Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Blake Lively, Óscar Jaenada, Angelo Jose, Brett
Cullen
In this age of Hollywood banality, it seems everything is up for a remake, but a few movies are still sacred at this point. One of these is Jaws. It would take serious audacity to attempt to 'better' or 'upgrade' Spielberg's masterpiece, so few filmmakers would dare touch it. But the truth is, Jaws probably won't be remade for the simple reason that it's too simple a concept for modern Hollywood. Thanks to the SyFy Channel and knock-off studio The Asylum, sharks are now synonymous with over the top genre parodies like the Sharknado series, a one joke concept that just won't go away.
Visiting the 'secret' Mexican beach where her late mother liked to catch some legendary waves, surfer Nancy (Blake Lively) follows her Mom's footsteps and enjoys some south of the border surf. Her fun is interrupted however by the arrival of a shark, which attacks Nancy and draws blood, leaving a considerable gash on her leg.
Serra is equally unable to convey any real sense of danger. A few Mexican extras become shark fodder, but we never feel any doubt as to whether Nancy is going to beat her predicament. There's a lack of tension, thanks to the choppy, unfocussed editing, and Serra relies on onscreen graphics to convey the lowering and rising of the tides where most filmmakers would have found a simple way to visually communicate such a threat.
All you should need to make a good movie is a girl and a shark, but Serra - whose cult following among cinephiles is a continued source of bemusement to this writer - fails to deliver the basics, instead fashioning a movie that too often resembles a female oriented riff on an '80s Old Spice commercial. The Shallows is a damp squib.
The Shallows is on Amazon Prime
Video UK now.