47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019) Review
47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019) Review
The standalone sequel to the smash hit has taken nearly $40million at the box office, with writer/director Johannes Roberts looking to deliver another terrific, edge of your seat underwater horror thriller, as a group of teenage girls are terrorised by a fearsome great white shark in underwater caves off the coast of Mexico.
Shark movie franchises are an eclectic affair, take, for example, the JAWS franchise. Kick-started by the granddaddy of all shark movies, which not only wowed critics but paying audiences too, it was inevitable, given the monies made by Spielberg’s classic 1975 flick, that another JAWS film would swim into theatres soon after and it did in the form of 1978’s JAWS 2. It proved to be another box-office hit, although not on the same scale, and so a franchise was born which saw each successive entry make less and less of an impact both financially and with fans.
Elsewhere 2003’s OPEN WATER and launched another shark-themed franchise, however none of the subsequent movies were actually produced as a sequel but were independently made movies that could quite easily fit under the banner given a slight similarity in theme. And now there’s 47 METERS DOWN. The first flick was scheduled to bypass cinemas and head straight to retail. However with the unexpected success of fellow shark flick THE SHALLOWS (2016) saw the film rushed into theatres instead to capitalise on the resurgence of interest in shark-based survival horror. The original 47 METERS DOWN (2017) was a brutal affair that shocked viewers with one of the most downbeat endings of recent years that both excited and enthralled me. It left me gagging for more.
In much the same way that JAWS 2 went for the younger market, by having its main cache of victims being teenage kids, 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED opts for the same to splash around as potential shark fodder. Fair play to writer/director Johannes Roberts for not churning out a tired retread of his original flick however the situation offered this time around does stretch credibility a little. It’s noisy, it’s fast and it’s incredibly silly, all of which will work for the younger demographic it’s pitched at but I was left me yearning for the more visceral, vicious thrills of the original movie.
