47 Meters Down (2017)

Last year around this time a little shark film called The Shallows made its debut and became the sleeper hit of the summer. So given that fact it really shouldn't come as a shock to see another shark movie released this summer in an attempt to capitalize on that film's success. Unfortunately, 47 Meters Deep --previously titled In The Deep-- feels like an Asylum ripoff, except nowhere near as hilarious as those tend to be.

Our story follows the Mexican vacation adventures of sisters Lisa and Kate, played by former pop star Mandy Moore and Claire Holt, respectively. We find out that Lisa's ass has just been dropped like a hot rock by either her husband or boyfriend (I can't for the life of me remember if they actually specified which), and considering she's the type who defines herself by whatever relationship she's in she's pretty broken up by it. We then immediately fly through a whole series of Screenwriting 101 scenes that are cut together so quickly all they would need is a peppy synthpop track to be considered a montage until the girls have met a couple of vacation boyfriends who convince them to come onto their friend's boat for a spot of shark cagin'. Unsurprisingly the winch holding their cage breaks and they wind up 47 meters --or 155 feet if you're American and fat-- under the surface, surrounded by Great White sharks.

So, guys, this movie is horrible. It looks amateurish at best and almost unwatchable at worst, though considering director Johannes (The Other Side of the Door, Storage 24) Roberts has been behind some of the worst horror flicks of the past few years I suppose that shouldn't come as a shock, which really upsets me considering he's been tapped to direct The Strangers 2. And the writing! Oh boy, the writing! You know how Blake Lively's character in The Shallows was a really likeable, interesting, multifaceted character? Well, Lisa and Kate's main character trait appears to be THEY ARE GIRLS, spending roughly 80% of the film squealing and the other 20% fumbling around inane dialogue. Furthermore, considering the sheer amount of time the bends was mentioned, I'm pretty sure Roberts and co-writer Ernest Riera have no idea what the bends actually is. I mean, it's a great album, why is that a problem?

Ironically, it features a song titled 'High and Dry'

All joking aside, considering the sheer speed those woman drop to the ocean floor, twice, and the fact Roberts went out of his way to include a shot of the glass watch face on Kate's wrist shattering, those girls should've been dead right then and their, their newly-liquefied brains leaking from their ears. I'm willing to overlook a lot of shit; I could've overlooked the bland and one-dimensional characters and the myriad plot holes (how many plot holes could possibly be in a movie like this, you ask? Oh my sweet summer child, you have no idea) if the ending worked. It does not. In fact, I haven't been this pissed off about a film ending in a long while. I'm gonna talk about it, so if you don't want to know you should stop reading now, because beyond here there be dragons.

Towards the end of the film, things are looking bad for our mousy friend Lisa. Her leg is trapped between the ocean floor and the cage after a failed rescue attempt left it on its side, her sister was just snapped up in front of her eyes by one of the sharks while picking up some spare air tanks, she even managed to shot herself in the hand with a spear gun. Then, crackling and whimpering over her little underwater radio thingy. It seems her sister is alive! Badly hurt and hiding a ways away between some rocks, but alive nonetheless. She suddenly switches over to total badass! She manages to unstuck her leg using the inflator on her bcd, finds her sister, swims her up to the top using underwater flares to keep the predators and bay, and even gouges a shark's eye out when it bites her pussy! She makes it one the boat, then her vision goes blurry and BLAM!, turns out she's still in the cage, her sister is dead as fuck, and she was hallucinating as a Coast Guard rescue team swims down to her!

W-what? Why!? Why would you do that!? Why would you give us a rad, tense (the only tension to be found in the entire fucking movie) ending where a character evolves and then snatch it away to present us with this uninteresting and, let's just go ahead and say it, misogynist (obviously a woman wouldn't be able to save herself, right?) ending instead?! It added nothing, instead shattering what would've been an interesting, if silly, character arc. I actively hate the two writers for this ending.

So yeah, I really, really, REALLY hated this movie. Shit, I'd recommend Jaws: The Revenge, over 47 Meters Down.

Gotta say, if it were me who'd had to suffer through all that, Matthew Modine's Shark Viewer Inc would be getting a sternly-worded Yelp review. "My sister died due to the Captain's negligence and faulty equipment! However, his prices were reasonable and technically we did see plenty of sharks! 2/5 stars"