47 Meters Down
Two sisters vacationing in Mexico are trapped in a shark cage at the bottom of the ocean. With less than an hour of oxygen left and great white sharks circling nearby, they must fight to survive.
Cast
Mandy Moore – Lisa
Claire Holt – Kate
47 Meters and 40 Winks
I have to be honest: I fell asleep towards the end of this movie. Never mind forty-seven meters, I was catching forty winks by the time the final confrontation between panicked female and hungry shark took place. This movie was bloody awful; it did for the shark-eat-em-up genre what You’re Next did for the horror genre. I.E. shat all over it.
There have been plenty of these fishy flicks now haven’t there. It all kick-started with:
Then came:
Then:
Then:
Then:
Then (unfortunately):
And then:
But now:
Yes, along comes another fishy flick to add to the waves. Except 47 Meters Down sinks directly to the seabed with very bland direction and a huge lack of suspense. I was geared up for terrifyingly dangerous action involving hungry sharks and two humans. What I got was two humans sitting in a broken cage at the bottom of the ocean, one of them occasionally exiting the metal prison to swim a few yards away – before returning. And repeat.
Sometimes less is more; enclosed set or minimum tools to work with can be highly effectively due to the overall premise capturing the viewer’s mind and imagination. Sadly, 47 Meters Down was a case of despondent as the producers took two women – threw them into the sea – and recorded the subsequent dilemma of exactly how to make it to the surface before their oxygen ran out. I’ve honestly been more entertained watching illusionists try escaping from a chained box on one of those magician-type TV shows. The striking difference being these girls had the necessary tools to escape, they just spent too much time fannying around.
This deep chaos was simply – deep shit.
A good 45% of this movie is spent with camera between the bars as two women sit on the floor of the cage, talking practicalities. Oxygen – mask – timing – frequency of shark appearance. Somehow though, tense becomes tedious as any sense of panic quickly disappears and is replaced by a feeling of comradeship with Kate and Lisa devising various plans to get to surface. Of course this has to happen, it’s part of the story – the problem was this was almost all that happened during the entire movie. Irregular shark attack and lack of underwater obstacles meant 47 Meters Down quickly became a bore-fest, with me personally focused more on whether or not I had chewed part of the paper wrapper my Subway footlong was wrapped in.
I’d even been for coffee before the movie (an extra-hot Supremo latte too) yet my eyes became heavy..
…slowly they began to close..
….going..
…..going…
..FUCK. Someone on screen screamed.
My eyes widened.
..but nothing exciting was happening. In fact, the most exciting thing to happen in the last hour or so was my trip to Coffee Republic to purchase that Supremo latte. Which was yummy.
162 High Road, London N22 6EB
(if you’re ever in North London – near Wood Green tube station – pop in and give these guys a go. Their Victoria Sponge muffin is to die for).
Before Lisa and Kate even enter the water, their newfound tour guide asks if they are qualified divers – to which they respond “uh huh”. The man falls for the lie. Then later on he stands giving out tips on diving and how to use certain equipment. And although the pair have no idea what he is talking about, the man seems to be oblivious to the ‘we don’t know what the fuck we are doing’ look on their faces, and appears to accept their lying?
Tedious stuff.
Afloat
The movie starts out like most low-budgets: a bohemian-style overseas holiday, where two slim women in stringy bikinis are seen chilling out in their resort before one of them hatches an exciting plan (to do something out of their comfort zone as part of one of them getting over her ex-boyfriend, basically) . The action then quickly kicks off with the pair climbing aboard the boat of a total stranger (everyone trusts everyone when on holiday) and embarking on an adventure – which goes expectedly tits-up.
And there you have your story. It’s simple enough. Leaves little to the plot imagination, but is very easy-to-follow. For what it is, 47 Meters Down provides (some form of) entertainment regardless of lengthy tedious scenes. It’s two women trapped underwater for roughly 80 minutes and the golden questions:
Will they survive?
Does one perish?
How do they get to the surface surrounded by sharks?
Is one of the characters in on it?..
It makes for deliciously tacky viewing to rival productions such as Adrift and Open Water, and the concept itself is to be applauded by Z-list movie fans everywhere. The idea of this movie was enough to entice me to go along, so in a cheeky way it wins on the ‘capture the interest of viewer’ scale.
This is the sort of thing you’d spot in Poundland and feel a slight flicker of excitement at how cheap it is coupled with the fact you ‘needed something to watch that night anyway’. So you grab it and make the purchase because there’s nothing on TV that evening.
Sums it up. I can’t make it any clearer.
I would rather eat my own testicles than sit through this film again. It’s as bland as a glass of water itself – I.E. no taste. Flavourless. Unless of course you’re very thirsty, in which case 47 Meters Down should quench it for half hour or so.
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