The summer of 2017 my parents were in India and I was spending a lot of time in my childhood house (which I treat as my vacation home when they’re out of town).
I decided, for the first time in 12 years, to watch a film in the Edwards theater near that house. Specifically I went to the nearby gym and just walked through the parking lot to the theater. Thus this definitely wasn’t a movie I went out of my way for but I had to pay for it, something MoviePass and AMC A-List have since made unthinkable, LOL.
47 Meters Down was worth the money, though. When talking about Crawl, last month’s new monster movie, I mentioned my love of claustrophobic horror. I should add that not only do I have some nightmares preying on my claustrophobia I have a ton pertaining to my fear of carnivorous species. This movie tied in to both and, while it wasn’t as good as the highly intelligent Crawl, I still had a great time.
Mandy Moore and Claire Holt are great playing two sisters on a tropical vacation after one of them goes through a bad breakup. The plot isn’t important though; it’s about their dangerous excursion. They climb into a cage dropped the titular distance into the water and gaze at sharks. Things go awry though, because of course they do, and soon they are trapped underwater terrified for their lives.
While there are certainly valid criticisms the Cinemasins YouTube channel pointed out (e.g. “Why would they keep talking to each other when they have to preserve their air?”) they certainly didn’t bother me while the movie was going on, which is what matters. Nice little popcorn flick, although I don’t know if it’s worth watching again.
As far as the sequel, it’s definitely not worth watching again but it was decent. I’ll give it credit for having a completely different plot (although that makes the title something of an “Artifact Title” as tvtropes.org puts it) but the original’s already flimsy human story is replaced by one that’s even less engaging, albeit through no fault of the actors. Special mention goes to Sistine Stallone, a gorgeous second-generation talent.
The plot basically replaces the cage as a confined space with a cave. Anyone who has seen The Descent will agree caves can be scary, but the movie plays with plausibility a bit too much, including multiple fake-outs. All that said I don’t regret watching it the one time.
I give the first film 62/100 and the second 50/100. I decided to combine them into one post and average the ratings because I didn’t have enough to say about each individual one to justify separate posts. Nevertheless, I still chose an older movie about which to write an accompanying post.
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Bottom line: Entertaining but forgettable series.
Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment.
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