47 Meters Down: Uncaged Evaluation
“Aqua Horror,” particularly shark cinema, continues to floor title upon title after a sunken interval. Between The Shallows, The Meg, and lesser-budgeted splashes comparable to Johannes Roberts’ 47 Meters Down, fin flicks have surged again into summer time’s film night time focus. 47 Meters Down isn’t the largest fish of these three, however impresses primarily based on Roberts’ subversion of expectations by hooking razor-sharp psychological tortures on a line bated with catastrophic cage diving. You’d most likely assume 47 Meters Down: Uncaged to be extra of the identical, right? Comply with system, scare audiences, money test?
Reader, Uncaged is a stealth slasher that includes blind Nice Whites that’s extra slasher flick than half of 1980’s horror output. One step away from the shark, Jason Voorhees masks over snout, *one way or the other* holding a machete.
Roberts and co-writer Ernest Riera shift from Mexico to Brazil, the place scuba dude Grant (John Corbett) is mapping submerged Mayan temples. Daughters Mia (Sophie Nélisse) and Sasha (Corinne Foxx), urged by buddies Nicole (Sistine Rose Stallone) and Alexa (Brianne Tju), discover themselves trapped in the identical watery ruins. Why? As a result of a Nice White collapses their entrance throughout an ill-advised and uninstructed cave dive. With escape on their minds and air tanks operating low, the ladies should find Grant and flee the labyrinth burial grounds earlier than suffocating, or worse, changing into a sharky snack.
After I say Uncaged represents architectural narratives of slasher cinema, your exaggerated creativeness isn’t removed from actuality. Thoughts you; these Nice Whites can’t see as a result of evolution has tailored to darkness by eradicating pointless options aka eyesight. STILL, victims are picked off by sharks who SNEAK UP BEHIND DIVERS.
One scene specifically options Grant’s assistant, again turned to huge Mr. Chompy who glides nearer and nearer. What a splendidly goofy viewpoint as Roberts’ deep sea demon channels the underwater equal of an oversold tip-toe Bugs Bunny profile in Looney Tunes, the diver in the meantime wholly oblivious. Shark assault movies usually favor oceanic darkness and suspenseful lunges, however Roberts torpedoes right into a construction that’s oftentimes cornballish and items viewers chewed corpses.
Unpacking the above paragraph assures that Uncaged isn’t as scary as its predecessor. Mia and firm flee from pc designed predators of the SYFY selection as uninteresting gray “supersharks” seem pale as ghosts and dully monochromatic. Roberts deserves credit score for charting a brand new course together with his franchise continuation, however a few of you’ll despise what by no means turns into Jaws 2 meets The Descent. It’s predictable, oddly paced at instances (kills vary from off-camera to hermetic devastation), and much pulpier than the official nautical nightmare that’s 47 Meters Down.
Callbacks try to retain what made Roberts’ first movie a hit, pondering of red-lit cinematography bursts on an in any other case black display (visionless situations). Mandy Moore’s sparked flare in 47 Meters Down, a flashing emergency beacon in Uncaged. As sharks materialize from nowhere and whiz previous swimmers who scream bloody homicide, you’ll nonetheless bounce and tense up. It’s simply the lingering dread that’s lacking from Uncaged, which recycles “shark caught in too small a gap” bits and tries to outshine Samuel L. Jackson’s Deep Blue Sea demise. Pictures could possibly be reused and there’s no telling the distinction (by way of teenage swimmers paddling by tight corridors whereas a shark’s head clogs their exit). Warrior statues and stone pillars solely characterize cultural richness for therefore lengthy earlier than silt clouds blur imaginative and prescient in favor of peek-a-boo sharks.
Uncaged options the kin of Sylvester Stallone and Jamie Foxx, which can dominate chatter regardless of Sophie Nélisse’s main standing. In any case, actors muffle dialogue by scuba gear and solely breathe one emotion: concern. For good motive! Besides Roberts can’t escape a motivationally cliched opening that leads 4 adventurous females right into a shark’s den. An try at step-sister bonding provides dramatic heft to Mia and Sasha’s survival dependencies, however it’s by no means substantial sufficient to register above spooky shark beats of the hungriest order. You’re right here for the shut encounters of the finned type, and that’s what Roberts delivers. Nothing much less, however actually nothing extra.
Ultimately, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged lags behind Johannes Roberts’ 2017 alpha. Scenes undertaking Deep Blue Sea by means of Turistas vibes however to a weaker diploma. Weak sufficient to break what aquatic horror enjoyable one would possibly in any other case have with slasher villain sharks searching “fallacious historical flooded metropolis, fallacious time” newbie explorers? Possibly a more durable promote for followers who demand Jaws-level high quality of their H2-Oh-No watches. The remaining who don’t thoughts motion pictures like Shark Night time 3D or different sillier excuses for dorsal damnation although may be drawn to the claustrophobic and primal cinematic chum that Roberts throws down.