47 Meters Down: Uncaged

47 Meters Down: Uncaged

Starring Sophie Nelisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju, Sistine Stallone
Directed by Johannes Roberts

The Story:
Living in Mexico with her scuba-diving father, Mia (Sophie Nelisse) is picked on by the other girls at her school, and her step-sister Sasha (Corinne Foxx) doesn't do anything to help, and the two couldn't be any more separate.  Her father plans for them to connect by sending them to a glass-bottom boat ride, but Sasha's friends Alexa (Brianne Tju) and Nicole (Sistine Stallone) have different ideas, and the four girls travel to a remote hidden lake far away from tourists.

Alexa discovers scuba gear and decide to show the girls the underwater city that Mia's father has been investigating, and they descend into the murky waters.  When they accidentally get trapped, they have to take the long way out - and combat a group of blind great white sharks that've lived in the underwater city for centuries and haven't experienced sunlight, so they're blind but their other senses are heightened.  As their oxygen and time run out, the girls must survive on one another to make it out alive.

The Synopsis:
Two summers ago, Mandy Moore and Claire Holt starred in "47 Meters Down," which was supposed to be a direct-to-DVD shark film, but after the surprise success of Blake Lively's "The Shallows" a year earlier, director Johannes Roberts decided to release it to theaters.  It wasn't very good, and had one of the worst plot lines in recent memory, but it managed to squeak out a modest success, and a sequel was greenlit - but that too was supposed to be direct-to-DVD, and since it doesn't feature any of the original's stars, probably should've stayed that way (to prove the point that it wasn't supposed to see a wide release, there were several moments in the film where you see people swearing - as in their lips making the motion of the swear word they're supposed to say - but were instead dubbed to say something different).

Surprisingly, I found myself more entertained by this film than its predecessor, probably because it followed the traditional sequel tropes - bigger cast, bigger stakes, bigger sharks, and bigger moments.  Instead of focusing on two characters stuck in a cage 47 meters below, it centers on four girls who go scuba diving through an abandoned and eerie Mayan underwater city as they're stalked by blind sharks who've adapted using their other senses better than their sight.  What gets me most in films is claustrophobia, because it truly terrifies me to have the idea of being stuck in a small enclosed space, which is why films like "The Descent," "The Pyramid," and "As Above, So Below" really make me cringe, and that's the biggest selling point I have for "Uncaged," as not only do the girls traverse a sunken city, but have to literally at times wiggle through razor-thin openings and do so with the added fear of possibly drowning, which to me are the two worst ways to die.

That's really what sets these two films apart for me, as the acting here is lackluster at best, and shows that I would never go scuba diving with dim-witted girls ever.  Johannes Roberts decides to cast a culturally diverse group of actresses at first because I thought he was being pro-advancement of minorities, but after the girls descend into the water, I realize it was probably because there's no other way to tell them apart other than their physical differences.  There didn't seem to be much of a script, because the girls spend most of the time yelling, crying, or repeating phrases like "let's go this way," or "what was that?" over and over.  Each girl also lives up to her given stereotype: Sophie Nelisse's Mia is shy, awkward, and incredibly knowledgeable about the history of the city, so of course she's the most cool-headed of the group.  Corinne Foxx (daughter of Jamie Foxx) is Mia's half-sister (or step-sister, we're not really sure) Sasha, who has a frosty relationship with Mia that only the depths of the underground underwater world can repair.  Brianne Tju is Alexa, the natural leader of the group who looses her cool when it hits the fan.  Sistine Stallone (daughter of Sylvester) is the act-first-think-later girl who plays off fearless but is the first to literally freak out and lead to worse things to happen to the group.  There's not much more development made, as obviously most (if not all) of them won't make it to the surface alive.

The ending of the film was way better than the original, but even that had me laughing inappropriately, making me ask the word "really?" over and over again, but not as bad as the first time.  Throw in cheap slight-better-than-SyFy effects, and you really wonder how this got greenlit for a national film release instead of a simple Wal-Mart DVD-dumpster bin release.

The Summary:
Better than its predecessor, "47 Meters Down: Uncaged" makes full use of its claustrophobic setting, making the film a beautiful window-dressing that's hiding a mediocre, subpar story inside - but at least it's got some tense, claustrophobic moments.

The Score: C-