The Shallows

People often underestimate or under-appreciate the ability to produce a genuinely good B-movie. There's Renny Harlin on one end of the spectrum, making crap like The Legend of Hercules, 12 Rounds, and The Covenant. But then you have someone like Jaume Collet-Serra, who knows a thing or two about framing a scene, getting good performances from his actors, and above all, making an entertaining movie.

The Shallows could have been an otherwise conventional and forgettable thriller without Collet-Serra's strong and stylish direction. For example, the scene when Blake Lively's character first gets attacked by the shark is beautifully composed - in one unbroken take, no less - and legitimately nightmarish, with the red blood slowly overtaking the blue screen. It also doesn't hurt that Lively successfully carries the entire film on her shoulders, giving what is arguably the best performance in her career to date. There's a quiet fierceness and admirability to her character that makes it easy to root for her survival.

Overall, there's a lot to like about The Shallows. It's gorgeously shot, suspenseful, emotionally gratifying, and entirely successful on what it sets out to be - a solid B-movie, and it takes skill to pull that off. Sure, it doesn't match the heights of either Gravity or The Martian, but then again, its budget is a mere fraction of what those films cost.

A young American woman goes surfing alone at a secluded beach in Mexico but finds herself stranded on a rock with a hungry great white shark circling. And a seagull called Steve for company! This makes a great change from the glut of ridiculous shark movies "inspired" by the likes of 'Sharknado". No roaring shark (I didn't hear any anyway) and no CGI that looks like they were done by a 5 year old. Sure, there are goofs and gaffs, and I felt that the final showdown was pretty silly. However it is nicely filmed, has decent effects, plenty of tension and Blake Lively does a good job as the heroine. She also looks mighty fine in a bikini!

Entertaining 'shark' movie that adds a modern twist to the Jaws films of the 1970s and 80s. The location is supposed to be some surfers paradise beach in Mexico (in reality filmed in Australia) where a lone surfer Nancy (Blake Lively) ends up stranded a mere 200m from the safety of the beach by an angry Carcharadon carcharias (Great White Shark).

Nancy heavily losing blood from a deep leg wound ends up finding solace on a rock. To add to the screenplay she is befriended by a seagull she names Steven. Do you get the joke Steven Seagull? The shark effects are all cleverly added by CGI which of course Steven Spielberg didn't have available at the time of shooting Jaws in 1975. I suppose there is little manoeuvre for the screenplay. Don't get me wrong an entertaining watch but just highlights for me how good Jaws was.

Blake Lively plays Nancy, a medical student taking time off from her studies and plans to go to a secluded beach in Mexico with a pal for some surfing. Let down by her friend she heads alone hoping for a period of self reflection as this was the beach her now deceased mother once visited when she was young.

While she is surfing alone she is attacked by a large shark. Injured, bleeding she is stranded on a rock. She looks for help but no one is about, her medical skills are used to patch herself up the best she can and she realises that she is only safe on the rock as it is low tide. As the tide rises, she needs to get to safety, but the shark is circling round. Nancy needs to somehow outwit the shark.

This is really a low budget B movie. The CGI is ordinary and the story is preposterous. Nancy is in a remote location but she gets excellent wifi and a mobile phone signal.

The shark is of course demented, hell bent in gobbling up Nancy when their are other food sources about (maybe he saw her performance in Savages!)

Steven Spielberg has a lot to answer for. Ever since he made Jaws in 1975 there have been countless attempts on the big screen to emulate that film and all have failed. Some have been excruciatingly bad but thankfully The Shallows isn't one of those. This is the story of Nancy who travels to a secluded beach to surf . While in the water , she is hunted by a great white shark and finds herself stranded on a rock with the tide going out . Wounded and with time running out she battles to get away from the shark. Probably the best thing about this film is performance of Blake Lively. She definitely carries this film. The action is pretty good although totally predictable and it looks great up until the use of CGI underwater when it starts to look like a scene from a Sharks Tale. At a pleasant running time of 84 minutes , The Shallows is good bit of escapism but like every other shark film , it's no Jaws.