 |
| The Shallows - An intense Jaws inspired survival film. |
Written by: Anthony Jaswinski
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Blake Lively, Óscar Jaenada, Angelo Josue Lozano Corzo
Rated: PG-13
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it. Read my previous movie reviews!
Plot:
Surfer Nancy (Blake Lively) is attacked by a great white shark and stranded just a couple hundred yards from shore.
Verdict:
This is a survival movie worth watching. It's a spiritual successor to Jaws, though the only connection is a shark. This is intense almost from the start until the end, with Nancy, an actual smart character, fighting to survive. She doesn't make dumb decisions just to put her in peril. While the shark is incredibly smart, it feeds the fear and paranoia.
Watch it.
Review:
Obviously this looks like a Jaws inspired romp in the ocean. It does a great job of feeling inspired by, but not stealing the concept by focusing on one person in just one location. The one location works great, and this movie just doesn't let up. Nancy is stranded and we feel that isolation.
From the start, whenever the camera dips underwater the sunny soundtrack disappears, replaced with murky water tones that make you wonder if the shark is going to pop up. Each time you wonder, "Is this it?" because each underwater shot could be the shark's point of view. It creates a high degree of tension and a stark contrast with the tone and music above water.
One of my issues with the premise is that Nancy hitches a ride to a secret beach, but how did she plan to leave? She doesn't have a ride back and it would be hard to tell someone where to find a hidden beach.
Once the other surfers leave Nancy discovers a dead whale floating in the ocean, leaving a murky trail of muck. A dead whale is never a promising sign, and of course this is when it starts to go down. I love the reveal of the shark as just a dark shadow in the water right behind Nancy. The whale plays a bigger role than just to create a mood, and of course she is attacked and stranded on a little rock outcropping a couple hundred yards off shore.
A little known health fact, a tourniquet is a bad idea. It stops blood flow and leads to tissue death. If you were going to get medical treatment within an hour or two, it's fine. What you want to do is put pressure directly to the wound. While the movie does kind of address the tourniquet issue, it's gamed to provide a bit more tension rather than adhere to logic. I also don't understand how her wound is a perfect right angle when sharks have rows of jagged teeth.
She eventually creates a compression bandage for the wound, but she put the tourniquet back on before that, so what is it really doing?
Nancy is trapped on a tiny rock outcrop, and of course the tide is rising. It made me wonder, can sharks jump? The shark could almost just coast up the rock and get her since she's at water level. I had to consult Google, and sharks can jump eight to ten feet, but if the shark did that this movie would be over way too soon. Sometimes you have to distort the facts, but then again this is a smart shark. She obviously is toying with Nancy and doesn't like to leave the comfort of seawater, as the shark leaves her alone while she's on the rock. It's a vindictive shark with uncanny behavior.
Nancy is a smart character. It would be easy to have her make dumb decisions to increase the peril, but the movie doesn't succumb to that. She's panicked, but fighting to survive.
I began wondering how this would end as Nancy's predicament is incredibly bleak. Anyone she sees on the beach meets a gruesome end. Though for one of them, you won't feel as bad.
She manages to relocate to a nearby buoy, but even then she is still in the ocean. It prolongs the inevitable, but for what? You'll see as the buoy plays a big part in the ending.
The final scene is a happy ending that's a bit too saccharine as Nancy has fully recovered in just one year and is surfing with her younger sister. I didn't need a bleak ending, but I didn't want it gift wrapped either. Could she really be back on that leg after only one year and the lack of blood flow?
I would have preferred Nancy getting to the shore and looking out at the ocean, making us wonder if she'll ever go back.
No comments:
Post a Comment