By Emilio Frenk
Director: Johannes Roberts
Cast: Mandy Moore, Claire Holt, Chris Johnson, Yani Gellman, Santiago Segura and Matthew Modine.
Rating: Poor.
British writer/director Johannes Roberts brings “47 Meters Down”, a movie that should have made it straight to Video on Demand instead of having a theatrical release and I´ll start by saying that this is a movie that is a waste of time.
The movie tells the story of Lisa (Mandy Moore) a girl who just recently broke up with her boyfriend and is joined by her sister Kate (Claire Holt) in a trip that both girls took to Mexico.
Both girls are invited by two locals to scuba dive in a cage and see sharks. Lisa is reluctant by this idea but she is being convinced by her sister at the end.
Kate is excited but Lisa is worried about this since it´s her first time. They both get in the cage and all hell breaks loose when the girls are stuck in the cage in the bottom of the ocean.
Now there are in a situation of survival that not only will have to deal with the oxygen in their tanks but they need to figure out a way how to get out of the cage without being caught by the sharks who are circling it.
Besides of being a exaggerated and predictable movie, “47 Meters Down” is not entertaining.
By the opening of the film when Johannes Roberts put his title above the movie´s title I said “Give me a Break”, like if it was in an 70´s or 80´s film.
The screenplay written by Roberts and Ernest Riera was so lame and with characters that are vague. I see that this girls pretend to be cool and then Many Moore´s character deciding to do the 47 meter down cage and take pictures of herself to show her ex-boyfriend she is worthy and having a good time is only laughable.
I didn´t care about the characters of the film and most of the movies that involve sharks have been getting worst and worst.
The only movie that involved this animal that it was not only a fantastic film but iconic is “Jaws”. This movie did had an effect and I felt that Roberts wanted to create the same one but he failed and badly.
Another good movie involves sharks was “The Shallows” by Jaume Collet-Serra. Here in this film like in “Jaws” the screenplay made the whole difference, as well as the direction and you have characters with real conflict and not with ridiculous moments that were portrayed in here.
The concept did look interesting and again I felt that more time in the writing should have been more invested but it wasn’t the case.
From the moment the second act of the film started it was only laughable. Yes, I admit there were moments that I jumped from my seat but at the end of the day it didn´t mean anything.
The ending was also really bad of the film; performance wise was very poor and I felt that Johannes Roberts cared only on making the film look good but it was not even close.
Not even a high caliber and talented actor like Matthew Modine could save the picture, but again it doesn´t matter of you have A List actors in project if you don´t have good material.
“47 Meters Down” is one of the worst movie of this year and one of the summer´s biggest flops.