Pure serendipity, to tell the truth.....we got a look at this one way back last year, when it had a one week shelf life as a direct-to-DVD title called "In The Deep".....(Beloved Daughter, who normally runs screaming from scare movies, embraced this film eagerly since it starred her adored fave, Mandy Moore.....
"In The Deep" was quickly yanked off the Target shelves when the film changed corporate hands......and the new producers, encouraged by the success of last summer's Black Lively Vs. A Shark movie, "The Shallows", gave "In The Deep" back its original title and a prime 2017 summer playdate in theaters. After all, nothing says summer like the sight of hot babes dangled as appetizers for great white sharks......
And dangle they do, as two vacationing sisters, (Moore and Claire Holt) unwisely sign up for a shark-cage experience on a rickety tub captained by a haggard, gaunt Matthew Modine. (One glance at Modine's boat tells you things won't bode well......it makes Robert Shaw's 'Orca' look like the Love Boat...)
Before you can even mutter to yourself, "Girls go in the cage....cage goes in the water....sharks in the water...", the cable snaps and down to the bottom go our lovelies, with only an hour of air left in their tanks, and a lot of You-Know-Whats popping up for a quick bite.....
No, don't start smirking, loyal readers......cause this little movie, swift, efficient and slickly done, deftly accomplishes what it set out to do..... to.scare you silly and make you cling to whoever you brought with you to see it....(we expect it to become a yuuuuuge date night experience)
"47 Meters Down" turns out much like one its finely rendered CGI sharks......fast moving and brutally single-minded in purpose, the cinematic equivalent of a theme park ride.
And no doubt, audiences will cringe at the sight of these toothy predators daring to menace sweet Mandy Moore, America's new reigning maternal sweetheart of 'This Is Us'. Moore fearlessly risks ridicule by spending the entire film hyperventilating in stark terror......which, let's face it, is exactly what the rest of us would do if put in the same situation . (Personally, we'd inhale more oxygen gasping in fear than all the underwater guys in 'Thunderball' put together.....)
So what you have here is a perfect, compact, stripped down little 'Gotcha!' joy ride, tailor made for a hot summer night......and the BQ easily prefers a movie like this to any of those bloated, 200 million buck budgeted 'tentpoles' afflicting theaters in the next few months (we mean you, Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp) '47 Meters Down' with its loads of jump scares and added bonus of a Twilight Zone-ish twist filled the bill for us......a modest reminder of the simple, unfettered pleasures that movies used to be.
Let other, more sophisticated critics mock and deride this......for 89 minutes, we had a damn good time, so we'll chomp down on 3 & 1/2 stars...(*** 1/2).......you evil sharks....how dare you circle around Mandy.......
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