The shallows - a review

After the death of her mother a young woman decides to travel to her mother’s ‘secret beach’ in South America for some acceptance and surfing. As she’s surfing alone she comes across bloodthirsty shark intent on hurting her.

Copying from other movies: a bad thing?

In one sentence The shallows is the female 127 hours with quite a healthy dose of Jaws thrown into the mix. Regarding the first movie the moral is the same: don't go adventuring alone. And regarding Jaws - well in the third act my mind’s eye definitely heard Roy Scheider mutter: "Smile you son of a ..."

So this movie copies! Is it bad? Not in the slightest. It's actually rather enjoyable in its predictability. You can pretty much guess who's shark food and who's not, and that's fine. The important question is whether or not Blake Lively is going to survive her ordeal or not?

Take for instance this wonderful cliché the movie throws at us early on - the deceased mother:

Strangely enough in movies girls have to follow mother's footsteps and guy's their fathers.

Her relationship with her father and sister is handled quite effectively on this matter. No unnecessary forcefulness. No fights or anything. Simple people who love each other but argue at times. And when you handle a well known trope in such a natural way (not every family member starts fighting whenever a loved-one perishes) it becomes a normal part of the story.

Camera and effects.

This movie is one of those movies that might, in the near future, refer to obsolete things. Will people, ten years from now, remember uber? Will they chuckle at those silly headgear cameras? ‘Tubing’ and youtube - will it still exist? But, then again, with it The shallows grounds itself in 2016. So like Spielberg’s Jaws, this is a movie of its time.

And as such it makes great use of layers of information when portraying messages and phone calls. It's one of those simple tricks that make the screen even more interesting (which is already very interesting due to a stunning actress and background).

At the start of the movie I noticed that the movie is counting down to events. So my mind’s eye immediately thought - : "wouldn't it be cool if there were some kind of countdown timed race. Too bad this movie doesn't go that route..." 
In short I was already writing this review in my head. And then the movie actually did it! So kudos to the movie from saving me to write a whole paragraph on how I would have made this movie better (tongue in cheek obviously).

The shark effects a quite good (apart from some mucky fire-fin near the end). And I'm sure marine biologist the world over will protest this movie's intention to make us hate sharks all over again (sorry, I do!).

But overall the cinematography of this movie is brilliant. The job is easy if you have such a stunning actress and background at your disposal. But as the tension rises the camera closes up to the character. And, of course, with the presence of a shark, the camera can’t help itself by playing around with what the swimmer sees and does not see. Straight from the cinema-textbook of Jaws and perfectly executed.

If I had to throw in a little nitpick (and I can't believe I'm writing this) it has to be the perfect body of Blake Lively in the skinnies of her swimsuits. It's a bit gracious at times that would make the average man blush (and the average feminist...). But then again what else is she going to wear as a surfer chick? This movie is still 'girl in her panties versus zombies shark'.

The acting.

The acting is great across the board. Blake Lively does a great one woman show portraying all the fears and doubts her character goes through. The supporting cast, limited in their acting time complete the picture (especially Brett Cullen as her father who is always a reliable actor to play someone's conscience).

The story.

The story then -well in the third act it goes a bit over the top (pretty much when she reaches the buoy -no spoiler it's on the poster). Where 127 hours left all the craziness for the dream sequences, The shallows serves them cold and that does unbalance the movie a bit. I can’t spoil more here but, sufficient to say, it gets a bit silly in the end.

To sum up.

After years of marine biologists telling me that shark's aren't dangerous I can still (quite easily) believe the opposite. But the superpowers this shark manifests in the final act are a bit too much for my logical brain to comprehend. Having said that The shallows is still a solid shark-movie, with some great acting, visuals and tension.