47 Meters Down

Missed Opportunity (Review is spoilerish)

Coming on the heels of last summer's surprise success The Shallows, comes this summer's laughable attempt to portray shark behavior. While shark movies since Jaws have been scientifically inaccurate, you have to throw a movie like Jaws a bone because, well, it's Jaws. It was a wonderfully made film, released at a time when we knew little to nothing about the nature of great white sharks. After 30 years of documentaries and Shark Week, the cinematic shark is still a mindless villain whose soul reason for existing is to move the plot forward, and eat it when it cannot.

I'd like to say what 47 Meters Down lacks in accuracy it makes up for in plot, suspense, and characters. But that's just not true. The script seemed to be a first draft, full of plot holes and non-existent characterization. It was a typical tell-not-show movie, where characters, through dialogue, literally explained themselves to the audience, rather than establish themselves through action.

The film opens with a pretentious and symbolic shot of a spilled drink to mimic blood in the water, I guess, in case, you didn't know this was a shark movie? We narrow our focus to two American sisters vacationing in Mexico. Later in the movie, when the script necessitates it, the younger sister, Kate, is portrayed as athletic, heroic, courageous, and endowed with other noble attributes. We learn this not through 20 minutes of established characterization, but through the older sister, Lisa, lamenting about how she is the shy, boring one, while Kate is more adventurous and outgoing.

Instead, the first 20 minutes of the film establishes Kate as nothing more than a party girl--making out with strange men, doing tequila shooters, dancing on the beach. We find out that Kate is kind of awesome, but only because Lisa, virtually, says to the audience, "My sister is awesome." But in the 20 minutes of exposition we get on the sisters, all we really have to...

I spend an inordinate amount of time watching shark movies. They're almost never good, and they're almost never well made. 47 Metres Down on the other hand is well made.

It's still not good though.

Final rating:★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product.

Let the surviving game begin in the deep and the cold ocean floor, surrounded by dangers!

Obviously it is this year's 'The Shallows'. So anther shark attack film, but this time it goes down to the Mexico. Two sisters vacationing somewhere on the coast of the Mexico, decides to go cage diving to see sharks with the locals they have met in the pub. It was intentional tale, so it all goes straight to the point without wasting much time. When their turn comes to go below in the sea, something goes wrong and they end up 47 meters down on the ocean floor with the limited oxygen supply. It's a long way up and dangerous to get to the surface without proper gears. Their struggles to get out of from there safely and other adventurous events covered in the remaining film.

From the not so famous filmmaker and the actors. But it's good to see Mandy Moore after a some time. I don't know how much realistic it is, though a decent thriller. Yeah, there are better films on this similar theme, but still this is enjoyable, especially if you are not a regular film goer. There are some fine edgy moments, but it did not maintain that till the last. The end twist was not bad. I truly did not expect that. That does not mean it was awesome. It was okay, works decently for such random films. Well made with production quality. Short runtime as well. So I think it is slightly better than what it has been rated. That means not bad for watching it once.

6/10

47 Meters Down works on the old idea of great white sharks scaring a bunch of people (two sisters, in this case) but there's a bit of novelty (it takes place on an ocean bed) that makes the watch an enjoyable ride. While the dialogues - which seemed like they were just being spoken to help the audience understand the situation of the girls better - seemed inauthentic, everything else is pretty good here. A cool late-night watch with the family. TN.