47 Meters Down: Uncaged | Review
Shark in the Dark: Roberts Returns to Aquatic Terror in Slapdash Sequel
The terror inspired by nature’s apex predators remains alive and well in a favored subgenre of English language cinema, ever since Steven Spielberg’s seminal (and never bested) 1975 Jaws, which created the notion of the blockbuster as event cinema now over 40 years ago. British born Johannes Roberts stumbled into success with screenwriter Ernest Riera with the surprise 2017 hit 47 Meters Down, or better known as ‘that Mandy Moore shark movie.’ Since it turned a box office profit, plans were immediately announced for a sequel (which initially was titled 48 Meters Down and then 47 Meters Down: The Next Chapter). Seeing as it’s wholly unconnected to the first film beyond other sharks terrorizing nubile females, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged became the agreed upon title, though there’s nothing relating to the cages or the titular measurement which marked the distance the original protagonists were trapped beneath the ocean’s surface. Silly but perhaps with something to offer for those who found themselves enamored with the first film, it’s a technically proficient but ultimately unnecessary follow-up.
Teens Mia (Sophie Nelisse) and Sasha (Corinne Foxx) are on opposite sides of the cool-kid spectrum at their new school in Yucatan, Mexico. Their recently married parents, Jennifer and Grant (Nia Long, John Corbett), moved them thanks to Grant’s work, which involves excavating underwater caves. With Mia being teased at school and Sasha’s disinterest in defending her, their parents decide to put them on a tourist cruise wherein they can view Great White Sharks from a glass-bottom boat. Unhappy to be forced into something as lame as a tourist expedition, the two girls are offered reprieve from one of Sasha’s friends, who knows a private grotto they can explore because she’s seeing one of the men employed by Grant. As the girls are wowed by the underwater remnants of an ancient submerged city, they stumble onto some blind but hungry Great White Sharks, who block their only way out of the uncharted territory. However, the girls are quickly running out of oxygen, forcing them to risk being eaten alive.
A themed sequel, much like Open Water 2: Adrift (2006) was in relation to the indie hit Open Water (2003), Roberts and Riera would have been better served if they’d spent a little more time on the narrative, which is borrowing heavily from the claustrophobic spelunking horror film The Descent (2005) more than the lengths it goes to maintain a connection to the earlier film. Roberts, despite wasting away on nonsense like studio dreck The Other Side of the Door (2016) once again proves his craftsmanship for arresting visuals spackled onto less-than-satisfactory story development or handling of disinterested actors (see his take on The Strangers: Prey at Night sequel in 2018 for further evidence of this).
Despite the nonsense of blind Great White Sharks, which are nowhere near deep enough in the ocean depths, (which even 2018’s The Meg tried to more justifiably explain), to have evolved without sight and lolling around aimlessly in the ruins of an underwater city (not to mention of the right sized capacity to exist in a closed off aquatic ecosystem), Roberts manages some memorable shots of his mutated creatures (who are about as naturally aberrant as those backwards swimming sharks of Deep Blue Sea, 1999) reflected in the garish glow of flares. Likewise, a notable sound design and another moody score from Tomandandy assist in keeping the eye-rolling at bay.
Notable supporting characters include Nia Long (with nothing to do) and John Corbett (who forgot his emotional register), while the film provides a platform for some Hollywood nepotism seeing as Sistine Rose Stallone (daughter of Sylvester) and Corinne Foxx (daughter of Jamie) are part of the mix (Stallone gets saddled with some of the more inane dialogue, unfortunately, such as exclaiming in the presence of a blind, subterranean fish “it’s never known a human!”).
Canadian actress Sophie Nelisse proves to be a likeable and resourceful lead (a far cry from the mess of The Great Gilly Hopkins, 2015) while Brianne Tju does a fine job of making a thankless role matter where it counts. Some third act action sequences make up for a rather uninspired mid-section, (compromised solely of the young women and some not-so-surprising additional victims hiding out in the bowels of the forgotten city ruins), but ultimately, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged suffers from all the usual slings and arrows of an unplanned, rushed sequel.
★★/☆☆☆☆☆
