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| Star Blake Lively, with a shark fin protruding ominously from the sea in the background, looks ready to take action - and great in a bikini - on this poster for Jaume Collet-Sera's The Shallows |
A beautiful blond medical student from Texas has gone to Mexico in a fit of grief and doubt concerning the direction of her life, but she now has to learn the hard way that it is unadvisable to surf alone in unknown waters ...
The Shallows is written by Anthony Jaswinski (Killing Time (2002)) and directed by great Spanish filmmaker Jaume Collet-Sera (House of Wax (2005)).
It is a well-oiled high-concept shark thriller, which has unfortunately exorcised some heart in its narrative in favor of its slender concept. Held together with its well-shaped star Blake Lively (Hick (2011)), who does well but is ridiculously hot and is utilized for her full visual thrill here, the film leaves a somewhat shallow impression, (no pun intended). - An impression of a filmmaker giving himself a creative dare coupled with visual showing off, rather than of well-earned gasps and terror.
But The Shallows is exciting on its way, and Marco Beltrami (Little Evil (2017)) sometimes cuts a menacing score. There are visually impressive elements, - one involving a buoy attached to concrete blocks, - although the CGI shark and jellyfish still sometimes appear somewhat fake. It isn't as good as Collet-Sera's best to date, thrill-ride Non-Stop (2014), and it is far from a match for its sub-genre's eternal classic, masterpiece Jaws (1975). But The Shallows is worth seeing for fans of shark movies.
Related post:
Jaume Collet-Sera: Non-Stop (2014) or, The Text Messaging Terrorist!
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 17 - 25 mil. $ (different reports)
Box office: 119.1 mil. $
= Big hit (returned at least 4.76 times its cost)
[The Shallows premiered 21 June (New York) and runs 86 minutes. Louis Leterrier was hired to direct but dropped out in 2015. Filming was supposed to take place in the Gulf of Texas but the filmmakers were denied a film permit there for safety concerns. Shooting instead took place in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia, from October 2015 - January 2016. Lively reportedly did many of her own stunts. The film opened #4, behind holdover hit Finding Dory, fellow new release Independence Day: Resurgence and holdover hit Central Intelligence to a 16.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd week and grossed 55.1 mil. $ (46.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 15.2 mil. $ (12.8 %) and France with 4.1 mil. $ (3.4 %). Collet-Sera returned with The Commuter (2018). Lively returned in All I See Is You (2016). The Shallows is certified fresh at 79 % with a 6.49/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Shallows?
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