Skip to main content

The Shallows (2016)

Anthony Jaswinski’s screenplay for The Shallows was featured on 2014’s Blacklist, a list of the most well received, but unmade scripts of the year. Blake Lively plays the main role in Jaume Collet-Serra’s survival horror about Nancy Adams, a surfer left injured and stranded 200 yards from the shore. To make things worse, there is a large, hungry shark circling the small group of rocks she’s managed to scramble to.

Source
The premise (‘127 Hours’, but with a shark) is really simple, but it’s not just that which puts a new twist on the shark movie genre (is that a genre?... lets just go with it). This isn’t a monster that’s got the taste for human flesh for no reason (it’s drawn to the area by a dead whale body). Even the finale, as well as being really satisfying, is definitely original. Blake Lively is really likeable, brings humour when needed. Her character has a backstory that doesn’t feel tacked on, and actually adds weight to those scenes where she is fighting for her life. Spending much of the film stuck on a bunch of rocks with nothing other than a volleyball seagull for company, there is a lot on her to hold this film together, and I thought she did that really well. Saying that, there was the odd bit where she talked the audience through what she is doing and why. Nobody would tell themselves out loud why and how they are treating their wounds like she does. I get why, but sometimes it may have been better to take a note out of J. C. Chandor’s All Is Lost (2013). The film is nearly entirely dialogue free with a script consisting of only 32 pages. Robert Redford’s character just gets on with his battle with the elements and doesn’t feel the need to reach out to his audience to explain how. I don’t think The Shallows needed something quite as extreme as that, but sometimes it came across as daft and a little patronising.
Source
It’s a great looking film, and with a beach that stunning you would be tempted to put up with the bloodthirsty shark. The shark itself looks really good too, but I’m glad they didn’t show too much of it until the end. Monster movies have a tendency to give away it’s creature far too early.   It’s much scarier to leave it up to the audience’s imagination, and that’s something Jaws (1975) did really well (albeit not always out of choice with their malfunctioning animatronic shark), and has always been my problem with Cloverfield (2008).  My favourite scene in the movie was when the shark attacks someone else in the water, but all you see of it is Lively's reaction to what is going on.  It's much scarier than any of the scenes with the CGI shark in itself.  We’re left with a tense, and scary popcorn movie that didn’t try to be anything more than it was, and did it’s thing very well. It won’t live long in the memory, but it was a great evening out. Also, give that Wilson seagull an Oscar!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Star Trek (2009) / Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Source Ahead of watching the new Star Trek film, Charlotte and I decided to go back and revisit JJ Abrams’ Star Wars audition and its sequel. The first I knew quite well, but I had only seen the second the once at the cinema, and it became one of many DVDs I have sat on my shelf still in its cellophane.  I’ve never been a Star Trek fan by any stretch. I’ve probably seen a little of the original series, and then the odd episode of Star Trek Next Generation TV series as a kid while waiting for The Simpsons, Robot Wars or Malcolm in the Middle to come on. I was always a big Star Wars fan and seemed to think you could only be in one camp or the other for some reason. As far as I’m aware Trekkie reception to the 2009 and 2013 reboots were largely positive bar the pretty one dimensional villain in the first, and the whitewashed return of a popular villain from the Star Trek canon in the sequel. This film seemed to cater for all though. If you wanted comedy, you got it in abundan...

Fences (2017)

Source Based on August Wilson's 1983 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and adapted to screenplay before his death in 2005, Fences has been long in the waiting. There had been previous attempts adapt Fences to film (the rights were first purchased in 1987 with Eddie Murphy penciled in to star), but this had repeatedly been pushed back as Wilson remained adamant that it was directed by an African-American. Having directed twice before, and knowing the source material inside out from his Tony Award turn as the lead, Denzel Washington has taken the plunge and taken his place behind, as well as in front of the camera. With much of the stage cast reunited, including now Academy Award winner Viola Davis (also a Tony Award winner for the same role on stage) it is immediately apparent this has been made without a lot of love and respect for the original source material. Source Fences is a family drama in 1950s Pittsburgh, honing in on Troy Maxson (Washington), and his views on the...

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

Source Tom Cruise and director Edward Zwick reunite after their successful 2003 collaboration, The Last Samurai, in the second of the Jack Reacher movie interpretations: Never Go Back.  If anyone actually got over the choice of Cruise to play Lee Child's title character of his long running novel series, they were left with a movie that had a lot going for it.  Unfortunately, it's follow up may have killed the franchise in it's tracks... [insert 'Never Go Back' pun].   Tom Cruise plays Jack Reacher, an ex army major who "they ran out of medals to give" but eventually decided to leave and live his life roaming the streets.  Never Go Back tells the story of his budding friendship with a current army major (Cobie Smulders), and his decision to go on the run with her when she is wrongly framed for espionage.   Source The books are a bit throw-away, but really good fun, and I enjoyed the two I've read.  Reacher's part investigator, part hard m...