★★★ out of ★★★★★
Young women. Adventurous young women. Genetically perfect adventurous young women. Impossibly tight spaces. Blind killing creatures who’ve not seen the light of day for millennia. It’s the Descent for the tween generation! Plus, did we mention the forever hunky John Corbett???
47 Meters Down: Uncaged, apparently has nothing, literally nothing, to do with its 2017 forefather, 47 Meters Down. This was really just a nice little $88 million dollar cash grab from Hollywood. Really. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged cost $12 million and grossed over $100 million. Not at bad return on investment. This 47 Meters Down, the uncaged flavor, follows super-handsome underwater anthropologist, John Corbett and his perfectly perfect mixed race family. His biological daughter, Mia (Sophie Nelisse), is nebbish, nerdy, out of touch, and lacks moxie. His adoptive daughter, Sasha (Corinne Fox) , is confident, stylish, and cool. Not too cool mind you, because she’s cool enough to have beef with the cool kids, but just cool enough to be cool in her own little circle.
Grant (John Corbett) has relocated his entire family to Mexico for a research project looking at a series of underwater Aztec burial chambers that have been perfectly preserved for the last 500 years. Unbeknownst to Grant there’s something else that’s also been lurking in this underwater chamber — SPOILER ALERT — it’s sharks!
Grant’s wife, the extra fine but underused Jennifer (THE Nia Long), suggests that her decidedly uncool adoptive daughter and her hyper-cool daughter hang out together and spend a day on a great white shark boat tour. The girls, who passively tolerate each other, agree to the offer, but have a change of heart at the last minute when a member of their teen foursome Alexa (Brianne Tju) suggests swimming at a “secret” location. Alexa’s been hanging with one of Grant’s research assistants and has become aware of an alternate route in to the burial chambers through a picturesque cenote.
The girls, feeling a little risky and a little randy, decide to go for it. When the girls discover the staged scuba equipment, the swim quickly evolves in to a disobedient scuba trip in to the cursed cenote. The burial chamber is cramped and claustrophobic. It’s filled with beauty and dread. The girls, mostly following established safety rules, venture in to the heart of the burial chamber to witness the majesty of the perfectly preserved pernicious place of worship. That’s where things go wrong. Horribly wrong. The girls eventually become trapped. Air tanks begin to run low. Temporary insanity starts to set in. No air. No way out. And sharks. They’ve hit the 47 Meters trifecta! The film ultimately plays out as a coming of age triumph where the sisters Mia (uncool) and Sasha (cool) are forced to coexist and support each other’s unique skill sets.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged is a fairly thrilling popcorn chomp-er, and while the shark(s) doesn’t appear until 25 minutes in to the film, the tight spaces, confined air, and teenage uncertainty all merge in horrific stream of blood and fright. The film does contain a couple poorly conceived pieces of CGI and a rather ham-fisted-action-leaning ending, but if you’re needing a fun little respite from life with few consequences or heavy thoughts then 47 Meters Down: Uncaged has you covered. There’s no reason to wait for Shark Week when this tween romp is awaiting you!
47 Meters Down: Uncaged is PG-13 (duh) and currently streaming on Amazon.