Review: 47 Metres Down

On the heels of last summer's shark thriller, The Shallows, comes the significantly subpar 47 Metres Down, which features not one but two women in peril.

Sisters Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt) are vacationing in Mexico. Lisa confesses that she was recently dumped by her boyfriend for essentially being too boring and unadventurous. When the sisters meet a pair of locals (Santiago Segura and Yani Gellman) who suggest they go shark-cage diving, the more outgoing Kate convinces Lisa to overcome her hesitation and go for it. After all, won't the ensuing Instagram photos prove to her boyfriend how wrong he is?

So the quartet board the Sea Esta, a boat skippered by Captain Taylor (Matthew Modine) for whom the word ramshackle is a generous compliment. Lisa is still voicing her objections, though everyone assures her that she'll have the time of her life. Indeed, for the first few minutes underwater in the protective cage, her fears are offset by the thrill of observing the great whites swimming around them and the happiness of bonding with her sister. Things soon go awry - the winch on the cable breaks and the cage drops 47 metres down to the bottom of the ocean. With their air supply running out, the danger of nitrogen narcosis setting in, communication with the Sea Esta only possible by swimming out of the cage and ascending a few feet, and sharks sniffing out the bloody chum falling around them, the sisters must find a way to keep alive and in one piece long enough for the rescue team to find them and bring them to shore.

Apparently it is possible for a survival thriller to be both suspenseful and boring for 47 Metres Down certainly proves that in spades. It takes nearly 30 minutes for the sisters to even get into the cage and then an additional 15 minutes before they're in any real danger. Even then, there are fairly long stretches in between scares. Not helping matters is the dialogue, which is by-the-numbers and seemingly designed for the sight-impaired. Do audiences really need to hear Lisa exclaiming that a shark almost got her when they've just witnessed the scene mere seconds prior? Also grating is Lisa's never-ending breathless declarations about how frightened she is - all her panic quickly becomes mere white noise.

Unlike The Shallows, which stripped its premise of everything but the essentials, resulting in a lean and no-nonsense thrill ride, 47 Metres Down maintains more narrative fat than it should. There are attempts to establish issues between the sisters, but they're so flimsy that the effort isn't worth it. On the technical side, cinematographer Mark Silk's use of low-light settings effectively contribute to the dread and claustrophobia. There's one particularly remarkable image of the underwater murkiness being momentarily lit by a red flare, revealing the sisters to be encircled by sharks. Otherwise, 47 Metres Down offers very little other than standard cheap thrills, and even those don't do much to make the heart race.

47 Metres Down

Directed by: Johannes Roberts

Written by: Johannes Roberts, Ernest Riera

Starring: Mandy Moore, Claire Holt, Matthew Modine, Santiago Segura, Yani Gellman