Review of The Shallows (2016) by Mike W — 18 Jul 2016

I must start the review off with the fact that I have never been a big fan of Shark films. I have never been a fan of Jaws. Part of me never got the appeal. My answer was to just stay out of the water.

But, when I saw the preview for The Shallows, I was a bit interested. It looked like something a bit different then your usual run of the mill shark film. So, I decided to give it a shot. The movie opens on a darkened beach.

We see a small kid running along the sand and he finds a helmet with a GoPro camera on it. That's where we discover that a shark attack took place. After a small title logo, we are greeted to the beautiful, Blake Lively.

She is going through pictures on her phone of her mother at a beach. I love how they show off these pictures with excellent graphics on screen. They use this effect quite often through the whole film.

Especially, when she uses the timer on her watch to time the shark. More on that later. So, we find out that the beach she sees her mom in the pictures is a secret beach and the hispanic man in the truck with her is taking her there.

Once she arrives, she prepares herself to surf, where she meets two other men. This leads to some surfing musical montage which I though was neat, especially with the slow motion, but it tended to go on a bit to long for me.

As we progress, she has a conversation with her sister and father. There is some serious tension there due to her mother's death and her staying in medical school. This leads to her heading back into the surf while night is approaching.

Not a good idea. The movie tends to have a very slow burn to the shark events and the pacing feels like it takes awhile to get to the action. Although, I do appreciate at least getting to know the character for once because thrillers have the tendency to know always do that.

Lively's performance is very good. Between the scrapes and cuts she gets, to the fear she experiences, she made it seem very convincing and this is probably the best role and performance I have seen her in.

The shark poses a huge threat and you can feel her fear. The CGI in this film was hardly noticeable and very well done. This movie releases solely on Lively's performance. If she would fail, the movie would fall with her.

She lives up to the occasion. I was hoping that there would be more thrills and a bit more intense scenes. As I have had time to absorb the film, I see now that the goal wasn't for all that, but to create a very human story and how to survive under severe amounts of fear.

It runs at a very brisk 87 minutes, so once it gets going, you will be hoping she pulls out of it alive. So, my final thoughts on it are is that if you are looking for a film to give you intense thrills and scares, this isn't the movie for you.

But, if you are looking for a story of survival and how to overcome fear in the face of danger. Then, this film is for you.