47 Meters Down is a film about a screenwriter who keeps trying to find convoluted ways to keep two women trapped at the bottom of the ocean.
The film is directed and co-written by Johannes Roberts, who is primarily known for directing shlocky horror films. So he’s pretty well at home here. The film stars Claire Holt as Kate and Mandy Moore as Lisa, two sisters who are holidaying in Mexico. They meet some nice boys and decide, what the heck, let’s go cage diving in shark infested waters. Seems like a swell first date to me. Matthew Modine picks up an easy paycheck here as the indifferent Captain Taylor, who really has no character and is just there to share story elements via an underwater radio. Naturally, everything goes wrong, their cage winch snaps and Kate and Lisa plummet to the ocean floor (47 METERS DOWN) where they have limited time to figure out a way to return to the surface.
The concept is real neat and is a slightly different take on the usual shark movie concept. Basically this is Jaws if we spent the last act of the film with Richard Dreyfuss underwater instead of Robert Shaw and Roy Scheider on the boat. For me, I’m someone who has an irrational fear of the ocean (why the hell do people keep swimming in it?? It’s a big blue death trap!) so this movie was pretty effective in establishing a very tense and unnerving premise. Two panicking girls sitting in a cage at the bottom of the ocean while sharks circle overhead. But unfortunately, it seems like the director’s B movie background comes through as there’s not much more to the film rather than cheap jump scares from sharks.
The two main characters, Kate and Lisa, are very two dimensional. We get a basic overview of them. Kate is the adventurous, outgoing one and Lisa is the introverted, anxious one who is getting over a recent break up. I was hoping and expecting that there would be more personal conflict between them as they sat in their cage, but there really wasn’t all that much. The actors do perfectly fine, don’t get me wrong. They do the best with what they have to work with. Matthew Modine’s inclusion here feels bizarre to me as the Captain Taylor character just isn’t a character at all. He’s just there to provide instructions and lay the ground rules for what the girls can and can’t do underwater.
Watching this movie, I could just picture the two screenwriters bouncing ideas on each other. “Why can’t they just get out and swim to the surface?” “Uhh, they’ll get the bends!”
They do an admirable job of constantly finding new ways to keep the plot rolling, to the point that it’s almost comical. This whole story is just a comedy of errors with one silly mishap after the other. Sharks come and go as the plot needs them to. At one point a shark comes along, and Kate shouts “hide!” so Lisa ducks behind a rock and waits for the shark to move on. Something about the idea of physically hiding behind an object from a shark like it’s a killer in a slasher film stalking around a house looking for his would-be victim was just completely hilarious to me.
One thing that I’ll give the movie is that it is stylish. The cinematography really is neat and there were some real ominous shots in the film. It also moves along at a decent pace and is pretty easy to digest. The script is scraping the bottom of the ocean for any kind of actual character depth, but visually it’s a fun enough ride.
The film does throw in a curve ball plot wise, so at least they were trying to do something different. It’s just not a satisfying curve ball. 47 Meters Down feels like studios saw the success of The Shallows and started frantically going through their spec scripts to see if any of them had sharks in them. The movie is fine, it’s watchable, it’s just not what you could classify as “good”. If you’re looking for some cheap jump scares or you’re looking for another shark thriller to add to your shark week marathon, then this serves its purpose.
There is a sequel coming out this week actually. I’m hoping that it’s a legal drama where Matthew Modine is sued for some kind of maritime negligence.
Rating: ★★
Zero Stars 