47 Meters Down review by Bobby Blakey
I love a good shark flick with last years The Shallows being really good and of course the iconic JAWS. Hell, I even love the Sharknado series so when I saw the trailers for the latest, 47 Meters Down starring Mandy Moore, Claire Holt and Matthew Modine I was instantly interested, but does it offer anything worth taking a bite out of or should it have stayed at the bottom of the ocean?
47 Meters Down follows two sisters vacationing in Mexico who 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 promotions that I saw for this film billed it as a shark fight type of film and while that is there it is far from that. There is still an interesting film here dealing with being trapped at the bottom of the ocean if you can get through the boredom of the first half of the film. For the majority of the film Moore and Holt have to carry the film all while being submerged under water and both do a decent job. Director Johannes Roberts does a great job at taking this simple premise and making it interesting to watch, but it never fully captivate like it could have.
Once they get to the meat of the film underwater it does pick up and started to catch my interest again, but the overall lack of the sharks presence had me let down. It is clear they were going for a more realistic approach despite some inaccuracies that you can let go, but it makes it lose the intensity it could have had. I will say the shark stuff we do get looks pretty awesome especially the last bit of the film that finally steps it up and gets more exciting.
I was a bit let down that they went with such a predictable twist ending that you see a mile away, but it is fine. I would have preferred them to just go with the ending they did or something a lot more dark, but it is what it is in the end. If you are going to check this out just know the shark aspect is a bit secondary to the overall story which will help some enjoy it a bit more in my opinion.