47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED: Throw This One Back

2017’s 47 Meters Down surprised us all by becoming a sincere and fun entry in the “bad shark movie” genre. For every silly moment, there were points that actually worked and worked quite well. Two years later, the next installment of the franchise, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, flops like dead fish.

The film is poorly executed in concept, performance, and effects, making for a real slog of a viewing experience. Beyond that, there is an error so grave that it reduces the whole film to shark bait. The fatal flaw of 47 Meters Down: Uncaged is that it failed to understand what we enjoyed so much about the first movie and provided cheap imitations, at best, and more times than, not missed the mark completely.

In 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, four teenage girls chase thrills by diving in an unexplored underwater city and discover more than just creepy catacombs in the deep. They must race the clock and swim for their lives to escape the labyrinth of the ruins and an ancient species of blind cave sharks. Well… it’s true that there isn’t a shark cage in this one. That’s about where we can end the comparisons between the two films in the 47 Meters Down cinematic universe.

Director Johannes Roberts returns to direct this sequel to his 2017 film. The talent pool is a tad young and shallow, starring Sophie Nélisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju, and Sistine Rose Stallone, also a very out of place John Corbett. What are you doing here, John Corbett?

47 Meters Downgrade

When the first 47 Meters Down film cruised into theaters in the summer of 2017, it arrived with very little fanfare. Despite landing Mandy Moore to star, the film was unassuming and overly simplistic and easy to ignore. It’s amazing what a solid performance and a classic story of survival in the face of a primitive threat can do for a little shark flick. The film’s firm grasp of desperation and its surprise twist ending made it popular. It was just as much a survival adventure as it was an aquatic monster movie.

For a B-Movie, it worked well. The stakes truly felt high. The twist ending was a true twist and only added to our heightened anxiety. It was shot with intention and care; a particularly incredible scene with Mandy Moore’s character shooting out of the darkness towards the surface only for the flash of her flare to reveal gaping maws of her shark pursuers still grabs the viewer. There was a lot to love about 47 Meters Down. Which is probably where they got the idea to make a sequel.

What is abundantly clear is that no one associated with 47 Meters Down: Uncaged has even the slightest clue of what audiences enjoyed about the first film. The compelling shots that made the first film so tense are reduced to cheap imitations in the sequel. Storytelling elements that set the film apart are turned into laughable bits that make great, but out of place, comedy (and not in an intentional way).

No Cage, No Rules, No Consistency

Expectations are not high for a genre that shares the same cinematic space as films like Ghost Shark. There is an expectation and an understanding that shark movies are a tad silly, but even silly movies have to follow a basic structure. It’s a fine line between suspending your disbelief because you’re having fun, and giving up on a film completely because nothing matters and the viewer is expected to just accept whatever is thrown at them.

In 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, we’re introduced to an environmental element that is meant to distinguish the sequel from its predecessor. The shark villains of the film are blind, evolved within a cave and endowed with heightened senses outside of the sight. A scary and exciting premise, considering that sighted sharks still have a host of evolutionary superpowers of their own.

When confronted with this realization, the viewer begins to speculate on how this new element will lead to a shark story of a different kind. The rules of the shark have been well-established. They’re blind. They travel quietly, using other senses. The temple is small and escape can be found by squeezing through small tunnels, where the sharks can’t follow.

Conclusion: 47 Meters Down: Uncaged

It’s a wonderful deviation from the traditional formula… except it isn’t. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged was incapable of following its own rules. The sharks behaved exactly as if they had sight. The environment of the film and actions of the characters were not played up at all in consideration of this unique element. Sin of sins, in a callback to the first film, a flashing beacon that emits a high-pitched squeal is thought to scare the sharks. The sharks are repelled by the sound. Yet, in the climactic escape, the beacon is squealing but the sharks only seem to be responding to the flashes of the red light.

Maybe it’s a lack of finesse and an inability to animate CGI sharks in a new and less expected way. Maybe it was an attempt at a throwback that ended up being a fail. Suffice to say, this was by far the sloppiest component of the film and only heightened this critic’s own sense of how poorly done this film was.

Between a very disorganized format, poor storytelling choices swallowing up any potential, and one-note, novice performances, we condemn 47 Meters Down: Uncaged to the chum bucket.

Do you prefer the first 47 Meters Down or the sequel? What’s your favorite shark movie? Let us know in the comments below! 

Watch 47 Meters Down: Uncaged