jason Wells (Peter Dobson) which leads to an unsuccessful police sweep. Jake (Frank Krueger) is an ex-cop who lost his wife, rules the area between the streets and Angel's world. Chelsea (Kinga Philipps) is a reporter who successfully gets an interview with Angel and then takes her time leaving the tunnels.Jake's speeches on his lost love were as badly written and delivered as Angel's anarchy fluff. In fact the whole film had a nausea that reminded me of "Billy Jack."The film is supposed to be a metaphor about living in the dark and alone with Jake representing the microcosm and the underworld the macrocosm. It was done rather sloppily with unrealistic characters.For Trejo fans it is far better than "Voodoo Possession" but not as good as "Bullet." Can't wait for "Volcano Zombies."No sex or nudity. I don't recall any F-bombs.

Naive documentary film maker Chelsea goes into the underground of NYC to investigate the homeless people living in abandoned subway tunnels. She encounters senile former military, a strange artist, teen run aways, crazed former drug addicts, a disgraced ex-cop (Jake), and a self- righteous gang (the Chosen) of violent cretins led by Angel.Chelsea interviews a few of the cops (whose leaders want some action against the Chosen), Angel himself, the artist, two teen runaways, and Jake. The Chosen have it out for Jake and the teens.So, what happens in the inevitable show down?-----Scores-----Cinematography: 7/10 Usually clear enough.Sound: 3/10 Bad leveling. The music played during intervals often seemed irrelevant.Acting: 3/10 Danny Trejo showed his usual screen presence. Louis Mandylor was competent with the few lines he was given. The rest, not so good.Screenplay: 1/10 Were there any points to this film? Not that I saw. Also, the clothes worn were too clean, the people looked way too clean and too healthy. How is it that Jake has a new, spotless bottle of expensive looking booze? How does he have brand new candles in perfectly clean holders? One of the women in the tunnels has a new looking guitar; what are the chances that would not be stolen? The preaching (from Angel and from the group who hang with the artist) seemed out of place, as did the spouting of statistics.

The plot: A naive reporter finds a bigger story than she was expecting when she visits a underground homeless camp in the abandoned subway tunnels of New York City.This is a very low budget film. Unfortunately, it's not one of those inventive independent films that makes up for its lack of budget with bold, new ideas and a maverick spirit. Instead, it's pretty much what you'd expect from a direct-to-video Danny Trejo film: a cool villain, a weak story, and a bit of violence. For some people, that will surely be enough to carry the entire film, but if you're not a Trejo fanatic, you can probably skip this one.The biggest problem is that the homeless people generally don't look very homeless. I'm not saying they have to smell like urine and mumble incoherently, but these people are way too pretty and healthy for me believe that they've actually suffered. One of them has what looks like a brand new guitar. I'm not even sure that I could afford that guitar. You don't have to go all method and make the actors live in a homeless community for a week, but more realism wouldn't have hurt.Some of the characters were pretty cool. Of course, I liked Danny Trejo, and, of course, he played a badass villain. He was sort of interesting: part ubermensch, part cult leader, and part Occupy Wall Street protester. I'm not sure how well all those things mix, especially when he'd segue from discussing the plight of the homeless to some Nietzsche-inspired rant about how the weak deserve their plight. Still, for Trejo fanatics, it's enough to make the film watchable, and he delivers it with his trademark hostility and danger. As soon as he enters, it's easy to believe that he's the most dangerous man in any room.The rest of the characters weren't so interesting. Most of them were underwritten and depended on cultural archetypes to give them weight: the crazy homeless guy, the burnt-out ex-cop, the pushy reporter, etc. As long as you don't mind a film full of stock characters that never really transcend their stereotypes, it's fairly survivable. A few of them are well-spoken and even fairly well acted (I liked the crazy homeless guy), but most of the dialogue ends up being clichés, especially after the midpoint. Prior to that point, it seemed like they might be verging on something interesting or insightful, but then they just wander into hack screen writing 101 and never leave.The plot is fairly traditional, and it holds no real surprises. It's the same film that you've seen time and time again, only this time its set underground. If you just want to see Danny Trejo act like a badass, this is a fair choice. If you want more than that, I'd say skip it. I like films about underground societies, but this one really didn't work very well. For an artsy, quirky take on the subject, try Kontroll, an amazing Hungarian film. For a more fantasy-based take, try Nail Gaiman's Neverwhere. I'm not a huge fan of Gaiman, but even the worst of his work is better than this.