Review of The Shallows (2016) by C F — 26 Oct 2016

The film The Shallows was overall an OK film in my opinion. The The action scenes were enough to keep me interested but I felt the overall premise was unoriginal. I did enjoy the scenes where Blake Lively's character had to escape from the shark's toothy maw. Jaume Collet-Serra did a good job of directing the film because the CGI used for certain animals excluding the shark were fantastic and the acting was good.

The film opens up on a gloomy beach with a boy finding a GoPro mounted on a helmet floating in the water. Then it transitions to Blake Lively's character Nancy being driven by a local man named Carlos through the dense jungle. She arrives on a remote beach where a group of locals are already surfing. She then proceeds to surf in the waves until a whale carcass attracts a malicious Great White Shark that wounds Nancy and leaves her trapped on some large rocks with only a wounded seagull she names Steven to keep her company. With high-tide approaching Nancy must battle blood loss from her gaping wound and the present danger of the shark to get to shore which is only 200 yards away. I felt that the premise of the film was overused in that the film was so similar to other popular shark attack films like Jaws where a single individual is battling a shark.

I must give praise to the film techniques used because the music gave the sense that something bad was always about to happen and the lighting was good because as the main character's situation got worse the location got darker which portrayed a feeling of impending doom. The director also used a lot of wide shots to show just how isolated Nancy really was. The use of jump scares was often used to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats. I think the green screening of the locations was fantastic.

Overall I think this will is worth at least one view because of the effects and the thrill scenes of the shark attacking. I do believe that the story was mediocre and the CGI for the the shark was too unrealistic, but I do believe this film is worth seeing.