Review of The Shallows (2016) by Ginak — 27 Jun 2016
The Shallows is a very enjoyable summer movie, more like Open Water than like Jaws where Spielberg takes a broader, more complex and colorful view of the dynamics and politics of a summer community while the human vs shark confrontation comes only very late in the film.
The Shallows is almost all one-on-one in isolation, except for a bit of sentimental background early on. But let’s give the director credit for not exploiting Blake Lively’s body more than necessary and for Lively not getting too sentimental on us and keeping her emotional dignity.
Most of the film is an interesting “chess game” played between the shark and the gutsy main character, and the director makes the film and suspense work without stretching our belief in what happens too far.
Lively is determined (as is the shark) and the contest is fun and engaging to watch.
This review of The Shallows (2016) was written by Ginak on 27 Jun 2016.
The Shallows has generally received positive reviews.
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