47 Meters Down: Uncaged
ENTERTAINMENT STUDIOS MOTION PICTURES (2019)
Director: Johannes Roberts
Starring: Sophie Nélisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju, Sistine Stallone, Davi Santos, Khylin Rhambo, Brec Bassinger, John Corbett
Prefix: I hate the ocean. I said the same when discussing 47 Meters Down.
Johannes Roberts' 2017 effort was OK, it wasn’t the worst shark movie I’d seen and it had a good performance from Mandy Moore at its core. Two years on and Roberts is back with 47 Meters Down: Uncaged – a sequel to that first movie that has absolutely nothing to do with that first movie. This time, the action shifts from a cage at the bottom of the ocean in the Dominican Republic to an unexplored and submerged Mayan city which is home to another batch of big, nasty and hungry sharks.
Four young girls - Mia (Nélisse), Sasha (Foxx), Alexa (Tju), and Nicole (Stallone) - find themselves in a ridiculous situation in Mexican waters after disobeying their father. However, this movie has nothing to do with 47 Meters Down, so it's unclear why the filmmakers tried to relate the two movies. They could have just as easily named it 'Shark Feast in Mexico.' The characters lack depth and are unsympathetic, making it frustratingly easy to root for their demise, and, honestly, the movie comes across as more of an excuse to film young women in bikinis swimming around. That said, it's hard to distinguish the characters underwater because everything is so darkly lit. The movie's setting carried serious potential for exciting and tense moments, but they never come as every shark attack is entirely predictable, and by the end, it becomes ridiculous. One positive aspect is that part of the movie was filmed in Basildon, Essex, which is a local win.
Overall, there's nothing that justifies the need for this sequel, and it falls short across the board.
September 7th 2019