What drew me into seeing 'Black Water' in the first place? The reasonably likeable cast, a potentially intriguing story and that it was part of my low budget completest quest and popped up in my recommended for you section. Was also a bit apprehensive, with a less than favourable rating and generally reviews that were lukewarm at best.

'Black Water', when checking it out, certainly could have been much worse. There are definitely worse films about, of the genre and overall. Is it a good film let alone a great one? Not even close. Did it use its potential? No. Is it that bad? Not quite. Does it has redeeming qualities? Yes, but not many. To me, while having learnt not to trust ratings and not worry about going against the grain (though am in the minority here who respects critics opinions and tend to be on the same, or slightly above or below, page as them),the rating is about right and do have to agree with the criticisms here.

Dolph Lundgren is fun to watch and the main reason as to why 'Black Water' wasn't any worse, Lundgren being the best thing of the film.

Some of the story intrigued at the promising start and the music while not the most memorable is at least listenable.

Unfortunately, Jean Claude Van Damme looks fatigued and goes through the motions, he didn't look interested at all or look like he wanted to be there. None of the characters are developed enough and are very difficult to get behind. 'Black Water' looks cheap, especially the badly organised and sometimes incomprehensible editing and catastrophically awful visual effects, so fake looking and doesn't blend well with the setting at all. The action is both dull and chaotic, there is nothing exciting and it's choreographed with no enthusiasm or finesse.

The script is too talky and has no tautness, the pace is flabby and the story gets far too complicated with the twists not being that much of a surprise. The direction seemed indicative of lack of experience or ease.

Overall, not horrendous but severely lacking in many areas. 3/10 Bethany Cox

BLACK WATER is yet another B-movie team-up between action stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, although the latter is in short supply here and only gets about 15 minutes of screen time. Mostly this is a Van Damme vehicle as the ageing hero finds himself betrayed and captured by bad guys and taken aboard a submarine, where he has to figure out how to beat them. It's a cheap and cheerful effort, one with more plotting than you might expect, although there's a fair bit of action too. The fight choreography is below par but Van Damme gives a likeable performance and there are some solid turns from the unknown co-stars too. Hardly amazing, but better than ESCAPE PLAN 2: HADES for sure.

One for JCVD/80s action fans for sure, but this film really delivered a whole lot more than I was expecting!

It's a little slow to begin with, not due to lack of action, but because the storyline takes a little while to develop. Just accept 'Good Guys vs Bad Guys' and then you can enjoy the story. The plot is fast paced and keeps you interested until the very end, and for the most part the acting is at a good enough standard. Visually it is quite impressive, which is a shock considering other non-blockbusters categorised alongside this one.

Martial arts and gun fights galore, this is really all you'd expect from this genre. The suggested split billing of Van Damme and Lundgren is very misleading, this is 100% a JCVD film with Lundgren popping up along the way. They're cheesy together, yes, but the chemistry is good.

Finally, don't expect any reality. I'm not an expert on submarines, but I'm pretty sure that amount of machine gun fire is less than ideal for ones integrity.