The Shallows

Blake Lively hopes this film will buoy her career.

(2016) Thriller (Columbia) Blake Lively, Oscar Jaenada, Angelo Jose, Lozano Corzo, Jose Manual Trujillo Salas, Brett Cullen, Sedoria Legge, Pablo Calva, Diego Espejel, Janelle Bailey, Ava Dean, Chelsea Moody. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

 

If sharks had their own equivalent of the ACLU, there’d be picketing of Hollywood in general. No other animal has been demonized the way sharks have; perhaps Steven Spielberg would be Public Enemy Number One. Sharks are predators, yes, but they rarely attack humans and it is even more rare that they kill humans. More people die from interactions with horses than with sharks.

Nancy (Lively) has had some shit to deal with lately. Her mom (Bailey) recently passed away from cancer; this caused her to take a good hard look at her life and drop out of medical school, much to the consternation of her dad (Cullen) and her sister Chloe (Legge). Instead, Nancy has decided to take a vacation in Mexico with her party hearty friend but she’s not there for the tequila. No, Nancy wants to surf a beach that has personal meaning to her – it was a secluded beach that her mom used to take her to back in the day. It was a place where Nancy was truly happy.

When her friend is too hung over to go along for the ride, Nancy goes by herself and enlists the aid of a local (Jaenada) to drive her to the beach. It is just as secluded as it ever was; only a pair of surfer dudes (Jose, Corzo) is there. The day wanes and it has been a perfect afternoon. As the boys leave for home, Nancy decides to take one last ride. That proves to be a mistake.

You see, the surfer dudes weren’t the only ones out there; there’s also a great white shark who has been feasting on a whale out in the water. However, apparently having a whale that is ten times its size out there to dine on isn’t enough; the shark must have some human meat because, after all, variety is the spice of life. So the shark takes a bite out of Nancy who manages to make it to a rock 200 yards from shore. And there she will stay, and she will need all her ingenuity and the occasional help of a seagull named Steven (get it?) to fend off the most deadly of all predators.

Let’s get something straight; sharks rarely eat humans and when they do, it’s usually due to confusion. The fact of the matter is, sharks don’t much like the taste of human meat; they prefer more fishy sources of protein and frankly, if there’s a ginormous whale carcass ripe for the taking, they’re not going to bother with going out and killing something else. Sharks are not greedy by nature; they kill only what they can eat to survive. They don’t kill just for the sake of killing as they are depicted not only here but in popular imagination.

Mainly however this particular shark is there to menace Blake Lively and keep her in a bikini for the entire movie and admittedly she looks fantastic in a bikini. Although her character is ostensibly from Texas, Lively is the prototypical California surfer chick, so she is well-cast here. Lively needed to be solid here as she is basically the entire movie; she occasionally talks to her seagull buddy or records into a camera and/or cellphone but otherwise, it’s all her and all physical. This is the kind of demanding movie that pushed actors like Robert Redford and Matt Damon to their limits and this is also the case with Lively but she manages to keep our attention throughout and not just because of her bikini body. She does have a breezy personality that reminds me of Blythe Danner in the 70s and Kate Hudson more recently.

Jaume Collet-Serra is a Spanish director who has a knack for thrillers, particularly the action-based kind. This is more of a character thriller and he acquits himself well, considering that it is much more difficult to keep things interesting with a single character than it is when that character has other people and things to play off of. Lively doesn’t get that luxury; she has to interact with machines and an occasional bird, but has nothing else to work off of.

If you can forgive the egregious lapses in logic and biology here, this is a pretty good thriller. The conundrum of Nancy being so close yet so far from shore is tantalizing. There is a modicum of gore and of the CGI shark (which is much more realistic than Bruce in Jaws) which is a terrifying monster. As summer entertainment goes, you could do much worse – but also you can also do better. As it stands, this is a competently done edge-of-the-seat woman vs. shark film that certainly isn’t a waste of your time or money.

REASONS TO GO: Collet-Serra excels at keeping the tension high.
REASONS TO STAY: The basis of the plot is that the shark has some sort of grudge against Blake Lively.
FAMILY VALUES: Quite a few bloody images, intense peril and some brief profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was shot under its original title, In the Deep. The title was changed because the movie takes place in shallow waters.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/23/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 77% positive reviews. Metacritic: 58/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Jaws
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: The Purge: Election Year

A Perfect Getaway

Steve Zahn wonders who put the "Kick Me" sign on his backpack.

