47 Meters Down (2017) Entertainment Studios/Horror-Thriller RT: 89 minutes Rated PG-13 (sequences of intense peril, bloody images, brief strong language) Director: Johannes Roberts Screenplay: Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera Music: tomandandy Cinematography: Mark Silk Release date: June 16, 2017 (US) Cast: Mandy Moore, Claire Holt, Yani Gellman, Chris J. Johnson, Santiago Segura, Matthew Modine. Box Office: $44.3M (US)/$61.7M (World)
Rating: ***
Because it just isn’t summer without a killer shark movie, am I right? You gotta love how the studios open these movies just as the summer vacation season begins- i.e. last day of school, mid-June. Last year, it was The Shallows. This year, it’s 47 Meters Down starring Mandy Moore (This Is Us) and Claire Holt (The Originals) as a pair of vacationers who get in over their heads (literally and figuratively) while cage-diving in shark-infested waters. Let me tell you, if Jaws kept people off beaches that summer of ’75, 47 Meters Down is likely to make tourists think twice before engaging in any kind of diving-related activities. A hybrid of Jaws, The Shallows and Gravity, it’s surprisingly good. It’s a fairly tense horror-thriller with a few decent “BOO!” moments. I didn’t expect that at all.
Sisters Lisa (Moore) and Kate (Holt) are vacationing in Mexico after Lisa’s boyfriend dumps her for being boring. This is likely the main reason she and Kate accept an invitation to go cage-diving with a couple of guys they just met at a club. This is it as far as character development goes. We have all the pertinent info; now it’s time to put the girls in a potentially deadly situation. In this instance, the winch breaks while Lisa and Kate are gazing at the majestic wonder of great white sharks, sending them plummeting to the ocean floor 47 meters down. They’re surrounded by sharks and have only an hour’s worth of air. They can’t swim to the surface because it would kill them (with or without sharks). They also have no idea if the guys are who they say they are. They claim to be doing everything they can, but are they really? The girls have no way of knowing for sure.
As you can see, the plot is a no-brainer. Similar to The Shallows, we get two characters in a dangerous situation doing everything they can to survive. That’s it. Director Johannes Roberts (The Other Side of the Door) keeps it simple which is why 47 Meters Down succeeds for the most part. As with any movie set underwater, the cinematography tends to be murky. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s going on. It’s a small glitch in an otherwise solid B-movie thriller. It’s the kind of picture that used to occupy the bottom half of drive-in double features.
The acting is okay. Nobody turns in a bad performance per se. The cast, which includes Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket) as the boat captain, delivers pretty much what you’d expect from a silly shark movie. It’s a taut and tight flick, running only 89 minutes. It has a few nice jump-scares. The ending is a little tricky (no, I won’t elaborate). 47 Meters Down is a lot of fun. It doesn’t require a lot of thought; you can watch it with your brain in OFF mode. It’s a solid summer night shark flick. I don’t know how big a bite it will take at the box office, but it deserves to do well.
TRIVIA TIDBIT: 47 Meters Down was supposed to be released last summer on VOD by Dimension Films under the title In the Deep. They sold the rights to Entertainment Studios who cancelled its release a week before it was scheduled to premiere. They decided to revert to the working title 47 Meters Down and release it theatrically instead. Let’s hope they made the right move.
