Movie Review: “The Shallows” (PG-13)
It’s a determined (and gorgeous) Blake Lively vs. a killer great white shark in this entertaining survival thriller from “Non-Stop” director Jaume Collet-Serra. Don’t get me wrong, “The Shallows” is no “Jaws,” and furthermore, it lacks the sort of haunting, heart-sinking nature that made the polarizing “Open Water” so effective, but what this movie sets out to do it does extremely well.
In “The Shallows,” soul-searching Nancy Lively heads out solo to a secluded, top-secret beach in Mexico hoping to catch the perfect wave. Unfortunately, something is out to catch her. Stranded on a tiny coral island a mere 200 yards from the shore, an injured Nancy must use her cunning intellect to outwit an extremely large, most ferocious predator and she must do so before the tide takes away the only thing keeping her alive.
“The Shallows” offers up a simple premise and relies mostly on Lively’s lively (and physically demanding) performance to keep that premise afloat. This is Lively’s “Cast-Away,” only instead of a volleyball named Wilson, Nancy has a seagull called … well … I’ll leave that one alone because I don’t want to ruin this film’s most amusing joke in a review.
Of course, jokes in “The Shallows” are scarce, because “The Shallows” is no laughing matter. This is a survival story, and in the end it has more in common with movies like the aforementioned “Open Water” and Adam Green’s 2010 thriller “Frozen” than the Tom Hanks-fronted “Cast Away.” Collet-Serra and crew have no interest in simply having their heroine square off against mother nature. They’d rather have her square off against a massive great white shark.
Nancy’s terrifying foe in “The Shallows” is no ordinary shark, either. There are times in this picture when this great white seems like he’d be more at home at Camp Crystal Lake than the ocean. Look no further than a sequence in which this diabolical predator opts to bite his prey in half at the waist and let him suffer on the shore rather than eat him.
As this great white’s No. one menu item, Lively proves to be a formidable opponent. For the majority of the film, Lively plays it solo, meaning she has no other characters to bounce off of save for that cute seagull. Lively is more than up to the challenge, bringing real emotion and physicality to the role. And clearly, Collet-Serra is a fan of Lively’s beauty because he makes sure she’s photographed the same way you’d expect Pedro Almodovar to photograph Penelope Cruz. Sexy stuff to be sure, but classy, too.
In fact, for the most part, Collet-Serra has an extremely keen eye. He not only captures Lively’s undeniable beauty but the beauty of the film’s breathtaking location as well. He’s also quite an adept storyteller when it comes to mounting real tension. It should be noted though that “The Shallows” might have only been an hour long had it not resorted to such an overabundance of slow motion shots.
As for the effects, there are times when the CG-created shark doesn’t look all that great, but there are other moments — watch for an intense sequence in which this enormous predator approaches Lively for the attack by way of a massive cresting wave — that are incredibly effective. At any rate, there really aren’t a whole lot of close-ups of the shark. The majority of the close-ups come during the big final-act showdown, and I was so into the movie by that point that a handful of poorly rendered effects weren’t enough to take me out of the action. What bothered me most in the movie is one of those “One Year Later” epilogues at the end of the picture. “The Shallows” would have been more wise to end three minutes earlier.
Overall, though, this movie is tense, gripping, and fun. Whether we are witness to Nancy stuck on top of a sliver of coral reef with nowhere to swim, nervously watching her cautiously navigate through a school of jellyfish, or being at her side as she tries to outwit the sea’s most deadly predator, “The Shallows” proves to be an extremely solid summer entertainment headlined by an actress with real star appeal. And at a brisk 87 minutes, “The Shallows” never outstays its welcome. It even manages to offer up a nice emotional payoff, too.
Yep. This is fantastic summer entertainment, and if it’s tension you want, then this crafty, low-budget movie is going to give it to you. At the very least, “The Shallows” is far more worth your hard earned cash than the over-bloated “Independence Day: Resurgence.”
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