47 Metres Down: Uncaged (2019) - Movie Review

Well, after the success of the first 47 Metres Down movie, which was easily one of the most unnecessary features I reviewed in the entirety of 2017, it appears we already have a sequel. Knowing what other unneeded horror cinema have been getting follow-ups (a sequel to The Gallows came out this year; I mean, c’mon!) I should be more irritated at this film’s mere existence… but maybe this could be a good thing.

As I’ve been making a habit of saying around here, I love movies that redeem qualities of bad movies, and while I was largely unimpressed with the first film, it’s not as if it had literally nothing about it that could’ve worked with a different take. Hell, with how well Crawl turned out earlier this year, I’m willing to go into this with some level of optimism. Thankfully, this may not be all that good of a film, but it is markedly better than its predecessor.

47 Meters Down (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Sisters Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt), while on holiday in Mexico, are invited by two locals to go shark cage diving. They agree and head down in the cage, but they soon find themselves in trouble when the winch holding up the cage breaks, sending them plunging 47 metres underwater. With only a limited supply of oxygen and many sharks swimming nearby, Lisa and Kate have to find a way to contact their boat and get back to the surface.

The Shallows (2016) - Movie Review

Were shark movies ever cool? I mean, outside of the original Jaws, they only seem to be getting sillier and sillier. Sure, it’s easy to say that now in the post-Sharknado age, but these films been like this for a long time. It’s the ultimate irony that a film that helped define Hollywood as it stands today would also go on to spawn easily one of the most B-movie of the notable B-movie sub-genres.

From the laughable special effects to the hokey acting, right down to the (if you’ll excuse the term) jumping the shark moments like having them be driven by revenge or an exterior need to advertise for Sea World, leaping out of the water to take bites out of airplanes or even grouping together to form tornadoes to attack people, the sub-genre has a pretty prominent reputation for being hilariously ridiculous. Considering all this, making a film nowadays that is meant to make audiences take sharks seriously again is a pretty tall order. So, how does this particular feature turn out in that regard?