REVIEW: 47 Meters Down

I love a good shark movie.  Heck, I love a bad shark movie.  I saw Jaws at an extremely young age, and even though most boys my age would have Star Wars as their favourite movie of all time, for me it's either the shark that terrorizes Amity Island or James Cameron's The Terminator.  With the film The Meg coming out in August, a movie that could be bonkers fun, I felt it was only appropriate to look at the most recent successful shark movie in theatres.  Enter into the wading pool 2017's 47 Meters Down.

Prior to The Shallows, the last shark movie in theatres (other than the limited showings of Sharknado) was Shark Night in 2011.  If Shark Night had the humble budget of $5.5 million that 47 Meters Down had, it would have been a financial success.  Instead, it had a production budget of $25 million which caused the film to not turn a profit and did not make a case for shark movies in modern cinema.  Would a smaller budget mean that 47 Meters Down would look awful?  That's what I did wonder before I hit 'play.'

It turns out that one of the best aspects of this movie was the effects that it boasted.  Well, for most of the time.  There were a few instances where the sharks lunged that looked a bit off, and one supposedly frightening scene where I actually laughed out loud at a volume that I was worried my wife would hear me at the far end of the apartment.  Other than those few hiccups, I thought the shark effects were incredibly well done.  Something that people would know from watching as much Shark Week as they can, Great White Sharks don't necessarily speed through the water.  They look like they coast, giant monsters that have an eerily placid look that you know could change with a powerful stroke of the tale.   Director Johannes Roberts seemed to want to not have a hyped up version of the creature but rather one that felt more true to life.

The rendering of the sharks was really quite well done as well.  As mentioned, there are a few scenes that it isn't so much, but it was solid for the most part.  One thing that helps Roberts here is that he limits the amount that we see the sharks.  They are there in the water with our heroes, but we hardly see them.  While this may upset some people who want constant action and visceral excitement, to me the 'less is more' approach can be really powerful.  Just think of Alien.  There was so little screen time lent to the xenomorph, and it was the pure existence of it that made every scene tense.  That's sort of what is done here.  Not only does it keep a nice tension to the movie, but it means they don't have to expose the audience to the sharks as much, which means you don't need to spend as much money creating them.  All around, it is a good idea, both practically and for story telling.

I am getting ahead of myself.  Here I am talking about techniques that I enjoyed without actually mentioning what the movie is about.  Well, let us dig into that meaty mess.  We have two sisters, Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt).  They are in Mexico on a vacation, and Lisa admits that her boyfriend recently dumped her because she was boring.  The way to make him regret setting her free?  They will go swimming with sharks and take pictures.  That will prove to the ex-boyfriend that she isn't boring. Is she trying to get him back?  Is she trying to make him jealous?  I have no clue.  I don't think the movie actually has a clue.  This set up is so basic and tries to throw in a dramatic element for no reason at all.  In a film like this you can just simply have people getting into a shark cage.  To reference Alien again, Ripley didn't need a reason to be on the Nostromo other than the fact that she needed a job.  No need to try to create drama.

The girls are in luck.  Matthew Modine takes them out into the beautiful ocean, chums the waters, and sends the girls into a shark cage.  But, who would have guessed, trouble comes and the cage comes loose from the boat and sinks to the bottom, which just happens to be 47 meters down.  Inspired title?  Luckily the girls can communicate with each other through a radio system in their masks, and communication with Modine who is on the surface is sketchy at best.  Sharks are about, and the girls only have so much oxygen.  This is a nice an simple tale.  Like I said, no need for the useless drama that it forced into the story.  People trapped in a dangerous situation works, and you can create the essence of their characters and build arcs through how they deal with the situation.  I'm not saying that adding additional drama to the characters is a bad idea, just more so that sometimes a straightforward story doesn't need to have elements that are forced.

While I did say that I enjoyed the use of the sharks in this movie in keeping things taut, there are a number of scenes that are pushed to their limit in terms of length.  The film is 89 minutes, and it really could have been shorter.  It didn't have enough natural material for the run time, and it would have been a very brave decision from Roberts to cut it to the length needed.

The acting in here is decent enough.  I love the fact that Mandy Moore has resurrected her career lately, and I believe she is a solid talent.  Because she is in a mask in this movie, it is really hard to get a sense of all the emotions she is going through.  The character of Lisa travels through a number of emotions, and we mostly only get the impact of that through Moore's voice, which is done well enough.  Claire Holt, who I know very little about, does a fairly good job in here as well.

One thing that may make a few people upset is the fact that things in the depths start happening only to give the story some more run time and to service the plot.  An example is that for some reason a person decides not to communicate to one of the girls for a long time just to extend a scene of her swimming and then decides to say something when all of a sudden it is appropriate for a jump scare.  I know that we aren't watching a film that is trying to be the Citizen Cane of shark movies, but these instances are lazy compared to some of the more earned moments in the film.

The bottom of the ocean is a dark and dangerous place, and even though we know there are going to be some scares in there, we are left not knowing when they will come.  Perfect stuff, I say.  Watching the film, I am sure it is going to get the three star threshold for a recommendation.  But then something happened, and I won't tell you exactly what it is because I don't want to ruin a movie.  What I will say about it is that the director hits the climax of the film with what is the laziest, most inexcusable form of story telling. This sort of technique is wrong for a thirty second bit in the first act, let alone the final fifteen minutes of the movie.  There is no excuse for it.  As such, and leaving it to you to make up your own mind about it, I cannot recommend the film.  Ultimately it is a movie with a decent grasp on creating tension that goes full on season 6 of Married With Children.

Rating - 2 out of 4 stars