47 Meters Down (D+ or 1.5/4 stars)
1975 gave us Jaws, years later we got shark flicks like Deep Blue Sea & Sharknado, etc. Now we have '47 Meters Down' (directed by Johannes Roberts). Is it any good? Nope. In fact, it doesn't even hold a candle to Blake Lively's spirited shark flick from 2 yrs. ago, The Shallows. This film begins by introducing us to sisters, Lisa (Mandy Moore) & Kate (Claire Holt), who are on vaca in Mexico. Kate is the adventurous type, while Lisa plays life on the safe side. Unfortunately for Lisa, but her 'safe' nature recently resulted in her boyfriend, Stewart, having left her. The sisters go out on the town one night, meet a couple of nice locals (Santiago Segura, Yani Gellman), and they convince them to go diving in a shark cage the very next day; Kate is ALL about it, while 'safe' Lisa reluctantly agrees to go.
The boat's captain (Matthew Modine, haha) gets them all set-up & assures them that everything is 'safe'. They will only be going 5 meters deep. Sure, the cage looks rusty as Hell, but hey, there shouldn't be a problem, right!? After the boatmen illegally 'chum' the water, into the cage goes our heroines, down the cage drops, & 25 ft. long Great Whites cruise around them. But then the winch breaks (!), & the sisters start careening down to the bottom of the ocean {like Dorothy did in her house during the tornado}. If they leave said cage, the sharks will definitely attack, and if they try & attempt to reach the surface ... they'll sure to die from "the bends" {or decompression sickness}. But the air in their tanks is running out ... and help might not be on the way. Thrills, scares & idiocy ensue.
I just really did not care for this movie. I should have known ther'd be problems when I found out that this was filmed 2 yrs. ago in 2015 but dumped in this, the early summer of 2017. Heck, Mandy Moore hadn't even seen her star rise yet in the hit TV show This Is Us when she MADE this film. '47 Meters Down' is a simplistic no-frills thriller, but it isn't any good. This admittedly "B" movie might've won me over with better characterizations, a better script & a tighter execution, but it was not to be. Any suspense that is built, dissipates as soon as the characters in this story start saying & doing stuuuuupid things. Sure, there are some jolts & scares -- hey, sharks are damn scary. And yeah, it's nice to see Mandy Moore onscreen; she is an appealing presence. But that's all I got for positives!
One of my main gripes - and this normally doesn't bother me much in films - is how reliant-on-men's-approval these girls are. When not fighting for their lives, all they talk about is how hot Javier is or how Lisa should impress Stewart (who just dumped her for being dull!). i.e., Lisa asks Kate if her wet suit makes her butt look good -- kill me. The ENTIRE motivation for this risky dive is to win back A-hole Stewart. Kate even asks something like: "what would Stewart think if you chickened out of this?" Vapidness -- that's ALL we know of these characters; and on top of that, they are so profoundly stupid. I won't even go into the ridiculous 3rd Act twist that is more annoying than surprising. Maybe you'll enjoy some perfunctory scares, but I couldn't wait for this idiotic, dark, redundant 89 min. flick to end.
The boat's captain (Matthew Modine, haha) gets them all set-up & assures them that everything is 'safe'. They will only be going 5 meters deep. Sure, the cage looks rusty as Hell, but hey, there shouldn't be a problem, right!? After the boatmen illegally 'chum' the water, into the cage goes our heroines, down the cage drops, & 25 ft. long Great Whites cruise around them. But then the winch breaks (!), & the sisters start careening down to the bottom of the ocean {like Dorothy did in her house during the tornado}. If they leave said cage, the sharks will definitely attack, and if they try & attempt to reach the surface ... they'll sure to die from "the bends" {or decompression sickness}. But the air in their tanks is running out ... and help might not be on the way. Thrills, scares & idiocy ensue.
I just really did not care for this movie. I should have known ther'd be problems when I found out that this was filmed 2 yrs. ago in 2015 but dumped in this, the early summer of 2017. Heck, Mandy Moore hadn't even seen her star rise yet in the hit TV show This Is Us when she MADE this film. '47 Meters Down' is a simplistic no-frills thriller, but it isn't any good. This admittedly "B" movie might've won me over with better characterizations, a better script & a tighter execution, but it was not to be. Any suspense that is built, dissipates as soon as the characters in this story start saying & doing stuuuuupid things. Sure, there are some jolts & scares -- hey, sharks are damn scary. And yeah, it's nice to see Mandy Moore onscreen; she is an appealing presence. But that's all I got for positives!
One of my main gripes - and this normally doesn't bother me much in films - is how reliant-on-men's-approval these girls are. When not fighting for their lives, all they talk about is how hot Javier is or how Lisa should impress Stewart (who just dumped her for being dull!). i.e., Lisa asks Kate if her wet suit makes her butt look good -- kill me. The ENTIRE motivation for this risky dive is to win back A-hole Stewart. Kate even asks something like: "what would Stewart think if you chickened out of this?" Vapidness -- that's ALL we know of these characters; and on top of that, they are so profoundly stupid. I won't even go into the ridiculous 3rd Act twist that is more annoying than surprising. Maybe you'll enjoy some perfunctory scares, but I couldn't wait for this idiotic, dark, redundant 89 min. flick to end.