Medo Profundo

Had a flick through the comments here and I saw a bunch of 1's from people complaining about coast guard tactics, ocean safety and even "shark behaviour". IT'S A MONSTER SURVIVAL MOVIE! Just calm down and watch it for what it is. Lame and uninteresting characters, a boat, ocean, sharks. Followed by cheap jump scares.

Sure, it's nothing new, but it holds its own.

But hey, what do I know, when I was young, my brother and I stood on a beach in Wales screaming at a dead crab for a good 5 minutes.

It's summer again;  it's a shark movie.  Lisa and Kate are two sisters on holiday in Mexico with one grieving a lost relationship and the other looking for fun.  Against their better judgement they go shark cage diving 5 metres below a vessel that looks like it should have been in the salvage yard 20 years ago.  After a mechanical failure the cage plummets down to the sea bed..... (Go on, how deep? Have a guess.  Go on, go on, go on ...)

With sharks circling and air running low, will the girls survive their ordeal?  

Last year, one of the surprise movies of the year for me was "The Shallows", which I really enjoyed.  A tense, well made yarn held together by a solid performance by Blake Lively and with a genuine escalation of tension (albeit let down by a poor ending). 

"47 Metres Down" differs from that film in three major respects:  B- movie acting, from Mandy Moore and Claire Holt (with Holt being significantly better than Moore); a screenplay by Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera that is both ponderous and unbelievable; and dialogue that is at times truly execrable.  

The film really takes its time to get to the 'sharp end' (as it were). Once there, the actions of the girls are so clinically stupid that they are deserving of Darwin Award nominations. Fortunately, the IQs of the sharks (well realised as CGI by Outpost VFX) are only marginally greater:  the sharks will appear and then go away for ten minutes at a time, just so that the implausible plot can progress unmolested.

These films always need an escalator for the tension:  in "The Shallows" it was the rising tide; in this film it is the air supply. This element works well and adds an additional element of claustrophobia to the film that is already at 11 on the scale (you surely don't need me to tell you that claustrophobics need to avoid this film!). 

Much of the dialogue is expository regarding what is going on in the darkness and is so repetitive ("We ARE going to get out of here Kate!") that it would make a good drinking game.  The worst dialogue award though goes to Matthew Modine ("Memphis Belle") who's repeated medical descriptions of "the bends" becomes mildly comical - I literally got a fit of the giggles at one point.

I'm not going to completely savage the film though, since there IS a nice twist to the ending, albeit one that's heavily signposted.  And instead of reaching constantly for the classic "Ben's head in the boat" jump scare, the film occasionally teases the audience with set- ups that ultimately just feature murky water and nothing more. 

My recommendation:  if you've not yet seen "The Shallows", check that out on DVD and give this one a miss.

(For the graphical version of this review please visit bob-the-movie- man.com. Thanks).

I actually caught this in the theater and again a year later at home. Reviews are mixed with this film, but I actually enjoyed this movie. Mandy Moore's acting is always a breath of fresh air and Claire Holt didn't have trouble carrying the film along. Yes it's a shark movie, but what makes this flick a stand out, is the fact the sharks aren't the only threat to the girls survival. It got a few jumps and a sudden episode of claustrophobia from me. Which I guess is a good thing. Moore's freaky smile in the end makes one lasting impression but one burning question though for me is... WHERE THE HELL DID THE SHARKS DISAPPEAR TO IN THE FINAL RESCUE SCENE ?!?

I had a great time with this one! It really succeeded where few monster movies manage to. It provided tension, scary moments and it did made me hold my breath!

Beside this year's The Shallows, we got In The Deep, which is a beautifully shot movie, good acting, nice reactions, pretty much the whole nine yards here. It was a great little movie, I'm just sad it didn't get the attention it should have. People need to know that this is not another low budget shark movie, but a damn good one!

Watch it and you will not regret. It provides a great, great atmosphere and surely enough, most of you will enjoy it.

Cheers!

47 Meters Down is a highly claustrophobic shark movie starring Mandy Moore and Matthew Modine but it's flaws are quite unique.

Telling the story of two girls who go into a shark cage in Mexico to see the great whites but fall into peril when the chain snaps and they're plunged into darkness.

Let me say that visually the movie is incredible and is one of the most claustrophobic heart pounding films I've seen in years. You feel for these ladies, the movie gets across the panic, severity and time restrictions very well and it taps into something which makes me personally feel very uncomfortable.

But, and it's a big but the movie's logistics are dumbfoundingly stupid and defy logic. What I mean by that is that nobody involved bothered doing any research into oxygen at these depths, what is done here not only isn't possible but is to moronic science fiction levels. It quite frankly insults the intelligence of the viewer.

If you can get past that (And I couldn't) it's quite a memorable little film that looks great, has passable performances (I've always liked Moore) and is fairly unique.

If they'd done some research and applied it to the film then this would have been a lot better. However if they had then this would have had to be a different film altogether to be even remotely realistic.

The Good:

Looks incredible

Sets the tone perfectly

Mandy Moore

Unique stuff

The Bad:

Offensively unrealistic