Sonic Cinema

Sounds, Visions and Insights by Brian Skutle

47 Meters Down

Grade : B- Year : 2017 Director : Johannes Roberts Running Time : 1hr 29min Genre : , ,
Movie review score
B-

For the second time in two years, Hollywood has come up with a shark thriller for the summer movie season. Nothing will ever top Spielberg’s “Jaws,” but last year’s “The Shallows” and this year’s “47 Meters Down” have some entertainment value if you felt like the “Jaws” sequels were just too stupid. (Spoiler alert: They were.) I preferred “The Shallows,” but “47 Meters Down” is entertaining in a similar fashion to 2004’s “Open Water.” Having Mandy Moore as one of the women in distress doesn’t hurt either- with a solid film career, and role in the hit series, “This is Us,” it’s hard to imagine she was ever a bubblegum pop star in the late ’90s/early 2000’s.

“47 Meters Down” has a relatively simple premise. Mandy Moore and Claire Holt star as sisters who are vacationing in Mexico. One night, they meet a couple of strangers, they have some fun and they make a double date to go dive in shark-infested waters in a cage the next day. Moore’s Lisa is more than a little skittish about doing so, as her husband has just left her for not being “fun” enough, but she’s convinced, even when the rusted cage does nothing for her confidence. The guys go down in the cage first, and they have a good enough trip. However, it is naturally when Lisa and Holt’s Kate go down when things really get screwy. After a problem with the wench, Lisa and Kate end up 47 meters below the surface, with sharks ready to pounce, and oxygen at a premium.

I’ll admit, this movie ends really stranger than I expected it to, but it ends decently. Up until then, the suspense of the sisters stuck in the cage is not quite as great as it was when Richard Dreyfuss went down a similar cage in “Jaws,” or when Blake Lively ended up terrorized by sharks in “The Shallows.” But Moore and Holt make the best of the screenplay by Johannes Roberts (the director of the film) & Ernest Riera and keep us interested in what happens to these two. There are some suspenseful moments, to be sure, but by and large, “47 Meters Down” will not go down as one of the better shark movies in recent years. It’s good for a summer diversion, however.

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