Shark movies are my go-to when I want to watch a bad movie but a bad movie that is fun to watch. The list of actually decent shark films, for me, is very small and I find most of them to be way too over-the-top. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because it is in their over-the-top-ness that makes them fun to watch. Yes, these movies give sharks a bad name because they are always portrayed as mindless killers but this unrealistic portrayal aside, they do make really good antagonists for thrillers. I mean, just look at them! They are the oceans’ perfect killing machines and they just look all kinds of awesome. 47 Meters Down is definitely not on the same level as Jaws but it’s not quite something as fun as Ghost Shark. Overall, it’s serviceable and I would rank it below The Shallows on the shark movie scale.
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| Ewwww, this movie does start on a bad note. |
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| How could something go wrong when the boat has such amazing artwork on it? |
While on a trip to Mexico, sisters Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt) reluctantly decide to go scuba diving in a shark cage with a questionable crew. The captain (Matthew Modine) assures them everything is safe but when the girls get in the cage and start to check out the great whites circling them, the rusted old crane holding the cage breaks and sends the girls down to the dark depths of the ocean. Outside of radio contact, running low on air and being hunted by hungry sharks in the murky waters around them, the two are now on a fight for survival.
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| "We're going to die! I regret every decision I've made in the last 24 hours!" |
47 Meters Down is definitely not one of those shark movies that is so bad it’s good but it didn’t really supply a product that I felt was legitimately thrilling either. It’s not a bad movie at all and there are a lot of elements that it is doing right but there are enough drawbacks that kept it from being a big winner for me. Overall, this one felt more serviceable as a shark-based thriller than attention grabbing and memorable.
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| They're actually pointing and laughing at it because that shark has his fly open. |
One thing I felt this movie did very well was capturing a sense of claustrophobia with its tone. The ocean is a HUGE place and the only thing that comes to mind when you think of claustrophobia in this setting is maybe an underwater cave (as a man who fears drowning and is very claustrophobic, this environment is the thing of nightmares for me) but 47 Meters Down and director Johannes Roberts did a tremendous job of making the predicament that the women are in to feel very tight and horrifying. Essentially, the two are stuck between a rock and a hard place as they are trapped at the bottom of the ocean with a limited supply of air and, even though they are surrounded by miles and miles of empty water, there are predators with lots and lots of teeth hiding out there in the shadows. This combination and Roberts’ use of tight camera angles and shots that make you feel like that a shark will manifest itself at any second or the crushing weight of hopeless will rob them of their ambition to survive made for some intense moments. This dynamic also did an excellent job of playing off the natural fear of the unknown that comes from the mysterious and often dangerous underwater world. Scenes where the girls were literally swimming in nothing but a blanket of deep blues was very unnerving.
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| It's nice seeing Shark Number 235 from Sharknado 2 getting more work. |
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| I was going to make a reference to season one of Stranger Things but...meh. |
From a performance standpoint, I found the film to be decent. Mandy Moore and Claire Holt aren’t doing anything inherently wrong with their performances. Most of the movie is them freaking out and then trying to stay calm and they did that fairly well. Even Matthew Modine, who is realistically barely in the film and is mostly a voice on the radio, is doing a decent job. The problems that come from characters are far less from the performances and more from the writing. The story tries to insert some depth to the sisters early in the film but it feels less like an organic, natural thing and more like an obvious attempt of creating stakes so the viewer cares about these otherwise generic, stereotypical female protagonists. Also, I would like to add that the story very, VERY lazily establishes them as sisters as Kate literally calls Lisa “sister” at one point. As a man who grew up with three sisters, I never ONCE heard them call each other by this as a form of addressing them in conversation. I guess this was needed because the two act more like friends than anything else. Like, they are hugging each other A LOT…an uncomfortable amount of time. There is no need for family to hug as often as these two are. It was weird and made me wonder if making them sisters was done after the film was completed and they added the “sister” line in post.
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| "This is only Day One of our vacation. We have so much more hugging to do!" |
Some of the drawbacks I found in the film were the lack of emphasis on the actual sharks and some clumsy moments that made it hard to figure out what just happened. Both of these complaints seem to stem from the fact that this movie is really tame by current PG-13 standards. Now, I’m not one of those guys who define being an adult by watching rated R movies and think every movie has to have this rating because a story needs to be told with blood, guts, swears and boobs. Hell, I didn’t even expect this film to be a gore fest because, remember, Jaws was PG and has very little gore but still feels tense and thrilling. 47 Meters Down seems like they want to go the same route but stumble and fall as they attempt to work around the gruesome and potentially gory moments. This is fine in theory because sometimes less is more but there were times when the action set pieces felt confusing and it was hard to tell what just happened. For example, a character has a shark lunge at the person and it is unclear if the predator grabbed them and swam off with them or bit them. The mystery is cleared up with dialogue but what you see felt clumsy and looked more like a shark just bumped into a person. Like Jaws, the restraint is rewarded at the end where the sharks go nuts and we get some bloody action but the damage was already sorta done as the movie feels exceptionally tame thanks to a lot of wonkiness as the director attempted to work around the action pieces.
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| "I just want to be your friend. You humans have trust issues." |
47 Meters Down isn’t a definitive film in the shark thriller sub-genre but it works for what it is. The shark action was a little light and very clumsy, in my opinion, but the feature does shine brightly when it concerns the more intimate moments of suspense and tension. Additionally, the film looks great and the underwater arena was used very effectively with making use of the murky setting and it was even providing a cool, trailer-worthy shot of the sharks being scared off by a flare.
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| The epicness of this moment was undercut by the fact the sharks all gave high pitch shrieks when the flare lit up. |
The performances were adequate for what they were and, even with the issues with story and some clumsy camera and editing work, the movie works for what it is trying to be. The movie isn’t overly thrilling and, despite its respectable hour and a half running time, the film kinda feels like it has run its course when it hits the third act and tries to deal a “twist” ending but the movie isn’t making the kinda of missteps that hurt the overall entertainment factor and was, pretty much, a fairly decent shark film.
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