The Movie: 47 Meters Down
The Director: Johannes Roberts
The Cast: Mandy Moore, Claire Holt, Matthew Modine, Chris Johnson, Yani Gellman, Santiago Segura
The Story: 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.
The Review:
Sometimes you just want to see sharks trying to eat people without having to worry much about intricate story lines and lengthy character development and it seems like Johannes Roberts was very much aware of this when he put together his latest feature. At the beginning, he spends a bare minimum amount of time introducing us to the two leading ladies, played by Mandy Moore and Claire Holt, and then, before you know it, he is sending them off into the depths for some underwater mayhem.
Keeping the run time at just under an hour and a half suits this movie fine as it allows just enough time for the story to play out without adding in unnecessary stuff like excessive dialog and uninteresting exposition. Filming underwater is always a tough task, but Roberts gives us a great mix of beauty, intensity, and fear by using different types of lighting and angles to maximum effect (Just like this people you follow on Instagram!). There are actually quite a few legitimate scares in this film, even if they do mainly consist of sharks suddenly being right in front of one of the characters and ready to start chomping away. Each one taps into our fundamental fear of being in that situation so they are all highly effective.
The Verdict:
47 Meters Down is entertaining, exciting, and just scary enough to satisfy genre fans and movie going thrill seekers. It doesn't go overboard with gratuitous gore or excessive violence and easily stays afloat by quickly swimming through what could have been some very troubled waters.
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