Every generation has the defining shark film that makes folks afraid to go into the water.  For the foreseeable future,  it’s STILL Jaws. While yes, The Shallows offers some FANTASTIC cinematography and okay-ish jumpscares, it falls flat everywhere else. And this is coming from someone who has an unexplainable love for crappy B movies and their crappier monsters.

The water is spectacularly filmed, the waves perfect and rolling. The sun and sand iare inviting, the promise of blood in the water tangible.  The Shallows arguably has everything the modern audience could want in a summer “stay out of the water” surprise hit.  Check out the trailer if you haven’t seen it:

The film is easily described as a Gro-Pro commercial that just happens to have a shark, and also Blake Lively. But not REALLY Blake Lively, as her face is digitally superimposed onto surf double Isabella Nichols, pretty much taking away any/all good things I was going to say about her surfing.  (THAT is a thing too, the original woman hired to double for Lively is currently in litigation vs the studio for wrongful termination.) The shark, also, is hugely disappointing in terms of special effects.  There are moments of it cutting through the water that look like some poor VFX intern lost a bet and had to work the weekend.

Lively’s character Nancy is a medical student dealing with the loss of her mother to cancer.  We are treated to a backstory through clever use of phone screen-viewscreens, letting the audience see what Nancy sees as she scrolls through photos.  These photos show Nancy’s mother with a surfboard standing on a beach of impeccable beauty somewhere in Mexico (but actually filmed in Australia along the Golden Coast). The back story is only useful to explain why Nancy choses this beach, with no name, for her surfing excursion. Lively is largely unremarkable in the role. I’m not sure if it’s her or the script, or maybe even the director Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax, Orphan) to blame.

Her medical training does come into play, I’ll say that. In probably the most cringe worthy (the audience, not me) moment of the film, Nancy uses her earrings and necklace to improvise ‘staples’ to hold the flap of bitten skin on her thigh in place. Be prepared to look away, the practical effects department earned their per diems with this shot.

The biggest problem I had with lack of reality was the timing of the shark’s lazy swimming.  Nancy uses her watch to time how long it takes the shark to swim from the rotting whale carcass past her safety rock.  This of course is a slow, leisurely swimming pace, a guarding sentinel duty if you will.  Nancy then thinks she, an injured human, is capable of swimming FASTER than a great white on a blood-smelling snack mission.

Sure, most people will see this film because the trailers and images all contain a bikini-clad Blake Lively.  Maybe some will see it because they are looking for that moment horror/suspense fans LIVE for.  The loyal frenzied few shark enthusiasts will see it hoping for maybe one single genre-defining moment.

There are some homage shots to Jaws, or at least that’s how I took them. Nancy using the flare gun trying to shoot the shark, I was expecting her to urge the son of a bitch to smile.

SCORE: 5.5 OUT OF 10

While admirable, The Shallows is an attempt at a survival story with a strong female lead, it doesn’t really deliver on any expected front.  The score by Marco Beltrami is fine, when you can hear it, but the sound design and shark effects are at the forefront of the audible story. Hopefully this film will do well enough at the box office to encourage more studios to take chances on female-fronted action films, as well as using the newfound personal camera market to their advantages.

The Shallows opens on Friday June 24th, 2016.