Most of us enjoy a good shark flick. Jaws was obviously the one that started the trend and no other shark attack movie has ever been as good, or even close. They're fun movies and due to Sharknado there has been a recent resurgence of the sub-genre. However, what gets to me about these recent shark attack films is the PG-13 rating slapped down on the films. It's a problem because most of us... us degenerates... watch these movies to see the gruesome shark attacks that bestow our cast members. Would anyone remember Deep Blue Sea if all of the bloody shark maulings and torn-off limbs had been dulled down to a PG-13? (Or does anyone even remember Deep Blue Sea?) Last year's The Shallows had a PG-13 rating, but this is the one exception I would say works. The film isn't exactly a shark attack movie... it's a survival thriller. Blake Lively's character is trapped on a reef being surrounded by a shark. She's all alone and the thrills are in how she is going to survive. There are a couple of casualties in the movie that are a tad lame because of the watered-down violence, but it doesn't actually detract from the terror of the movie. 47 Meters Down is actually in the same vein as The Shallows... but this one, unfortunately, suffers at the hand of its PG-13 rating.
Now... that being said... the film doesn't suffer ONLY because we don't get to see the full effect of a shark gnawing on human flesh. The film suffers in many other ways. First, the acting. In our story we have Kate (Claire Holt) and Lisa (Mandy Moore), sisters who have made their way down to Mexico on some sort of getaway. Lisa is nursing a broken heart and her sister is there to help pick up the pieces. They're offered a chance to go out on a boat, get into a cage, and lowered 5 meters below the surface to see great white sharks up close. As they're lowered into the water, the cable snaps and the cage falls all the way to the bottom... forty-seven meters down!!! There they have to figure out a way to get back up to the top without being eaten by sharks or losing their oxygen. Their two options are to wait for rescue or swim to the top... stopping for five minutes to equalize and not get the bends. So, most of the film rests in the hands of our two lead actresses. Unfortunately, they just can't hold their own in this film (I mean... there's a reason we haven't seen a lot of Mandy Moore these days). I get that they're supposed to be panicked and it is truly a frightening situation, but their acting comes off more annoying than terrified. However... I will concede that it isn't exactly all of their fault...
The dialogue in the film is beyond terrible. I read recently that this movie was originally penned for a straight-to-DVD, video on demand release and it definitely feels that way when it comes to the script. The dialogue is so on the nose it's sprouted blackheads. The two girls just don't talk the way that two human sisters actually speak. "Oh my gosh, Kate, I was so frightened when you left." Then there's moments where the screenwriter... fearing his audience had the IQ of a dull hammer added in lines like this: Mandy Moore looks at her O2 level... it's down to 4 (out of 200)... and she has to say... when she's COMPLETELY ALONE: "Oh no. I'm going to run out of air." And finally, and this might just be me nitpicking because this sort of thing annoys the hell out of me anyway, Mandy Moore's character says her sister's actual name almost every other line. "Look out, Kate." "We're trapped in the ocean in a cage, Kate." "There is a shark right there in front of us and it is big and has teeth and is gray and could potentially be a very dangerous situation for us, KATE." It's an obnoxious thing when it's in any movie, but it's redundant as fuck when it's in a movie where there are only two characters. She does not have to address her own sister by name when she's the only other person at the bottom of the ocean with her! Even the Captain of the boat stays in contact with the girls on the ocean floor in order to spoon feed us rules to the movie as if we're playing a video game. "I'm sending down some extra oxygen tanks, but BE CAREFUL, the nitrous could get in your blood stream and make you hallucinate..." Like... oh... that was subtle... no way I'll be looking for that later on in the movie!
However, as poorly acted and awfully scripted as the dialogue is... the thrills are actually pretty great. The claustrophobia of being trapped in a cage amongst a dark and expansive ocean, the lurking threat of a shark circling the cage, the shortness of breath you feel as an audience member as the girls quickly run out of air, the fear of the unknown ocean terror that looms outside of the cage at any moment... all of these elements are very effective and well done. If the girls took two seconds to just shut the hell up every once in awhile it would've been a much better thriller. And every time there was an unintentional laugh due to something painfully obvious a character has to say... there's a moment of pure heart-racing terror that accompanies it. I think one of the most unnerving moments of the film is when Lisa climbs out of the cage to swim and fetch a flashlight. She retrieves the light, turns around and there's nothing but black. She's disoriented and can't remember which way she came to get it (of course, she says this out loud so we really understand this plight). Suddenly, as a viewer, you feel the terror and panic the same as she does. As far as a thriller goes, the movie succeeds on almost every level.
And yet... here's where I bring it all back around to my original gripe... the PG-13 rating. It affects this movie, not because I'm such a gore junkie I need to see these kills up close and personal, but because there is a moment that is integral to the film that had to be edited in order to appease the ratings board. There is a character... I'm not going to say which... who is attacked by a shark and killed. We briefly see the shark approach said character, bare its teeth, hear a shriek... and then nothing. It's actually important to know if this character had lived or died in that moment and I'm sitting there going... well... are we hidden from knowing the truth because this character is going to miraculously escape and return... or because in order to get the PG-13 rating we don't get to see it happen? The rest of the shark attacks don't necessarily need the blood and gore and limb-tearing that we got from a movie like Deep Blue Sea... a few of the attacks are thrilling enough as is... but this particular one could've served the film if we were able to see just exactly what the hell happened.
If you can stomach some really bad writing and acting enough to be able to get terror-stricken by a very intense and thrilling movie, then I'd say 47 Meters Down is worth your time. However, as a cohesive unit, throwing everything (the good, the bad, and the terrible) all together as one movie... there is a lot that isn't working. If I ever bring myself to watch it again... I'll just turn the volumn all the way down and enjoy watching the two mute girls try and make their way back to the surface.
C-
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