While surfing on an isolated beach, a young woman dealing
with the recent death of her mother suddenly finds herself stranded in the
middle of the sea. Alone on a buoy, she has to find a way to return to shore,
which means she will have to escape the great white shark circling the waters
around her.
In the taut thriller The Shallows, when Nancy (Blake Lively)
is surfing on a secluded beach, she finds herself on the feeding ground of a
great white shark. Though she is stranded only 200 yards from shore, survival
proves to be the ultimate test of wills, requiring all of Nancy's ingenuity,
resourcefulness, and fortitude.
A mere 200 yards from shore, surfer Nancy is attacked by a
great white shark, with her short journey to safety becoming the ultimate
contest of wills.
"The Shallows" is an 87-minute thriller set mostly
in a lagoon where an injured surfer is battling a shark. There's not much plot
beyond that, and what little the movie tries to add doesn't make it richer. Its
situations are primal and often terrifying. The fact that they unfold in a
fairly contained space—a stretch of shore-bordered water that looks to be about
a kilometer across—intensifies the suspense.
It's no close to the masterpiece that Jaws(1975) is. But The Shallows manages to keep you glued; the Mexico beach setting is presented well. Any fans of a good shark movie will find this entertaining.
ReplyDeleteBlake Lively does give as pretty good descent performance, although in some scenes I felt they were trying to display some of her sexiness. It is pretty suspenseful moments with the shark, I also felt they was one scene that was paying homage to Jaws. It's not a classic, but a fun scary film that will keep you interested.
Summer means days at the beach, and the beach can be a truly magical place. However, it’s not always sun, surf, and sand – there are things lurking out there in the depth and things that remind us we’re not necessarily at the top of the food chain. This is a fact that Blake Lively already discovered this summer in The Shallows, one of the best killer-shark movies to emerge since Spielberg terrified an entire generation with Jaws.
ReplyDeleteIn The Shallows, Blake Lively gives a painfully realistic performance as a resourceful blond American surfer-girl imperiled on Mexico’s Pacific coast by a monstrous metal-munching great white shark, a demonic creature driven by more than a mere craving for human flesh, its endgame is vengeance. The movie delights in exploiting our primeval fear, as vulnerable terrestrial beings, of being dragged down and devoured by a lurking malevolence from the watery depths beneath us, however shallow those depths may be.
ReplyDeleteFilmed like the sexiest dolphin alive, Blake Lively is shark bait in The Shallows, an efficiently preposterous thriller. The predator may not be hungry; he just wants a closer look.
ReplyDeleteAn intense and well-made thriller that will make viewers nervous before they step into the ocean this summer.