The Shallows (2016)

“Sodding Shark”

Jaume Collet-Serra’s woman vs shark movie gets an every possible format release (DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD and digital) from Sony Pictures.

Nancy (Blake Lively) is in Mexico to have fun, surf, come to terms with her mother’s death and work out what she’s going to do with her life now she’s dropped out of medical school. She seeks out the secluded beach that her pregnant mother visited back in 1991 in the hope she will find some inner peace. 

Instead she finds a great big hungry shark and not just that but a great big hungry movie shark - one of those creatures that, even though there’s a massive meal of dead whale floating right there, would rather chase our scantily clad and injured heroine into a horde of jellyfish, eat a lifebuoy to get at her, and demonstrate those jumping out of the water skills movie sharks usually employ to pull down helicopters, passing eagles and stray asteroids.

THE SHALLOWS isn’t that daft, thank goodness. In fact the opening hour isn’t bad at all. The info dump at the beginning is all a bit clunky and actually somewhat unnecessary - Nancy’s character would actually be more interesting the less we knew about her. Where the film does score is once she’s out in the sea, bitten on the leg, and struggling to survive too far from land to swim for it.

Jaume Collet-Serra gave us the interesting remake of HOUSE OF WAX (2005) and the very entertaining ORPHAN (2009). With the plethora of Daft Shark films out there, he does well to rein in any desire to go full SHARKNADO. 

Sony’s disc comes with some deleted scenes, and four short featurettes featuring Blake Lively (thank heavens she’s charismatic or that surname would be receiving all kinds of abuse from the unkinder end of the critical spectrum), entitled ‘Shooting in THE SHALLOWS’, ‘How to Build A Shark’, ‘Finding the Perfect Beach’ and ‘When Sharks Attack’.

THE SHALLOWS has been described as ‘The best shark movie since JAWS’. In fact that quote is on the box. It’s nowhere near as good as JAWS (that would be difficult). It’s also nowhere near as bad as virtually any film with the word shark in the title that you can pick up at the DVD shop at the moment. If you like shark movies, Jaume Collet-Sera’s other stuff, or Blake Lively in swimming gear then THE SHALLOWS should pass a Saturday evening quite nicely. 

Jaume Collet-Serra's THE SHALLOWS is out on Blu-ray, DVD, 4k Ultra HD and digital download on Monday 5th December 2016