The Shallows: Quick Review

Originally written on July 8th, 2016 for Tumblr. 

Let’s be 100% honest. 2016 has been one of the worst years for films.


We had Batman v. Superman, which sucked, Warcraft, which was nothing, X-Men Apocalypse, another helping of nothing, and Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates… yeah, goes without saying. The only films I can think of that haven’t been a complete waste of time this year were Deadpool and Captain America: Civil War, one being a guaranteed hit, and the other being a surprise smash.

So when I wanted to go the movies today, my options were limited, and since I hate The Purge franchise more than life itself, and Good Bad Flicks and Moviebob gave it positive reviews, I ended up watching The Shallows. And you know what? It was actually really good.

So the setup is pretty simple, Blake Lively is a surfer girl from Texas who has come to a secret beach in Mexico that her mother used to go to for some R&R, and shit turns sideways when a large dead whale attracts a giant shark. Now it’s just up to her to survive.

Yup that’s the premise, and it’s simple enough to establish quickly, without the dialogue coming of as robotic: everything is set up so Lively is just in an isolated situation, and she has only her wits to survive. Once she is firmly in her predicament, the movie just goes, and honestly I can’t say more should I go into spoiler territory. But I will say that what I was looking for was pretty simple: I was hoping the characters and Lively weren’t annoying enough to make me wish for their deaths, and hoping that the writing and scene creation was built for suspense and not jump scares. Now the first part of that was pretty solid. Lively is a fine actress, everything she does and says makes sense, check that box, and the scene creation was definitely oriented to give us a sense that time is running out and every decision could be Lively’s last, which was great. That being said, there are some jump scares but much like decent horror films like the recent It Follows or Sinister, it definitely earned them by not wasting our time for 20 minutes at a time to get there.

Honestly my only complaint is that the films end was a little cliche. And I don’t mean the film’s climax (which was awesome) but I mean the very last scene with catchy pop song felt a little too contrasting to the overall experience. Not a deal breaker, just kind of off.

So yeah, The Shallows was great. It’s a great suspense film, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, it kept me engaged, it’s just a great movie. Try and see it before it leaves theaters.

8/10