This is an example of a cheesy, low-budget idea gone Big-Budget, High-Concept Hollywood. The sole screenplay to date by actor Clark Gregg is an uneasy mix of supernatural thriller, suspense film and psycho-killer-horror with a clumsy exposition. The secondary characters are throw-aways, as the story suffocatingly focuses on a professor and his wife. Harrison Ford plays his role with all the passion of a cigar-store Indian, while Michelle ("Don't hate me because I'm beautiful") Pfeiffer does her boilerplate pained-and-tormented turn, complete with pinched cheeks and crocodile tears. Robert Zemeckis' direction is banal at best. The over-the-top CGI work is largely superfluous and overblown, particularly during the climactic scenes. Some reviewers described this as "Hitchcock-like" but Hitchcock would never have touched such a sub-par script nor depended so heavily on f/x. In fact, "What Lies Beneath" is rather short on suspense. There are, admittedly, a couple of scares but, shamelessly over 2 hours long, this "thriller" is largely inflated and anemic, and more closely resembles bottom-of-the-barrel DePalma.
Review of What Lies Beneath
