The Shallows – Film Review
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Blake Lively, Óscar Jaenada and Angelo Jose
Release Date: 12 Aug
With Sharknado, Jurassic Shark and Sharktopus all dominating the modern Z-movie market, it would seem that the golden age of ‘shark attack’ movies has begun to float belly-up.
It should be noted that this ‘golden age’ is localised to the summer of ‘75 and attributed in its entirety to one film with a very memorable soundtrack.
At first glance, The Shallows seems to be trying to recreate the thrill of Spielberg’s seminal classic. The threat of slowly rising waters can be a useful tool for building tension and, for the most part, the director does seem focused on establishing dread rather than a bloody spectacle.
Unfortunately, the film just doesn’t have much confidence in itself. This is a fact made glaringly obvious by a final act that is more akin to ‘Shark Attack at Bikini Bay’ than Open Water.
Our hero, Nancy, finds herself on this particular beach in the hopes of connecting with her recently deceased mother, a cancer victim who went surfing there while she was pregnant (and hey, nothing says spiritual connectivity like extreme water sports and bikinis).
This is the alleged driving force of the film, a parallel that pushes Nancy to survive. While it functions on the most basic of levels, it is often handled so bluntly that you feel like she could physically use the plot as a weapon to defend herself against her toothy attacker in the water.
The clue is very obviously in the title. The Shallows is visually spectacular, boasting beautiful cinematography in a glorious surfing montage within the opening minutes. If it achieves nothing else, it will make you want to book a tropical holiday and sip Pina Coladas on the beach. The style would be well suited to a summer hit music video but unfortunately, despite efforts to hide it, the movie maintains that same level of depth.
For all the emphasis on impending death, the film lacks any major suspense. The situation never feels utterly hopeless, which is surely the whole point.
A lot of this is due to the film’s confused sense of humour. It tends to seesaws between light and dark, with both sides neatly embodied in an aptly named seagull companion and a foiled rescue attempt respectively.
At odds with these moments are dedicated scenes included to convey the crushing sense of despair that the audience should be feeling. Again, these moments are rendered moot in light of the odd humour, but also by how relentlessly resourceful and level-headed Nancy appears to be.
In one bizarre scene, she goes to extreme, and rather disgusting, lengths for sustenance. This would have been effective in the proper setting, but considering the events of the film take place over the course of a mere 24 hours, it just seems redundant.
To her credit, Blake Lively is a likable lead, if not particularly interesting. We want her to survive and curiosity, if nothing else, will keep you in your seat. She manages to carry the film, which is focused on her for 90% of the time. That’s important in this genre, but in classic Hollywood blockbuster style, the stakes just don’t feel very high.
She might as well have been circled by an agitated bumblebee.
Disappointingly, the Great White doesn’t do enough here to inspire dread or spectacle. It just paddles about in an effort to keep the plot moving until the final act.
We are treated to a rather explosive finale at this point, where the shark is revered in all its dreadful glory.
But as violent as this sequence is, it still isn’t as effective or entertaining as that one time that Samuel L. Jackson was eaten by a surprise shark out of nowhere in Deep Blue Sea.
The Shallows is by-the-numbers fun that, to its own degradation, half-heartedly pretends to be something more.
Score: 2/5
Written by Stephen Hill
