The Shallows (B-) Movie Review
The Shallows stars Blake Lively as Nancy, a twenty-something medical student on vacation in Mexico. Still recovering from the death of her mother, the goal of her trip was to find the secret beach her mother treasured. What started as a beautiful day at the beach and a successful day of surfing quickly turns into a fight for Nancy's survival as a bloodthirsty shark strands Nancy on a rock far from shore.
Jaws, Steven Spielberg's shark movie that set the standard for all shark movies to follow, was released on June 20th, 1975. The Shallows, a shark attack movie that will undoubtedly be compared to Jaws in every review this week, opened June 24th. The Shallows cannot overshadow Jaws, as it lacks a certain complexity required to transcend the genre of fun summer shark movies, but it's serviceable as what it is. And perhaps what gives The Shallows what merit it has is that it doesn't pretend to be anything more.
This is Blake Lively's The Revenant. Lively delivers a mainly physical performance, similar to that of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, and is able to communicate the intensity of fear Nancy faces mostly through body language. Lively is entirely believable and even a little more than that, as she's given honest emotional stakes that motivate her to fight this menacing oceanic predator.
I applaud director Jaume Collet-Serra for trying so hard to establish some emotional stakes. Films like The Shallows tend to paint their characters in broad strokes, focusing mainly on the shark action. Collet-Serra deviates from this method, allowing the audience to get invested in Lively's character and her personal struggles: her mother was a victim of cancer, she's struggling with med school, etc. Collet-Serra may not create these stakes with any style or semblance of nuance but it's effective enough.
And rest assured, the shark action arrives and it arrives quickly. The Shallows zips by so fast, one wishes it were longer. It's all so fast-paced and hyper-energetic that it feels more like forty-five minutes than eighty-seven. And while pure entertainment can usually be construed as a good thing, and it is a good thing here, there's a lack of memorable set pieces. Then the thought confronts me, "What more could they have done?" It's a disappointing thought, but only amplifies that I felt a bit underwhelmed walking away from The Shallows.
But the film looks fantastic. The swirling cinematography, the already gorgeous Mexican landscape, the surprisingly creative use of color to indicate mood, and the underwater sequences are all quite spellbinding. The threat of the shark is always lurking but when there's a pause in the action, take a second to appreciate the masterful technical achievements of The Shallows. I think the film's creativity in technical precision will be largely ignored, but it shouldn't be.
See The Shallows, have a good time, and then forget it. It's more disposable than I would've hoped, but it's solidly entertaining. The plot is incredibly simple, both thematically and narratively, but it certainly doesn't pretend to be anything more. Jaume Collet-Serra delivers the goods and it's all fun while it lasts. This taut summer popcorn flick will likely please the masses.
FINAL GRADE: B-
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for bloody images, intense sequences of peril, and brief strong language
Jaws, Steven Spielberg's shark movie that set the standard for all shark movies to follow, was released on June 20th, 1975. The Shallows, a shark attack movie that will undoubtedly be compared to Jaws in every review this week, opened June 24th. The Shallows cannot overshadow Jaws, as it lacks a certain complexity required to transcend the genre of fun summer shark movies, but it's serviceable as what it is. And perhaps what gives The Shallows what merit it has is that it doesn't pretend to be anything more.
This is Blake Lively's The Revenant. Lively delivers a mainly physical performance, similar to that of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, and is able to communicate the intensity of fear Nancy faces mostly through body language. Lively is entirely believable and even a little more than that, as she's given honest emotional stakes that motivate her to fight this menacing oceanic predator.
I applaud director Jaume Collet-Serra for trying so hard to establish some emotional stakes. Films like The Shallows tend to paint their characters in broad strokes, focusing mainly on the shark action. Collet-Serra deviates from this method, allowing the audience to get invested in Lively's character and her personal struggles: her mother was a victim of cancer, she's struggling with med school, etc. Collet-Serra may not create these stakes with any style or semblance of nuance but it's effective enough.
And rest assured, the shark action arrives and it arrives quickly. The Shallows zips by so fast, one wishes it were longer. It's all so fast-paced and hyper-energetic that it feels more like forty-five minutes than eighty-seven. And while pure entertainment can usually be construed as a good thing, and it is a good thing here, there's a lack of memorable set pieces. Then the thought confronts me, "What more could they have done?" It's a disappointing thought, but only amplifies that I felt a bit underwhelmed walking away from The Shallows.
But the film looks fantastic. The swirling cinematography, the already gorgeous Mexican landscape, the surprisingly creative use of color to indicate mood, and the underwater sequences are all quite spellbinding. The threat of the shark is always lurking but when there's a pause in the action, take a second to appreciate the masterful technical achievements of The Shallows. I think the film's creativity in technical precision will be largely ignored, but it shouldn't be.
See The Shallows, have a good time, and then forget it. It's more disposable than I would've hoped, but it's solidly entertaining. The plot is incredibly simple, both thematically and narratively, but it certainly doesn't pretend to be anything more. Jaume Collet-Serra delivers the goods and it's all fun while it lasts. This taut summer popcorn flick will likely please the masses.
FINAL GRADE: B-
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for bloody images, intense sequences of peril, and brief strong language