{"id":9934,"date":"2024-12-11T17:16:34","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T22:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9934"},"modified":"2024-12-11T17:16:34","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T22:16:34","slug":"47-meters-down-uncaged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/11\/47-meters-down-uncaged\/","title":{"rendered":"47 Meters Down: Uncaged"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"47 Meters Down: Uncaged <\/strong>(2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Entertainment Studios\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sequences of intense peril, bloody images, brief strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Johannes Roberts\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: tomandandy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mark Silk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 16, 2019 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sophie Nelisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju, Sistine Stallone, Davi Santos, Khylin Rhambo, Brec Bassinger, John Corbett, Nia Long.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $22.3M (US)\/$47.6M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0The effectiveness of a survival horror movie rests on whether or not you care about the characters and in order for that to happens, they would have to have personalities. The four teenage girls at the center of 47 Meters Down: Uncaged<\/strong>, a lame sequel to the 2017 shark flick starring Mandy Moore, are barely distinguishable from one another. There\u2019s no character development beyond \u201cthe black one\u201d, \u201cthe stepsister\u201d, \u201cthe blonde one\u201d and \u201cthe Asian one\u201d. Even that becomes moot once the girls put on their scuba gear and jump into the water. It becomes impossible to tell them apart due to the murkiness that tends to come with underwater cinematography. This one is especially dark because the girls are trapped in a cave most of the time. I realize that looking for character development in a silly shark movie like 47 Meters Down: Uncaged<\/strong> is akin to seeking a honest man in Washington D.C. but we need a little something to go on if we\u2019re expected to care about the fate of the characters.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ll tell you straight up that 47 Meters Down: Uncaged<\/strong> is yet another example of the Idiot Plot in action. This, as you know, means the plot depends on the characters acting like complete idiots at all times. These girls do so many dumb things; you may find yourself rooting for the sharks. In addition, the plot hinges on a lot of unlikely, unbelievable coincidences. I mean, what are the odds that somebody has left four sets of scuba gear lying around unattended? Remote place or not, if somebody finds the gear, it\u2019s history. And what are the odds that one girl\u2019s father happens to be working nearby; specifically, at the opposite end of the underwater city the girls are exploring when they get trapped? Only in the movies, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Remember what I said about character development and the lack thereof? There\u2019s a smidgen of it in the opening scenes. It\u2019s established that stepsisters Mia (Nelisse, The Book Thief) and Sasha (Foxx, Jamie\u2019s little girl) don\u2019t get along. Sasha doesn\u2019t stick up for Mia against their school\u2019s resident mean girl Catherine (Bassinger, TV\u2019s School of Rock) who bullies her for no apparent reason. Their parents, Mia\u2019s dad (Corbett, My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and Sasha\u2019s mom (Long, Big Momma\u2019s House), want them to act like sisters. Believing some quality time together would bring them closer, Mia\u2019s dad (an underwater explorer, btw) arranges for them to take a shark-sighting tour on a glass-bottomed boat. Neither girl is thrilled about it but they go.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sasha\u2019s friends, Nicole (Stallone, Sly\u2019s daughter) and Alexa (Tju, Light as a Feather), turn up with another idea, a better one. Alexa takes them to a remote lagoon adjacent to the entrance of a sunken Mayan city. The idea is to don the scuba gear conveniently left behind by Mia\u2019s father\u2019s crew and explore the first entry point. It\u2019s just supposed to be a quick once-around and right back to dry land,\u00a0 but of course it doesn\u2019t go that way. One girl (who knows which) gets scared by a fish and ends up knocking over a column, trapping them in the cave. As if they didn\u2019t have enough problems already, like dwindling oxygen supplies, it turns out they\u2019re not alone. There\u2019s a great white shark swimming around. This particular one is blind, a result of living in darkness for so long. In turn, his other senses are heightened which gives him a big advantage over the girls. Basically, they\u2019re screwed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It should be noted that most of the people you meet in 47 Meters Down: Uncaged<\/strong> may as well be wearing shirts that read \u201cShark Bait\u201d. Other characters turn up from time to time and try to help the girls only to find themselves Mr. Shark\u2019s next meal. It\u2019s pretty much a given thing who will make it to the end which leads to my next point. The movie doesn\u2019t come to life until the last five minutes when the surviving girl(s) try to outswim a school of great whites in chum-filled waters. This is the kind of thing audiences have come to see. Sadly, it\u2019s too little, too late. It doesn\u2019t even begin to justify the preceding 85 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s been an unusually strong year for late-summer releases. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged<\/strong> is the first truly heinous movie I\u2019ve seen this August. Directed once again by Johannes Roberts, it\u2019s dull in its utter predictability. Not only does it rip-off Jaws (as do all killer shark movies), it also rips off The Descent and blatantly so. The shark effects look cheap. That is, what I could see of them. The movie is so dark; it obscures many of the visual details. I couldn\u2019t even tell if the sharks were animatronic or CGI. It\u2019s poorly written and even more poorly acted. Of course, it\u2019s not entirely the fault of the actors. Roberts, who also co-wrote the screenplay, doesn\u2019t give them anything to work with. Take Mia\u2019s bully. She has maybe five or six lines of dialogue. Most of the time, her role requires nothing more than standing around with a resting bitch face. Shouldn\u2019t we at least know what she has against Mia?<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s one thing for a survival horror flick to be silly. By nature, most of them are. It\u2019s quite another to be stupid. This is the main reason 47 Meters Down: Uncaged<\/strong> sinks to the bottom like it does. One gets the impression that Roberts didn\u2019t even care when he cobbled this unasked-for sequel together. God help the shark movie that makes Jaws: The Revenge look good.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Entertainment Studios\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sequences of intense peril, bloody images, brief strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Johannes Roberts\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: tomandandy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mark Silk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 16, 2019 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sophie Nelisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju, Sistine Stallone, Davi Santos, Khylin Rhambo, Brec […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/47-Meters-Down-Uncaged-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9934"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10291,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934\/revisions\/10291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}