47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED MOVIE REVIEW

47 Meters Down: Uncaged Review: Mia (Sophie Nelisse) is having a tough time adjusting to her new school in Mexico. Her cooler stepsister Sasha (Corinne Foxx) doesn’t even acknowledge her existence. But when Sasha’s friends Alexa (Brianne Tju) and Nicole (Sistine Rose Stallone) plan to sneak off on a diving adventure, they decide to have Mia tag along. This soon turns into a nightmare when they explore a submerged temple whose ruins are also home to ancient great white sharks. One of them knocks over a column leading to a collapse that traps them underwater. The four girls need to avoid the bloodthirsty sharks while surviving on limited oxygen in their tanks as they find their way out.

It’s tricky to shoot and put together a film largely based underwater. There are limited options visually and narratively. But this film doesn’t care much about logic, so don’t go about wondering how the girls communicate with each other, for example. There are numerous other creative liberties taken and the film often becomes ridiculous. Perhaps it’s too much to expect from a shark movie, where you know what you’re in for – people eaten by sharks in many different and creative ways. Keeping that in mind, the film occasionally has engaging sequences, especially towards the climax. But it’s interspersed between such drab dialogue spewed by bland characters and predictable outcomes for certain characters, that it constantly struggles to keep you tuned in.

The actors have very little to work with, although they are adequate. Their characters are barely defined and expecting any more from the cast would be asking for too much. Although the production design should be applauded. It’s understandably difficult to put together the ruins of an underwater temple but the effort goes to waste. The film’s cinematography really struggles with those sequences – many scenes are darkly lit and impossible to decipher, especially when the action is meant to be chaotic and instill a sense of fear. It ends up being disorienting instead. The mediocre CGI doesn’t help much either. Instead of embracing the entertaining cheesiness of such a far-fetched premise, co-writer and director Johannes Roberts tries to stick to the basics of a creature feature and fails to create anything memorable.

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