This title is not a lie. The Shallows (2016) is the second-best shark film ever made. However, a quick google of shark films will show you how little competition it is really up against. The first film you think of is, of course, Jaws (1975). It is the archetypal shark film and is easily the best shark film ever made (as well as being the second-best film ever made in general, don’t @ me). Other than this however, pickings are slim. Jaws 2 (1978) is an acceptable film, but Jaws 3-D (1983) and Jaws: The Revenge (1987) are both absolute cack. Deep Blue Sea (1999) is good in a B-movie kind of way, but after this everything is total crap. So, The Shallows did not have much competition to be crowned the second-best shark film ever made, but it puts itself in that spot on pretty good merit. It is a very enjoyable and slick thriller that won't go down in the echelons of cinema greats but that had a good time with and would recommend. The story is about Nancy Adams (Blake Lively) who travels to a secret beach in Mexico that her late mother had visited after finding out she was pregnant. Whilst surfing she is attacked and injured by a shark but manages to climb onto a nearby rock to avoid it. The film is then a survival tale with Nancy attempting to not bleed out, freeze or starve whilst also trying to not be eaten by a shark. All of this while the time is ticking for high tide and the rock she is surviving on to be fully submerged in water.
The film from a technical standpoint is very well made. The film uses quick shots of Nancy's belongings, like medical supplies and sun cream which are labelled and neatly packed, to give hints about how organised and resourceful she is which is something I really appreciate. It may sound like a small thing, but I love when a film tells us information without literally telling us. Show don't tell. It is also a good-looking film with some very nice shots and an eye-catching colour palette and so visual you are always interested. One scene in particular is especially visually impressive which is a scene involving jellyfish. This whole scene is full of beautiful colours and is almost trippy in a way, with the only problem with it being that the style of this scene is not really in keeping with the rest of the films style. One style choice the film makes which I felt was a poor one is with on screen text messages and face time screens (if that is explained well at all). This is not a new technique in films, especially in recent years, but it doesn't really fit into the rest of the tone of the film. There is one use of it that works and that is one the stopwatch which Nancy uses to show how long she has before the shark comes is superimposed onto the screen which is a good way of building tension, but in general the technique doesn’t work. Another time the style seems to fly out the window is with the initial surfing scene. It is literally a scene where we see Nancy and two Mexican boys surfing while shit dance music plays. It is basically a two-minute extreme sports sequence and it is so off from the resto of the film. Also, I just don't care. Now I have been surfing a few times and it is admittedly well hard and so hats off to people who are good at it. But at the same time, I really don't care to see a sequence of it in a film about sharks.
Talking about sharks let’s get to the two main characters of the film, Nancy and the big teethy bastard. Blake Lively does a very good job throughout the film. The majority of the runtime is her abandoned on this rock fighting for her life and so the success or failure of the film is basically on her shoulders. This could have been the best-looking film ever made and used a real, fully trained Great White shark and yet if her performance isn't up to scratch the whole film falls on her face. But she does a very good job of conveying the emotion of her situation as well as the massive pain she must be in, whilst also portraying a smart, likeable and pretty bad ass character who you are rooting for. But she isn't the real star, is she? Of course not, we're talking about a shark film, so the shark is obviously your big star. And the shark in this film is a well done one. The CGI on it is sometimes a bit iffy, but for the most part it looks great. It has a couple of really good scares as well, one which is very eerie where it appears in almost full shadow swimming through a wave, whereas the other was a full-on jump scare, but it was a well done one. The kills in the film are also good, taking the Jaws route of not showing too much but whilst also having at least one really visceral, pretty cool kill. Too show you my feelings towards the kills I am going to literally quote my own notes which I wrote about a minute and half apart from each other. The first, which was about the first kill in the film which is fully left to the imagination, read "a fat guy gets bitten in half. Show me, I'm not sick I swear." The second note which came after the fully shown, visceral shark attack read "I take it all back, that was awesome. Thank you." The shark action after this second kill gets more and more intense, but also becomes more and more silly, but not necessarily in a bad way. There is the obvious Jaws 'Smile you son of a bitch' homage sequence which is fun, but it is how the shark is killed which is the silliest moment of the film. I won’t spoil it here, but it is pretty unbelievable, but it makes up for it by having a really cool visual. The shark moments overall are done very well and seeing as this is a shark film it is important that they do so.
The Shallows is a pretty enjoyable film, whilst never really pushing the boat out (haha). It is professionally made and performed and it never has any hockey moments, which are so often prevalent in shark films. Blake Lively is a good lead, and the shark is done very well. The serious nature of the majority of the film does mean that a couple of sequences which are leaning bit more towards the silly side that don't seem to fit the tone of the rest of the film, but they are done well enough that they still remain enjoyable and don't take away too much or the rest of the film. Overall, I would definitely recommend it, although if you were to ask me what shark film you should watch the film still does not come close to the quality of Jaws, which still remains the undisputed king of shark films.