47 Metres Down

Can we just...not?


Director: Johannes Roberts
Writers: Johannes Roberts
                Ernest Riera
Runtime: 1hr 30minutes

Plot: A girl is on holiday with her sister instead of her boyfriend because "he's working" when in reality they broke up because she's boring. When her sister finds out she takes her out and they meet a couple of guys who offer to take them cage diving with sharks. The chain breaks when they're inside and they end up 47 metres down in the ocean, trapped with vicious, evil, monstrous killing machines (sharks) and low oxygen. 

First off, Sorry I've not posted in a while, I'm trying to build up a backlog for when I'm back at uni and I'm not very good with time management to be able to write my ass off for posting and backlog, regular posting will be back soon I promise. Second, don't waste your money, your energy or your time on this film. It's not worth it, I promise. It's worse than Amy Schumer's latest film and boy is that some feat. Third, I blame Spielberg for this film being a possibility. Let's just get into it because I just wanna forget this thing.

So the other day, I was at Ben's and we were just having a fun day really, we were in Tesco's car park discussing what we were gonna do that night and considering we always go to the cinema, we decided to not break a habit and go to the cinema. He looked up what was being shown and he mentioned that, read out the plot and it sounded pretty good. I don't think it had great things written about it but what was written was just general trashy reviews for a bad film and...that's fine, we've seen enough crap and didn't think it was gonna be the worst thing ever. We went into Tesco, got food and a DVD which was incredible trash and I will write about it because it's just perfectly bad. We thought that was gonna be the worst of the two films. We were wrong. I genuinely cannot remember anything good except for this film ending so...this isn't really a review, more a "what's wrong with this" piece.

The first problem with the film, shark hating. I don't know if it's because I love sharks and think they're just great and stuff but...people seem to think that sharks, especially Great Whites are the most vicious and evil animals in the ocean that will just attack for no reason. They don't. Sharks are precious and beautiful and while they are great predators, they can't tell the difference between a human and it's natural prey. I'm not sure if there has been any record of a shark intentionally attacking a human out in open water.

Personally, I do blame Steven Spielberg for this, if it wasn't for Jaws instilling a true fear of sharks into people and creating this thing where people think sharks are the evil bosses of the ocean. There a way scarier things in the ocean, like Angler Fish. I thought one of them would have shown up at one point because there was this light not doing anything and it would have been cool to see one. There's the Giant Squid, a Sarcastic Fringehead (which is already a great title for a film) the list goes on. Can we do something different other than demonising sharks? Please?

The second problem with the film, the main character of the film doesn't follow her instincts when she sees the very small and ratty looking "business" of this shark cage diving thing. She doesn't trust her instincts when the little boat drives all the way out to nowhere, she doesn't trust her instincts when she sees the rusty ass boat. She doesn't trust her instincts when she sees these people chum (cut and ground fish) the water which is a dangerous thing to do as it can make the sharks associate food with humans, and she doesn't trust her instincts when she sees the size of the sharks (20ft) or the rusty ass cable. She doesn't trust her instincts which could have saved lives all for the sake of getting a few pictures to prove her (ex)boyfriend wrong about her being boring. I suppose being petty is worth the two lives that were taken.

The third problem, underwater physics don't apply in the world of cinema apparently.

Fourth problem, the main character in this is an idiot. If you know that you're trapped underwater with sharks and your leg is trapped under a rusty cage after having this cage land heavily on you and you're in excruciating pain, 1, don't try and get your leg out, it could be bleeding which will attract the attention of the sharks. 2, don't try and get your leg out, it could be bleeding and you might bleed out. 3, If you do try and get your leg out and it is bleeding and possibly broken, don't get out of the cage and swim. You may leave a blood trail and your injury will leave you moving slower and easy prey for a shark to come get you. 4, don't shoot yourself with a fucking spear gun. 5, if you're asked if you have any scuba experience and you lie about it then give off evidence that you don't know anything about scuba diving and the business owner still allows you to take part in the activity, don't do it. And finally, 6, don't go against every single piece of advice you're given in this situation, you're not gonna get anywhere acting like you know what you're doing in a life or death situation.

The fifth problem, there's a "fake out" when the main characters are given a second tank of oxygen and are told to keep an eye on each other in case they start to hallucinate. A shark takes the head off the main characters sisters body (sorry, spoiler there) and as soon as the main character takes her first hit off the new tank, her sister starts speaking to her, acting like the shark only got her leg. It looks like the sisters manage to make it out of the ocean and danger after a few sharks attempt to murder the both of them and when they're on the boat, bleeding, the main character looks at her hand which looks to be still bleeding but underwater. Normally, I'm not bothered about a fake out if it offers something about the story or characters but....this one doesn't. This is just there to pad out the runtime and make its audience angrier that it has to sit an extra five minutes to the end of the film. I think I heard a few groans from the people surrounding us and I completely understand them.

The sixth problem, this was a wasted potential of a film. It could have been really scary with its darkness and the fact it's 47 metres down in the ocean. This could have been extremely creative and very scary but it just relied on jump scares in the darkness and "ooooohhh no, sharks are evil bad guys, oooohhhh" which is dumb and make this extremely boring. Turns out, the film we watched earlier that day Zombiesaurus, hell we watched Cars 3 last week and even that was scarier than this.

Now I know this sounds extremely bias against the film and it is just my opinion here which...is great if you just want one person's opinion but because 1, I'd like to be backed up on this and 2, I saw how eager this guy was to get out of the cinema, I think it's fair that Ben gets a say in this one too. So I asked him to write a short paragraph basically giving his opinion on the film.

"47 Metres Down was a sickening waste of $5000000, although there are a few moments within the film which was tense and arguably entertaining, it does not overrule the sheer disappointment this film is. After watching this movie all the way through the only thing I came out with was the feeling of disappointment and an extensive knowledge of the bends. A few things which made no sense was the way that a Great White shark is able to rip through a metal diving cage like it was made of marshmallows but was unable to tear a single limb from the main character over the multiple times the shark attacks her."

Look at how professional my boy wrote that, gonna put me out of business.
Anyway, that's it from me peace out, stay hydrated and don't waste your money going to see this film, spend it wiser and buy yourself some water or something to eat. Treat yo' self.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film please go and support its creators by buying tickets to go see it in cinemas / buying the DVD or Bluray when the time comes.