Where the first installment was more claustrophobia-based with a cast mainly of the two sisters stuck in a shark cage, 47 Meters Down Uncaged pumps up the number of potential victims, which include a couple of celebrity kids this time, as well as expands the undersea setting where they have to swim for their lives. This time, it’s an underwater Mayan city where a bunch of blind, albino sharks are on the hunt, but a relationship between two teenage sisters, played by Sophie Nélisse and Corinne Foxx, is still very central to the rather entertaining proceedings. While the step-sisters both separately insist “She’s not my sister!” early on, their imminent life-or-death situation just might change their tune before they have time to roll their eyes.
'47 Meters Down: Uncaged' Serves Up Nepo Babies as Shark Food
47 Meters Down, starring Mandy Moore and Claire Holt as sisters Lisa and Katie whose shark cage diving sojourn in Mexico goes horribly wrong, was an out-of-the-blue – or, more accurately, into-the-blue – box office smash, grossing over $62 million worldwide on a budget of $5 million. Considering 47 Meters Down was originally meant to be direct-to-DVD until it was abruptly changed to a theatrical release (The Shallows being a surprise smash just a month prior surely played a part), a sequel was inevitable. The film ended up being a little Nepo Baby summit years before such a thing became a trending topic, with Corinne Foxx and Sistine Stallone (daughters of Jamie Foxx & Connie Kline and Sylvester Stallone & Jennifer Flavin, respectively, in case the surnames weren’t giveaways) in the mix as possible shark chum. But that amounts to a fun fact about the feature, nothing more.
Some may be bothered at the mention of nepotism (like those who benefit from it, for starters), but it’s simply a reality of life. Sometimes, it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Both actresses do fine enough in their roles in this fun creature feature, one getting to be a fun-loving wild child while the other gets half of the main step-sister drama that it isn’t some glaring nepotism hire where the skill to do the job required isn’t present. To pretend certain actors don’t have an extreme advantage over others by virtue of who their parents seems intentionally dishonest, though. It’s understandable why a person would want to believe their success was achieved by their own hand, even if facts of the matter and common sense suggest otherwise. Whatever you may think about Nepo Babies, 47 Meters Down Uncaged certainly delivers on shark-based thrills and frights.
'47 Meters Down Uncaged' Amps Up the Kills and Thrills
Director/writer Johannes Roberts and fellow writer Ernest Riera, who were also the creative team behind the first one, plow through exposition and character relationships with workmanlike efficiency, setting up the conflict between Foxx’s Sasha and Nélisse’s Mia – step-sisters in different high school cliques – within mere minutes of the opening credits. It doesn’t seem like some deep-seated hatred, thankfully, as they’re already on pretty good terms by the time of their ill-fated and ill-advised cave-diving choices. It must be said, these teenagers deciding to use all the scuba equipment (which apparently consists of that magic underwater intercom system from the first movie that’s best to not think about) to wander uncharted underwater ruins is one of those monumentally stupid decisions that has to take place for the story to happen. They have the excuse of being teenagers in a movie, at least, which can be used to wave away a lot of foolish behavior.
The in-your-face exposition doesn’t stop once everyone starts touring the underwater caves, either, with obvious nods to things that just might be important later (air bubbles on the cave passage ceilings, for instance), but it’s all in good fun and for the sake of getting to the sharks. While some might take issue with 47 Meters Down: Uncaged being more concerned with shark attacks and underwater action/thrills, that seems like an unfair criticism for this sequel to an unexpected shark-based hit. The first 47 Meters Down already focused more on the relationship between sisters and the tension of their dubious situation, so it’s entirely understandable why the filmmakers would decide to add another half dozen potential victims to the mix and expand the confined space from a downed shark viewing cage to sections of underwater Mayan city ruins.
Sisters Surviving Against Sharks for Themselves
As for the aforementioned sisterly bonding, it’s a nice throughline to have from movie to movie. Even though there isn’t any connection from one to the other when it comes to storylines or characters, sisterhood is the narrative link. Well, sisterhood and sharks. Whereas Lisa and Katie were on good terms, step-sisters Mia and Sasha are very much two people living in different worlds under the same roof. It’s not the stuff of high drama, but bogging viewers down in excess backstory just adds needless minutes to the pre-shark setup. Any tension between the step-sisters pretty much washes away once they hit the water, anyway, as they bond all throughout the fun underwater exploration sequence and then try not to die together. It’s a good thing Mia and Sasha are able to work on their issues, too, because their parents (John Corbett and Nia Long) live in some strange fantasy land where they think two teenagers should be jazzed about being abandoned to a tourist-heavy glass-bottom boat shark tour for the day. What the nasty popular girls are doing there like it’s right up their alley and The Place To Be, is a mystery for another time, but they understandably wanted to put a button on the whole bully subplot.
The music Corbett's two workers are listening to is another little mystery, but it must be his playlist. Otherwise, these two young guys jamming out to "The Look by Roxette" and "We’ve Only Just Begun" by Lynn Anderson might be the most unbelievable aspect of 47 Meters Down: Uncaged. And one could pick apart their underwater air supply inconsistencies or how they can communicate at all, but those kinds of silly and nonsensical plot requirements add to the charm and are vastly preferred to some ludicrous plot twist at the end. It’s not about the specific mechanics of how any of this could happen in real life, it’s simply an excuse to see some people try to survive a crazy experience for an hour and a half. As for those survival instincts, Sylvester Stallone definitely would not have approved of daughter Sistine’s character losing her cool in such a miraculous fashion when they were nearly home-free. Between causing the cave-in that traps everyone and then ruining their escape route, the majority of their predicament is pretty much all her fault. There’s another instance where several others decide not to utilize an alarm that actually wards the sharks off, but it leads to what’s clearly meant to be a loving homage to an iconic scene from another shark movie.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged, like many of Roberts’ films, embraces the kind of qualities that make something fun to watch on a Friday night. From these two shark attack movies to The Strangers: Prey at Night and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, there’s no pretension or haughtiness on display. There’s more of a general air of having some bloody fun for about an hour and a half, then moving along. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged’s story of sisterly bonding while trying to survive being trapped in an undersea location as a bunch of hungry sharks do their best to chow down on human meat wound up being surprisingly watchable, so dive in!
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