The Shallows

Starring: Blake Lively, Oscar Jaenada, Brett Cullen, Sedona Legge
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
2016

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A sufer (Blake Lively) is stranded 200 yards from shore when a deadly shark cuts off her path to land.

Review:

Tim: I'd heard good things about The Shallows, so I went into this movie excited for it. We don't get very many shark movies, so it's always kind of fun when one bubbles to the surface. For much of the movie, I toggled between "this is decent" and "this is really good" and then the movie kind of loses you at the end. Logic goes out the window, sacrificed for visual thrills. Sometimes that's okay, but it was off-putting here. It took a movie I was enjoying and gave it a negative spin. That resulted in me kind of shrugging my shoulders at the film. It's a decent movie, but it should have been better.

For much of the film, director Jaume Collet-Serra followed the Jaws model- we see bits and pieces of the shark, but its looming presence is what's most fearful. Collet-Serra could have ratcheted this up even more, but I was genuinely into the film. You strand an innocent person just off the shore and you throw a huge, deadly shark into the mix, and you have most of the elements for a decent thriller right there. The film is incredibly short at 1 hour, 26 minutes, so it didn't have that long to hold our attention, but it does accomplish that.

I appreciated that the film tried to give us a backstory for the main character. Character development is the biggest issue in most horror movies, so I genuinely appreciated learning about her family. The whole "mom died and I'm visiting her beach" thing felt a little on-the-nose, but I sincerely appreciated the attempt to make her a more well rounded character. Even though those scenes were a bit choppy and slightly forced, it did give us a reason to care whether this character lived or died. That's very positive.

Blake Lively did a good job in the lead role. She really had to carry the vast majority of this film and she does so well. I'm still not convinced she's an especially strong actress, but it's not easy to carry a film like this and hold the audience's attention, so I have to give her credit for that. Her acting was generally good- there were a few weaker moments, but never any outright dud moments. I really do applaud her for her performance here. It was better than I expected.

I thought the idea of including Steven Seagall (that name is hilarious, I don't care) was a decent addition. It helped to give our lone survivor someone to talk to, even if her companion was a dirty beach bird. It felt little like a rip off of Wilson from Cast Away (so the film doesn't get points for originality), but it did help the film.

The big issue I had was there were too many moments that increased your incredulity. These are peppered throughout the film, but they really come to a head in the climactic battle with the shark. I'm not sure what happened in that scene, but it just lost me. It was too unbelievable, too convenient, too weak of a scene for me to follow. The most climactic moment was surprisingly confusion- it created an incredible visual, but I was scratching my head as to what happened. In a movie like this, it's all about the climax and The Shallows runs out of steam and stumbles in the home stretch. It caused me to throw my hands up and roll my eyes. There were many moments when I enjoyed the film, but I left the movie feeling disappointed.

The Shallows isn't a bad movie. It's a decent shark attack film. We need more of these kinds of movies, so I appreciate that about it. Unfortunately, despite so many strong pieces in place, Collet-Serra just couldn't bring them all together. That's a bummer, because this easily could have been a really good movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Jaws, Deep Blue Sea