Movie: The Shallows
Direction: Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast: Blake Lively
Music: Marco Beltrami
Cinematographer: Flavio Labiano
Editor: Joel Negron
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Rating: ∗∗½
What is it about: It’s a survival horror thriller, which has a surfer Nancy (Blake Lively) who visits a secret beach in Mexico, to relive the magic of her mother’s escapade. And to her unfortunate luck, she is stranded 200 yards from the shore with a white shark determined to hunt her down. What happens next forms the crux of the story directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.
Why it’s disappointing: The trailer and promos were extraordinary, which created an anticipation for a movie which might have become a “JAWS” of this generation. But whatever you had seen in the trailer, remains distributed over 90 minutes.
The film had a great potential of a thriller which could have kept the audience at the toes, but unfortunately it doesn’t. Jaume, who have “House of Wax” and “Orphan” to his credit, somewhere failed to maintain the tension which was required for this film.
The encounter between Blake and the Shark was very less and the struggle doesn’t last long, so there’s no room for a thrilling drama to build up. The thriller kind of failed to get your attention.
What to watch out for: The filmmaking was at its best, the film which loses big on narration gains on the visual appeal. The cinematography by Flavio Labiano was delectable which had few shots dropping your jaws. And then it’s the editing by Joel Negron, which was crisp. The VFX was amazing, and few scenes were done exceptionally well.
And most definitely Blake Lively, who was the centre of attraction. She did a fine job in portraying the survival of the fittest. And she manages to divert the attention on to her from the flaws in the film.
Verdict: Jaume Collet-Serra seemed quite lazy in conceptualizing this thriller. This one had a great premise, but the story built on it was not on par with it. The film does have a great visual appeal but loses on narration. Definitely worth a watch for its technical brilliance.
