It’s lean and mean, focused and direct, and the jolts are both effective and well earned
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
New York Daily News by Ariel Scotti
What unfolds is a smart, tense nail-biter that’s bound to leave some clinging to the shoreline this summer.
San Francisco Chronicle by David Lewis
This flick is a summer diversion, pure and simple, so don’t expect a deep message.
Like Lisa and Kate’s pendular swings between hope and despair, Johannes Roberts’s film can’t help alternating between the genuinely terrifying and the just plain dumb.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
In the lulls between bouts of yammering, however, the director, Johannes Roberts, concentrates on building a solid atmosphere of desperation.
Though 47 Meters Down perfunctorily succeeds in its aims to terrify the audience, it’s not as much fun as it could be due to it’s beyond brainless script, its casual sexism and its idiot characters.
47 Meters Down sinks rather than swims, even if there are a few buoyant moments along the way.
The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo
47 Meters Down never remotely approaches greatness, but for an hour or so, its unfussy, workmanlike portrait of ordinary people in crisis (plus killer sharks) gets the job done.
Silly as it sounds, 47 Meters Down is downright intense. And it manages the odd surprise twist, too.
Not that the movie’s various shortcomings are all on Moore. British genre director and co-writer Johannes Roberts (“Storage 24”) gives her nothing but trite drama to work with in setting up the story, and an overload of distracting, reductive prattle once she hits the water.