47 Meters Down: Uncaged

Starring: Sophie Nelisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju, Sistine Rose Stallone, John Corbett, Nia Long, Brec Bassinger, Davi Santos
Directed by: Johannes Roberts
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Horror
2019

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Four teenage girls diving in an underground city soon run into a deadly shark.

Review:

Tim: I surprisingly enjoyed 47 Meters Down. Johannes Roberts directed a solid shark movie that toyed with some of our usual expectations and delivered a fun, if flawed, movie. I was intrigued that he was coming back for the sequel. Unfortunately, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged makes a lot of mistakes and represents a significant step back in terms of quality. This film went the typical sequel route- maybe a bit bigger and much less effective.

One of the key issues is the cast. The first movie had Mandy Moore and Claire Holt. Neither of them are great actresses, but they are solid and likeable. I enjoyed watching them both in the film. This time, the cast is bigger and most forgettable. Sophie Nelisse was in the lead role and gave an unmemorable performance. She was fine, but I can't think of anything noteworthy she did. She was a huge step down from Moore and Holt. Corinne Foxx was fine, I suppose. I didn't see much of her father's talent in this performance. She was just kind of there. The same can be said for Sistine Rose Stallone. She might have had a few decent moments, but it was still a mostly underwhelming performance. Brianne Tju might have been the best of the four main cast members, but I wouldn't say I was wowed by her performance. The film is helped by decent supporting performances from John Corbett and Nia Long, but neither of them has enough screen time to really make a difference. This film rests firmly on Nelisse, Foxx, Stallone, and Tju, and boy, they really didn't do much. It's hard when you assemble a cast and the top four characters are played by people with either minimal talent or great levels of inexperience. It's not going to result in a very successful movie. The result of this is that we never really care about the characters. None of them are good enough to establish relatable characters, so we're not invested in their story. We don't really care if the shark gets them or not.

This was another notable issue with the story. In the first film, it was two sisters and we invested in them. We wanted them both to survive. This film expands the cast and it's hard to feel like it was done for any reason other than to increase the body count. More characters, more people to die by shark! That's not going to be a recipe for success. The first film succeeded because we somewhat cared about the characters and the story proved surprising and unexpected. This movie has quite forgettable characters and plays out more or less as we'd expect. The "surprises" in this story aren't surprising at all. Other films have done them much better. The whole story felt weak here. Roberts was involved in the whole thing, so the blame rests firmly on him. He took a movie that was flawed but effective and delivered a weaker, less entertaining and less interesting sequel. I'm not sure why this movie was made.

To be fair, 47 Meters Down was good, but it wasn't so good that it needed to be turned into a franchise. It was a solid movie and it did well at the box office, so I don't completely blame Roberts. It's been a long, long time since we had a shark-focused franchise. I'm totally open to that idea. Unfortunately, this film showed how difficult shark movies can be. It crashed this potential franchise back to earth. This movie also made half the money the original did ($44 million vs. $22 million), and this one had a much bigger budget. It still made money, so it's not out of the realm of possibility for the third movie to be made, but the signs are clear- this should be the last film. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged is a disappointing sequel, the kind that exposes the series' flaws and should be the end.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: 47 Meters Down, The Shallows, Jaws, Deep Blue Sea