Friday, June 16, 2017

47 Meters Down ★

Image result for 47 meters down film stills


    Here is the plot of "47 Meters Down," this summer's annual shark-infested thriller, in a nutshell: Two siblings, Lisa and Kate, embark on a fun-filled trip to Mexico in order to overcome life's mundane tendencies and messy breakups. (In essence, one's a nervous Nellie, and one has trouble saying "No." I'll let you guess which is which.) After a drunken night out with a pair of potential suitors, our threadbare protagonists elect to take on shark cage diving, the latest craze among the thrill-seeking crowd. Once underwater, something goes awry—as the title implies, they become trapped "47 meters down"—and we're left with roughly 60 minutes of plodding suspense and pointless maneuvering. The uneventful score, composed by Thomas Hajdu and Andy Milburn (a Princeton duo widely known as "tomandandy"), is mechanical and useless, and the principal characters, portrayed by Mandy Moore and Claire Holt, are nothing short of moronic. (Forgive me for being blunt, but I've seen enough dumbed-down female personas to last a lifetime. Case in point: While gearing up for their initial dive, one of the simple-minded sisters, it doesn't matter who, quickly progresses from a petrified state to one in which she asks the other, "Does my butt look cute in this?" These actresses deserve better, and so do we.) I promise you this—by the film's end, you'll be rooting for the sharks.

    It's pretty clear where this half-hearted production pinned all of its hopes: on the allure and pull of its two leading ladies. (I'm trying to remember the last time Moore starred in a live-action setting, and Holt, God bless her, couldn't muster a line of dialogue with any sort of conviction even if she wanted to.) Granted, they both should receive credit for enduring the physical demands required of the roles, yet muffled screams and incessant hyperventilating aren't exactly attributes of an Oscar-worthy performance. It comes with the territory, or in this instance, the subject matter. Moreover, director Johannes Roberts and underwater cinematographer Mark Silk frequently swap disheveled camera angles for substance, and this creates an ambiance completely devoid of terror and emotional intensity. Although close-ups abound—the majority of which focus on the panic-stricken eyes of our daring yet doltish heroines—the best shots simply went unused. (It would help to have an editor who understood the principles of continuity editing.)

    Sadly, we're never given a reason to fear these notorious predators, except, of course, for their reputations and past on-screen appearances. Spoiler alert: The ill-famed antagonists are rarely seen until the climax of the film, and their long-awaited arrival is upstaged by a script that is inherently misguided, and above all, it evinces inexperience. Evidently, the writers thought it would be wise to rob Moore's character of her defining moment for a plot twist that is about as foolish as it is gutsy, and this injudicious move only proves that risk-taking doesn't always pan out in cinema. (You know, it's one of those endings where a reverie is confused for reality in an effort to shock and startle audiences; I have to say that it wasn't very effective.)

    I can't believe Hollywood is still churning out these tacky, stale pictures. (As one would expect, revenue remains the chief incentive, yet there has to be a limit on these shark attack movies, which are bordering on unwatchable.) I mean, Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" actually meant something, and "47 Meters Down" can be dubbed the fast-food variety of the genre. For reasons I cannot fathom, the viewing public continues to have an eternal fascination for these flaccid, watered-down productions—"Shark Week" will even hit theaters for a one-night event next month. I hate to be the bearer of bad news (on the contrary, I enjoy it immensely), but all this fear and trembling at the hands of these predaceous creatures is entirely ungrounded. As a matter of fact, here are a few nuggets I found while researching the film's misunderstood villains: 

    (1) As reported by The Washington Post, on average, 28 people were killed each year from 2001 to 2013 by man's best friend. How many died as a result of a shark attack? Well, if you round to the nearest whole number, sharks killed about one individual per year during this span. 

    (2) More importantly, however, according to the Shark Research Institute, 100 million sharks are slain every single year by humankind, and yet we're frightened to death of this predominantly fabricated evil. 

    Now, I understand the method behind the madness, but movies such as "47 Meters Down," regardless of content, aren't worthy of our attention—to sum it up with a few choice words, it's just not interesting writing. And so, in the opinion of this critic, save your precious time and avoid this piffle as if it were the plague.