47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED (US/UK - 2019) Directed by Johannes Roberts. Written by Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera. Cast: Sophie Nelisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju, Sistine Stallone, John Corbett, Nia Long, Davi Santos, Khylin Rhambo, Brec Bassinger. (PG-13, 90 mins) Rescued from straight-to-DVD oblivion just a week before hitting retailers in 2016 under the title IN THE DEEP and released in theaters a year later, 47 METERS DOWN proved to be a surprise summer 2017 hit for the upstart Entertainment Studios, who bought the film from a cash-strapped Dimension Films when the latter didn't see any potential in it. That was just before THE SHALLOWS ended up being a sleeper success in 2016, convincing Entertainment Studios CEO and veteran comedian Byron Allen that this cheap acquisition was a smart investment. He was right, but 47 METERS DOWN has been the only thing keeping Entertainment Studios afloat after a string of box-office duds, including the terrible German-made social media horror pickup FRIEND REQUEST, the ridiculous THE HURRICANE HEIST, and the godawful Keanu Reeves sci-fi thriller REPLICAS (HOSTILES and CHAPPAQUIDDICK got good reviews, but played to mostly empty theaters). 47 METERS DOWN was an accidental hit for the hapless Allen. Nobody needed a sequel but desperate times call for desperate measures. And for our sins, we've got 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED.
Director and co-writer Johannes Roberts returns, and to his credit, there's no idiotic twist ending like the one that completely ruined its predecessor and sent a palpable wave of resentment rippling across the theater. Roberts has yet to make an all-around front-to-back good movie, but he has his moments, as anyone who saw last year's THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT can attest. A largely by-the-numbers reboot/sequel to the 2008 hit, THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT is pretty forgettable except for a standout scene at a swimming pool that makes brilliant use of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart." It's an instant classic sequence that's masterfully assembled and uses sight and sound so effectively that it's almost enough to trick you into thinking the movie is better than it is. Roberts tries that same technique again here, with a long tracking shot through a narrow underwater cave that uses Roxette's "The Look" before segueing into an eerie cover of the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun." It's not quite as effective as Bonnie Tyler, but this seems to be Roberts' schtick (Status Quo and Aztec Camera also make needle-drop appearances). No cast members from 47 METERS DOWN return, though there is a shot of a school named "Modine International School for Girls," likely included as a wink-and-a-nod to Matthew Modine, who got a free vacation to the Dominican Republic by taking a small role in the first film.
Set in a posh, scenic resort town in the Yucatan Peninsula, UNCAGED opens with teenage Mia (Sophie Nelisse) being bullied by some mean girls and getting no help from her stepsister Sasha (Corinne Foxx, Jamie's daughter). They've both been relocated after their parents--Mia's dad Grant (John Corbett) and Sasha's mom Jennifer (Nia Long)--have gotten married and marine archaeologist Grant has a long-term job opening up a long-hidden cave system housed in the ruins of an ancient Mayan city that's been underwater for centuries. Sasha talks Mia into bailing on a glass-bottom boat tour of the area to head to a secret cove with Sasha's besties Alexa (Brianne Tju) and Nicole (a debuting Sistine Stallone, Sly's daughter), where Grant and his two research assistants have conveniently left some diving equipment. They decide to just explore the first cave and head back up, but as soon as someone says "What's that?" and ventures off on their own, their fate is sealed. The girls are soon joined by a screaming fish (don't ask) and then by a blind, albino great white shark, part of an undiscovered species that's spent centuries evolving in total darkness...that is, until Grant opened up a cave and they got through. Sightless but with every other sense heightened, the shark is joined by others, repeatedly sneaking up on and cornering the girls into tight spots in caves and rock formations, and stirring up enough silt that they're pretty much as blind as the sharks when it comes to finding a way out. And their oxygen tanks are running low...
47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED is a lesson in stupidity and poor decision-making, starting with no one thinking to use a guide line, but the rest is mostly on the part of Stallone's Nicole. She's the one who dismisses safe diving protocols, she's the one who sees something mysterious and swims toward it, she's the one who knocks over a large totem and stirs up all the silt, and she's the one whose selfishness and frantic impatience end up making the situation worse and leading to the deaths of two more people, so much so that her fate actually serves as a crowd-pleasing moment. The concept of the uncovered city and the cave system make for an appropriately creepy setting, but it eventually becomes impossible to tell what's going on, with one sequence such a dark blur that it's several minutes before you can even ascertain who just got killed. What this really is at the end of the day is a JAWS-inspired retread of Neil Marshall's THE DESCENT. The ghostly-white albino sharks probably sounded good on paper, but poor CGI renders them lacking in onscreen execution, and Roberts shows absolutely no shame in blatantly cribbing the most memorable scene in the 20-year-old DEEP BLUE SEA when a potential savior is taken out right in the middle of his inspirational speech. On the basis of it not having a completely, infuriatingly shitheaded twist ending, 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED might be an ever-so-slight improvementover its predecessor, but it's still the kind of disposable, streaming-ready B-movie that you won't even remember by the time you get to the parking lot. However, Roxette is still stuck in my head...
