Tension and Terror Make "47 Meters Down" Fun, Despite its Cheesiness

    The summer movie season is in full swing and this weekend marks the opening of five new films: Cars 3, All Eyez On Me, The Book of Henry, Rough Night, and the feature of this review, 47 Meters Down. For movie-goers, a smorgasbord such as this would be enough to entice a weekend full of cinematic wonder. To choose one over the other might be difficult for some. I've had my eye on 47 Meters Down for quite some time, probably because the ocean freaks me out. I love a good shark movie, and last year's sleeper hit The Shallows did not disappoint. From watching the tension-filled trailers for 47 Meters Down, I couldn't help but feel excited and terrified. After watching it I can safely say that the movie was definitely terrifying...when the sharks were on screen. Everything else was a bit, meh.

   The story follows sisters Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt) as they vacation in Mexico. Lisa is dealing with the aftermath of a terrible break-up and her free-flowing sister Kate is determined to bring out the non-boring side of her down-and-out sister. So, what do you do to find excitement? You go ask the concierge, right? Wrong. You go with a couple of strangers on a shady, questionably-legal boating activity that consists of scuba diving in a cage in shark-infested waters. Duh. When the cable to the cage snaps, Lisa and Kate soon find themselves trapped at the bottom of the ocean. With less than an hour of oxygen left and great white sharks circling nearby, they must fight to survive. The premise of the story is intriguing and scary; not the relationship drama but the being-trapped-in-shark-infested-waters part.

   The acting in this movie was okay. What's weird is that most of the dry performances in the movie often came from Mandy Moore, who is usually a pretty decent actress, and who is fantastic in the show This Is Us. But these types of movies aren't meant to showcase fantastic acting performances. Who shined the most in this movie were the multiple CGI Great Whites. They looked real and that realness added to the overall scare-factor. The tension in this movie is visceral, and the anticipation of the unknown is palpable, as Lisa and Kate try to survive their predicament. That's one area the director really thrived. Being underwater, the sharks were not the only issue they had to deal with. There was the issue of depleting oxygen, the lack of communication from the surface, and the dark unknown of the ocean floor. The situation is what is scary, and the variables add to that.

   My biggest gripe with the film was the overuse of exposition. There were a lot of times where Mandy Moore's character would literally narrate her inner thoughts and feelings, and it got to be a joke at times. I get that they're wearing scuba masks and it may seem hard to show emotion or expression, but exposition (a lot of it) will kill any vibe you've got going on. Narratively there was some choices made that really shocked me, the ending to be more specific. I won't discuss it, but I didn't see it coming. All in all, 47 Meters Down was a fun, turn-your-brain-off movie that is full of tension and scary situations that will freak you out if you put yourself into the head space of the characters. I enjoyed it despite its cheesiness.