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47 Metres Down: Uncaged

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A scene in '47 Meters Down: Uncaged.'  (NuMetro)
A scene in '47 Meters Down: Uncaged.' (NuMetro)

WHAT IT'S ABOUT:

On the rebound after a devastating break-up, Lisa is ready for adventure while on vacation in Mexico. Still, she needs a little extra persuasion when her daring sister, Kate, suggests they go shark-diving with some locals. Once underwater in a protective cage, Lisa and Kate catch a once-in-a-lifetime, face-to-face look at majestic Great Whites. When their worst fears are realised and the cage breaks away from their boat, they find themselves plummeting to the bottom of the seabed, too deep to radio for help, and their oxygen supplies rapidly dwindling.

WHAT WE THOUGHT:

Another day in Hollywood, another studio greenlighting a shark attack movie - sharks really need a better PR agent. Luckily, the sequel to the surprise hit 47 Metres Down is so terrible I doubt it would eke out any attendance in cinema. About all of it is terrible - but the real villain outside of some poor blind cave sharks is the reigning stupidity of every character.

Even people who have never dived in their lives would be audibly shocked at the dumb actions done by 'experienced' divers. The absolute bare minimum was eked out for the script by filmmaker Johannes Roberts and writer Ernest Riera, both on a mission to spread claustrophobia and fear for sharks around the world.

The sequel follows four of the dumbest teenagers known to humankind - including two stepsisters who 'surprisingly' hate each other - who decide to dive an underground city submerged by seawater and stumble upon some starving inhabitants.

Whenever you watch a film about subject matter that you have some knowledge of, you can get slightly annoyed when things are wrong onscreen, but you can let it go for the sake of movie magic. However, if you’ve ever dived in your life, 47 Metres Down: Uncaged will make you scream internally. The first film tried to retain some semblance of reality, whereas the sequel decided to take a trip to La La Land where up is down, your oxygen metre shows percentage instead of bars, there’s no such thing as equalising and no getting the bends from rising too fast from the deep. In the first film, this was a big part of the plot, but for some reason, the filmmakers decided to forego science in the second.

As for the 'villains' - blind cave sharks who are just expelling the intruders in their home - the horror is derived from the anticipation rather than any shark sighting, which consists of D-grade graphics. This is probably the best way to get around the CGI budget, but at least put a little more money towards your main ‘villains’ rather than a bigger cast. All of this is taking place against the backdrop of two stepsisters who refuse to acknowledge each other as family, but the drama of it all is incredibly mediocre and predictable. Coupled with overacting and consistent plot nonsense, it’s probably one of the worst movies of the year.

The one shining point in the film was the cinematography. Filming an entire movie underwater must be harrowing, as well as building the underwater sets and getting your cast to act through the scuba gear. One particular scene stood out which was quite spectacular despite the awful CGI sharks - the girls descending into an abyss with a flashing red beacon created a beautifully terrifying spectacle. Too bad the rest of the film didn’t live up to the same standards.

If you’re the kind of person that loves to watch a bad movie for the sheer ridiculousness of it all, then perhaps you’re the target market for 47 Metres Down: Uncaged (even the name makes me gag). I love a fun, terrible monster movie, but in this case, the stupidity wasn’t bad good, it was just bad bad.


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