THE SILENCE (Germany/US - 2019) Directed by John R. Leonetti. Written by Carey Van Dyke and Shane Van Dyke. Cast: Stanley Tucci, Kiernan Shipka, Miranda Otto, John Corbett, Kate Trotter, Kyle Breitkopf, Dempsey Bryk, Billy MacLellan, Chris Whitby, Barbara Gordon, Sarah Abbott, Kate Corbett. (Unrated, 90 mins) THE SILENCE is based on a 2015 novel by British horror/fantasy author Tim Lebbon, but that still won't stop the comparisons to last year's hit A QUIET PLACE. Filmed in 2017 and originally set to be released by the financially-strapped Golden Road before they sold it to Netflix, THE SILENCE was in production around the same time as A QUIET PLACE, and it's also interesting to note that SILENCE star Stanley Tucci is married to the older sister of A QUIET PLACE star Emily Blunt, so they had to know they had a family competition going with oddly similar horror movies about creatures who hunt by sound, with the action centering on a family that learns to exist in silence and can communicate by sign language since one of the children is deaf. Lebbon's novel is adapted by the writing team of Carey and Shane Van Dyke, the grandsons of Dick Van Dyke and best known for scripting various Asylum "mockbusters" like TRANSMORPHERS, STREET RACER, and THE DAY THE EARTH STOPPED. The director is certified hack John R. Leonetti, a veteran cinematographer whose filmmaking credits include such classics as MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION, THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT 2, ANNABELLE, and WISH UPON.
With that pedigree, THE SILENCE lives down to its expectations despite an intriguing set-up. Researchers are exploring an uncharted cave system 1000 feet below the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania when they're attacked by a horde of prehistoric, bat-like creatures that have been living and evolving in those sealed-off caverns for millions of years. The creatures are named "Vesps" by the scientific community. They're blind and hunt by sound, which means the hustling and bustling major cities are the first to be attacked and wiped out, followed quickly by the suburban and rural communities. The Andrews family--dad Hugh (Tucci), mom Kelly (Miranda Otto), teenage daughter Ally (Kiernan Shipka), younger son Jude (Kyle Breitkopf), Kelly's mother Lynn (Kate Trotter), and the family dog, along with Hugh's best friend Glenn (John Corbett), decide to get out of suburban New Jersey and head to the country where it's quiet. They're in two vehicles--Glenn and Jude in one and everyone else in the other--and they have an inherent advantage when it comes to keeping quiet: three years earlier, Ally lost her hearing in a car accident that killed Hugh's parents, prompting the whole family and Glenn to learn sign language. It isn't long before survivalist-type Glenn's impromptu shortcut leads to disaster when his SUV rolls off the road avoiding some deer. Jude already switched vehicles during a stop, and Hugh is unable to get a pinned and injured Glenn out of the wreckage. With the Vesps approaching, Glenn decides to fire his gun to attract them, sacrificing himself while the family takes refuge in their minivan. Any chance the dog will start barking uncontrollably?
Trapped in the minivan might've been a good way to sustain the tension, but it isn't long before they take their chances and hoof it in total silence, happening on a farmhouse whose owner instantly runs outside, firing her gun and screaming "Get off my property!" which of course, instantly gets her attacked and devoured by a flock of Vesps. That's the kind of insultingly lazy writing that just shows utter contempt for the audience, with the filmmakers taking the easiest possible route to get the family in the safe confines of an isolated rural home. That's followed by an immediate burst of genius as Hugh turns on a loud wood chipper, causing a ton of blind Vesps to fly into it and get instantly shredded. Why doesn't he just leave the wood chipper running and kill them all? Because there'd be no movie and more importantly, no inane third act home invasion curve ball, where a creepy reverend (Billy MacLellan) and his flock show up at the house, all of them with their tongues cut out to ensure silence and the reverend demanding Hugh hand over Ally, holding a handwritten sign that says "The girl is fertile." I can't speak for Lebbon's novel, but the Vesps have been out of their cave for seriously like, two days by the film's timeline. 48 hours into a national emergency and this clearance bin Immortan Joe and his crazed cult have already severed their own tongues and are out there stalking families and trying to abduct fertile underage girls? The milk in their fridge hasn't even expired yet.
There are a couple of intriguing elements that aren't really explored, like just how quickly everyone turns on one another when the shit hits the fan (watch a bunch of New Yorkers trapped in the subway kick a woman and her crying baby off the train to get eaten by the Vesps), and the Vesps using the carcasses of their victims--human and animal--as incubators for their eggs. More of that ickiness would've given this some appropriately apocalyptic and generally unsettling cred. Or just give me a whole movie of Stanley Tucci shredding blind prehistoric dinosaur bats in a wood chipper and I--and no doubt The Tucci Gang--would be totally onboard with it. But this is seriously just cheap-looking, SyFy-level junk. The Tooch is one of our most reliable character actors (and an Oscar nominee for THE LOVELY BONES), and he's an accomplished screenwriter as well (BIG NIGHT). Surely, he read the script for THE SILENCE and could see that it was hot garbage. Did he need to make a down payment on a new house? A kid starting college the next fall? He classes it up as best he can, and THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER's Shipka (currently starring with Otto on Netflix's CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA) turns in an appealing and very credible performance, even taking the time to learn ASL in preparation, which is really going above and beyond for something this dumb.
