Much like last year's The Shallows, 47 Meters Down tries to milk the last remaining ounce of suspense and tension out of a predator-in-the-water genre that has, for the most part, been dead in the water for decades now. Mandy Moore and Claire Holt are two sisters vacationing in Mexico's resorts, with the former recently heartbroken and in sad spirits, and after they meet two young men during a night of partying, they are talked into scuba diving with large sharks while enclosed in an iron cage. Can you guess whether or not their escapade will go over well?
The movie's general structure and plot are similar to 2004's Open Water, but unlike that independent original gem, missing here is a sense of danger, as well as the element of realism that made its two protagonists people that we could relate to. 47 Meters Down is a muddy thriller - both visually and stylistically - and had it been a short with only twenty minutes' running time, it just may have been an exciting ride worthy of its exhaustive premise.
The director, Johannes Roberts, isn't quite the creative auteur who deserves having his name appear before the movie's title a la Stanley Kubrick, and the movie's lukewarm box office and critical "success" only further ridicule that ego trip. His movie is a rarity in today's cinema age: an 85-minute bore that never excels at any aspect of filmmaking whatsoever.
C-
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