"The Shallows" Review
In 1975, a young director named Steven Spielberg created a phenomenon - and the idea of the “Summer Blockbuster”, with a film about a Great White with an appetite for swimmers. Now, 41 years later, Director Jaume Collet-Serra (who’s done three Liam Neeson action/thrillers in a row - with another on the way) has made a Shark Attack movie for a new generation. But not even having blonde bombshell Blake Lively in the lead role can rescue “The Shallows” from the Jaws of mediocrity.
Lively plays Nancy, a surfer and former medical student who travels to Mexico from her family home in Texas to find the favorite beach of her mother, who recently died of cancer. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous, and several slow-motion surfing montages early-on are quite effective.
But soon - paradise turns into peril. While she’s in the water alone, a shark pulls Nancy under and nearly chomps-off one of her legs. She’s able to swim to a temporary safety spot - the surface of a large, dying whale - but she’s losing a lot of blood and desperately needs help. With no food, a swimsuit as the only item of clothing, and no ability to contact anyone, Nancy is forced to match wits with the shark, which is circling, waiting to strike again…with the shore - and her cell phone - only 200 yards away.
There are only around a dozen credited cast members in “The Shallows” and most have very minor roles. My two personal favorites are “Drunken Man” (and, boy, does he earn that title) and “Sully ‘Steven’ Seagull”. That’s right - when Nancy makes it onto a rock, she’s befriended by a bird who was also injured by the shark. Yeah - it’s as corny as it sounds.
However, without Senor Seagull, “The Shallows” would’ve been even shorter than its breezy 87-minute runtime. The best moments come in the second half hour, with Lively’s physically-demanding performance on full display. And there are a few decent surprise shark appearances (no dramatic John Williams music required).
But this is a very simple Point A to Point B story, providing little in the way of fresh meat to the formula and hardly any bite. Someone, during the making of “The Shallows”, needed to stand-up and say “I think we’re gonna need a better script”.
