The Shallows

Jaume Collet-Serra – 2016 – USA 

I’m confused and a little disturbed by all the positive reviews for this film.  Granted, it might be slightly better than the majority of killer shark movies, but that’s not saying a lot.  You can probably count on one hand all the good shark movies that have ever been made.  (Within the past decade, I only know one; 2010’s The Reef.)  The Shallows starts out well enough, with a gradual build-up depicting Blake Lively’s arrival to a remote South American beach to surf; apparently for no other reason than because her deceased mother once went there.  Wisely deciding to hitchhike there alone and then shunning the companionship of some fellow surfers she finds there, she finally has the ocean all to herself and within minutes is attacked by a preposterously enormous and agile Great White CGI shark.  No effort is made by the production to make this “shark” come off like a natural animal.  It is able to leap and dive with the precision and power of an acrobatic superhero.  Even though it has devoured (or, in one victim’s case, cut cleanly in half) three people, and even though there’s a big whale carcass floating around nearby, this remarkably spirited monster is hell-bent on catching this one skinny human surfer, even if it means waiting around for high tide two nights in a row.  It also loves to chew on metal, like most real sharks do; taking apart the steel frame of a buoy like it’s made of pretzels.  The film started out well, and the human drama isn’t bad, but everything is undercut by the lazy decision to depict the cartoon shark as capable of spiteful malice and herculean feats.