47 Meters Down: Uncaged

Ever since Steven Spielberg terrorized his audience with "Jaws" in 1975, people have been terrified, yet fascinated with shark bites and the fear associated with it. Since then we've seen "Jaws 2" '78, "47 Meters Down" '17, the recent "The Meg" '18 and several in between to feed the fascination. Now we have "47 Meters Down: Uncaged" to carry on that fascinated fear.

 

This story chronicles the diving adventure of four teenage girls, Mia (Sophie Nelisse), Sasha (Corinne Foxx), Alexa (Brianne Tju) and Nicole (Sistine Stallone) exploring a submerged Mayan City. Once inside, their rush of excitement turns into a jolt of terror as they discover the sunken ruins are a hunting ground for deadly Great White Sharks. With their air supply steadily dwindling, the friends must navigate the underwater labyrinth of claustrophobic caves and eerie tunnels in search of a way out of their watery hell.

 

Others to round out the cast are John Corbett as Grant, Nia Long as Jennifer, Brec Bassinger as Catherine, Davi Santos as Ben, Khylin Rhambo as Carl and Axel Mansilla as Chum Man.

 

This was chillingly and grippingly directed by Johannes Roberts ("Alice" '02, "Hellbreeder" '04, "Darkhunters" '04, "Forest of the Damned" '05, "F" '10, "Roadkill" (TV movie) '11, "Storage 24" '12, "The Other Side of the Door" '16, "47 Meters Down" '17, "The Strangers: Prey at Night" '18) plus TV, a short and a video. By his very resume, this filmmaker knows intense and suspense. It has the same feel as "47 Meters Down" which he also directed which helps when capturing the suspense and intense reality of the characters. As long as audiences continue to be intrigued with being scared, this guy will continue to give them what they want. It was also written by Roberts (above listed films, except "Alice" '02 and "The Strangers: Prey at Night" '18) and Ernest Riera ("The Other Side of the Door" '16, "47 Meters Down" '17, "Overbooking" (documentary) '19) plus a short. As with their "47 Meters Down", this certainly was fraught with fear, suspense and terror all in a claustrophobic arena called caves in an underwater setting. . Being basically a 90 minute running time, this definitely cuts to the chase which is fine for me. This is one of those films that clearly doesn't need a huge build up to get to the point, so with this concept, it worked. However it wasn't without issues in that even though the sharks were blind (hey, they are cave dwellers), it was amazing that they would get so close to these girls and not be able to smell them being that close even though the girls were as quiet as they could be, but then that would end the film. And there a couple of places of choppiness, otherwise this was as every bit as suspenseful as its predecessor.

 

If you're on the fence in whether you should see this, I would see this on the large screen to get the sheer terror out of it. This will lose that impact on a 50 incher. As long as this makes money, there will be a Part 3. Hey, the franchise must go on.

 

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                     Rated: PG-13                                     89mins.