47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019)

AUGUST 16, 2019

GENRE: PREDATOR, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

"There won't be a "48" Meters Down." - BC, Horror Movie A Day (from the review of 47 Meters Down)

OK in reality I meant there wouldn't be any sequel at all, but ironically I am still *technically* correct, because they decided to be less cute and named their sequel 47 Meters Down: Uncaged instead. To be fair, it's a more accurate title than "48" - the heroes in this one aren't too far down at all, let alone further (if so, they've abandoned the "bends" concept that drove so much of the original), but they ARE uncaged, as the four swimmers this time around are on an impromptu scuba dive and have nothing between them and the sharks.

That is, except for the area itself, which is a flooded Mayan temple. I guess this series is committed to reminding us of The Descent, as the first one cribbed its (UK!) ending and this one borrows the same kind of claustrophobic thrills, as narrow tunnels and an unsure path to reach the surface offer up just as many scares as the sharks. Also, because the sharks (and one random fish that is used for a scare!) have been down there for so long, they basically evolved without eyes, making them blind and needing sound to find their way around - just like the Descent monsters.

But hey, "The Descent with sharks" is a pretty solid concept for a B-movie like this, and honestly I think it might be a minor improvement over the original. For starters, the expanded cast means, well, more action - the sisters in the original had to live until the closing moments (give or take a hallucination), but there are four divers plus three dudes who are working in the area to... clear a path for development, or something? It doesn't really matter, as it allows for a few extra potential victims, plus a scene where a guy is welding while listening to music only to get spooked by the villain, a classic cliche kind of horror movie scene except for it's all playing out underwater. It's an amusing sight.

And naturally, not everyone makes it out, which means there's more shark carnage this time around. Also, it retains the "more or less real time" approach of the original, but as they don't have a cage to sit in and stay safe for a bit, there are far fewer cringe-worthy dialogue scenes, which were a major blight last time. Sure, the pre-dive dialogue is generic and vague (our heroine Mia is hated by everyone at school, but we have no idea why - a new Johannes Roberts tradition I guess as we never understood what Bailee Madison's character had done wrong at the top of Strangers 2), but once they're down there they rarely say anything outside of things like "Look out!" "Check your air!" and "We're trapped!" (followed by "There must be a way!"), so that's nice.

In fact if anything they go too far in the opposite direction. Mia has a stepsister, Sasha, and we quickly learn the two don't really get along ("She's not my sister," Mia says to her stepmom, who she does seem to bond with - a nice change of pace from the norm in horror movies). But when Mia's dad (John Corbett) sends the two of them off on a shark-watching boat only for Sasha's friends show up and convince them to change their plans and go scuba diving with them instead, Mia hesitates for a second... and then Sasha is suddenly her BFF. Sasha's pals also take to Mia quite quickly, making me wonder why they even set up any conflict at all. I was expecting/assuming to see their animosity have to be put aside in order to survive and then maybe they'd actually find their sisterly bond that they lacked, but nah, all four of them get along just fine for the rest of the movie. It's the rare film in that the people who come in late and get there just in time to see them go into the water (maybe 15 minutes in) will actually get the better experience - we that got there on time had to watch a prologue that had no bearing on anything. They don't even get mad at the girl who causes them to get stuck in the first place by poking around and ultimately knocking over a Mayan statue, blocking their path.

So it fails on character levels (if you show up to this expecting such things in the first place, that is), but it delivers the shark goods. The "they can't see us" thing is used to good effect without overdoing it, as are the "it's too narrow, I'm stuck!" kind of moments - Roberts keeps everyone moving and divides his time equally between the survival elements and the shark stuff. Their dwindling air supply is mentioned just enough to remind us without really focusing on it (in the first movie they might as well have just put an on-screen graphic the entire time since they brought it up so much), and when they find an air pocket to give the oxygen tanks a break, they discover the air is too stale/toxic to breath for too long, so that added another complication/variation to break up the repetition. Once again some of the attack scenes are a bit hard to follow since they're all wearing masks and flailing about too much to make out any features, but Roberts delivers on the money shots when they happen, so it's forgivable.

Less forgivable: the director's frequent slo-mo shots (including one of Mia that had the audience laughing when it wasn't a funny moment), and trying to pull the Sam Jackson in Deep Blue Sea thing again for the death of one character. That one worked amazingly, but it's been 20 years of diminished returns on such things - now we can pretty much see it coming, which is the exact opposite of how it should work. Let's give this "someone important dies mid-speech" thing a rest for a while, huh? But some of the other scares (particularly one during the climax) play flawlessly, and there's even some gnarly gore considering the PG-13 rating, so if you're just there for the body count you should be satisfied (and certainly more so than you were with the first one). The FX are pretty good too - in fact the cheapest looking thing in the entire movie (besides the horrible Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures logo) is the film's title, which has a cool dissolve from blood kinda thing but when the letters themselves form they look lo-res. How y'all make an albino shark look real enough but not the letter M?

The first one came out in June and was a surprise hit; this one has the more fitting release time of August, but isn't expected to do as well - go figure. Maybe the recent Crawl, which catered to the same kind of thrills (and was, admittedly, a bit better) just scratched everyone's itch for such fare, or maybe the complete lack of connection to the first* means they're starting from scratch and won't benefit from the usual sequel bump? (Not that this year has been particularly kind to sequels anyway.) It's not quite good enough to play the "YOU GOTTA SEE THIS!" card, but I hope those who enjoy such things can scrounge up the cash (or Moviepass, A-list, etc) and time to give it a look.

What say you?

*Minor spoiler, but there's a scene where *someone* reaches the surface and spies a boat nearby - for a hot minute I really thought it was gonna be Matthew Modine's boat from the original and finally give it a tie in to that one, especially since the movie was noticeably "timeless". Our heroes are four teenaged girls and not a single one of them ever has a cell phone! But alas, it's a different boat, and the film remained completely standalone. Maybe if it becomes a hit anyway they can do a couple more one-offs and then make a 47 Meters Down: Avengers kinda thing where all of the survivors team up.

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