(Rogue) Timothy Olyphant, Milla Jovovich, Steve Zahn, Kiele Sanchez, Chris Hemsworth, Marley Shelton, Anthony Ruivivar, Dale Dickey, Peter Navy Tuiasosopo. Directed by David Twohy

The trouble with people is that you can never be sure that they are who they seem to be. They may be volunteers for a charitable foundation that help starving children in Africa; they may also be a vicious serial killer.

Cliff Anderson (Zahn) is paid to come up with ideas like that. He’s a Hollywood screenwriter who is apparently successful; after all, he’s getting work. He is also getting married, to lovely Cydney (Jovovich). They decide to honeymoon, as many newly married couples do, in Hawaii. They also decide to go hiking down a mountain trail in Kauai that leads to a secluded beach to which no roads go. The only way to get there is to hoof it.

On the way to the trail they run into another couple, Cleo (Shelton) and Kale (Hemsworth), who apparently has some anger management issues. They briefly get into a tiff, but then Cliff drives off. Smart man.

While hiking down the trail, they run into yet another couple; ex-special forces operative Nick (Olyphant) and his Georgia peach of a girlfriend Gina (Sanchez). Cliff isn’t much of an outdoorsman and Nick seems to be a handy guy to have around in the jungle. Moreover, when he finds out that Cliff is a screenwriter, he gets a little starry-eyed, having some awesome ideas for a movie, not to mention that most of them are taken from his own experiences in Iraq. He even got the back of his skull blown off, to which Gina proudly drawls “Muh bay-abee is hahd ta key-ill.”

Of course, even in paradise there are cloudy days and the two couples are about to have one. They discover there was a vicious murder of a couple back in Honolulu, where both couples were just days before. Could Cleo and Kale, who have followed Cliff and Cydney onto the trail, be murderers? Or is one of the other couples the killers? Or maybe is someone unknown to them stalking them? And when will I stop asking rhetorical questions?

Director David Twohy has written and/or directed some pretty impressive films, including Pitch Black, Below and The Fugitive but he’s also had his share of missteps, such as The Chronicles of Riddick. This one falls in between.

The movie is well-cast. Zahn, who is usually cast in comedic second banana roles, plays this one straight and is much more effective. Jovovich, a veteran of genre movies, is not only easy on the eyes, she gets one of the better non-verbal moments in the movie when she has to make a life-or-death decision near the end of the movie. Her eyes are very expressive in the moment.

Olyphant is a much-underrated performer who has done some impressive work and he is again, perfectly cast here as a bit of a blowhard who, when the rubber hits the road, can definitely walk the walk. Olyphant makes the character not only believable but sympathetic.

There is a twist in this movie; some critics have praised it, others derided it. I’m in the latter group; I honestly believe that most veteran viewers, particularly those who like thrillers and suspense movies, should be able to guess it by the time the movie hits the halfway point. Also, the pacing is a bit on the slow side for the first two-thirds of the movie; once the reveal of the twist is made, it picks up steam considerably.

This is a throwback to the B-Movie thriller of the 80s and 90s, and that is not meant as an insult. It’s the kind of movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat, has just enough sex and gore to titillate and has an attractive cast that performs solidly enough that you care about their characters. This is solidly entertaining and makes for great dark night video viewing. Me, when I visit Hawaii (astonishingly enough, I’ve never been) I think I’ll pass on the isolated trail hiking and just take the tour bus instead.

WHY RENT THIS: The suspense is handled very nicely and the leads are awfully attractive.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The “twist” is not as leftfield as the filmmakers thought; most savvy viewers will figure it out well before it’s revealed.

FAMILY VALUES: As you might expect, there is a good deal of violence and some sexuality, although nothing overt. There is one scene in which drug use is depicted also; I would expect mature older teens would do fine with this, but I’d hesitate for anyone younger.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Both Olyphant (Hitman) and Jovovich (the Resident Evil series) have both appeared in videogame adaptations.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Machete