The Shallows 2016 - Limited Edition Steelbook Blu-ray Region Free

*3 and a half out of 5*The most significant shark feature in a long time. The Shallows sees a surfer: Nancy (Blake Lively) attacked a mere 200 yards from shore by a great white shark. Her short journey to safety becoming the ultimate contest of wills.A film that delivers exactly what it sets out to achieve. A lean, fast paced, straightforward 86 minute tension filled ride on the ocean waves. Featuring an awesome central and film carrying performance from Blake Lively against Jason Voorhees of the underwater world. Though the film’s attempts at emotional and external character beats aren’t particularly engaging and some cheesy elements and patchy CGI do find themselves rearing their heads.The film establishes its location and scenario well. The foreshadowing and key elements that come into play (e.g. the tide times and various potential dangers of the location) are seamlessly integrated and provide logical and audience satisfaction and tension inducing moments as the film progresses. Though an effective and emotional motivator for Nancy, the plot point surrounding her mother and her family back in Texas, never really is particularly impactful and ticks off several cliches that you will have seen before.The technical aspects here are really strong. The location cinematography is fantastic, with the bold and tropical harmony of the secret isolated beach setting, the glass like clearness of the waves that reflects and emphasises the myriad of coral and jellyfish colours. These elements are contrasted by the bleak, brutal and chaotic night time/early hours sequences and the rawness of the GoPro footage. There is some cheesy and overly in your face phone camera scenes, but the on screen watch works efficiently when utilised. The way the film presents the shark is masterful in terms of tension. It’s presence is consistently around and unpredictable. Especially towards the beginning we just get glimpses, and shadows that steadily increase throughout to the insane CGI heavy finale, which can take away from the grounded approach the film has been attempting beforehand, that being said it is still fist pump worthy duel.Blake Lively is excellent here. Her character never feels like a ‘damsel in distress’ role. She is consistently resourceful, motivated and relentless even in the face of sheer hopelessness and near complete mental exhaustion. Her physical performance is strong, she is clearly going all in screaming and choking and writhing in pain due to her quickly infecting leg and several stings and cuts. And yes it is an undeniable positive that she also happens to be beautiful and wearing either a bikini or tight sweatsuit in the first act. The rest of the cast are either bland chum for the shark to feast upon and her brief family interaction performances are fine.The Shallows is a solid dose of shark fuelled chaos. A tense well paced tale of survival with a great ‘woman vs. nature’ rivalry at the centre. Strong technical elements and a brooding antagonist work well and Lively gives the best performance of her career that I have seen so far. The film is unfortunately let down by plot cliches, uninteresting and underdeveloped emotional beats and some patchy CGI.

I'm amazed that I like this film. There's apparently something wrong with me, as I can't usually stand watching Blake Lively. The idea of a Gossip Girl marathon sounds as agreeable as cramp. I thought she was pointless screen-adornment in Green Lantern (which I suppose is understandable as the film was about her character's boyfriend). Even in Oliver Stone's brutal Savages, she occasionally came across as a self-impressed clotheshorse trying on acting for size.The Shallows not only made me eat my words, it made me enjoy doing so.Lively shoulders almost the entire film as Nancy, who has dropped out of Med-school following the death of her beloved mother, and decided to go travelling. The latest stop on her trip is the beach where her mother went surfing when she first realised she was pregnant with Nancy. The idea sounds trite, but comes off sweet. Lively sells us on Nancy's deep feelings for her mother and need to find a connection in order to move on with her life, but with a free-spirited and self-reliant charm that hugely endeared me to the performance. Nancy is not a self-obsessed millennial; yes she has a slight over-fondness for her phone, but has inherited a powerful belief in her own strength and self-reliance...one that powers all of the major events to follow. After a brief opening where she tries to joke with a local across a language barrier, she finds 'her mother's' beach and we get impressively filmed surfing scenes and some amusing banter with two locals. But following a depressing call home, Nancy decides to hit the waves one last time on the now deserted beach, and spots something unusual bobbing in the current. The object spells trouble, and she finds herself suddenly and violently fighting for survival against a shark that's staked a claim to the area for practical reasons not usually explored in shark thrillers. What follows is much more inventive and fast paced than the 'woman stuck on a rock' film that I expected, with several other characters entering the frame, and a lot of terrifying near-misses and shark-peril scenes. The thrills are inventive, thanks to the reef, scenery and objects in the water, and director Collet-Sera's unusually flashy technique turns out to be a bonus. I'd imagined his very tech-heavy flashy style of phone messages appearing in mid air (as if we're seeing them while looking at the surroundings, as used in Non-Stop) would distract from proceedings, but instead it proves brilliantly adept at welcoming us into Nancy's memories, background and family relationships, as well as helping to flesh out sequences where there'd otherwise be very little dialogue. The surfing filming is utterly gorgeous (bubbles trail from nostrils, as surfers dive under oncoming waves in slow motion) and the rest of the filming is equally technically innovative while being a treat for the eyes. The shark is largely very good indeed - a step above most CG creatures in a sense of presence and reality. There are one or two brief shots where it seems less impressive, and at the end it seems to get a little bigger, but it's not a problem. Lively is the greatest asset. While all the performers do a very good job in general, she allows her very pretty character to get realistically chewed and slashed, pale, bruised, bedraggled and downright rough-looking in a terrific performance.The script has some daft moments, and one or two predictable sections, but many times you'll assume something is a set-up for an attack or a kill, and find it's not the case. And the big fight for survival at the end of the film is both slightly bonkers and one of the most gutsy and exciting human vs predator scenes of recent years. The Shallows may not be an instant classic, but it shows that terrific shark thrillers and revelatory acting performances are still possible when they're least expected.

Excellent transfer 2.39:1 ratio good colour, sound and subtitles (not really essential, but useful). Extras as listed (not seen by me). Opinions! We have to have opinions and long may they differ and offer up subjects for discussion (of the polite kind). I say this because I am a bit surprised at the number of fairly strong One star opinions/reviews. Every one to their own of course, but I do wish, sometimes that, if you really dislike a film/play/book whatever that you say why. It can help. - Anyway, as you might have guessed I enjoyed this "woman in peril/shark attack" film. Beautifully shot on gorgeous locations with terrific under and on water photography. A slow build up, all the better, because you know things are going to turn nasty. They do, but I am glad to say the shark sightings are kept to a minimum except for the climax, and even then I thought they were better than the "Sharknado" films (loved them too). At just under 90 minutes there is little time to bored and the film moves towards a very tense climax. Praise is due to star Blake Lively who not only looks great in a bikini, but suffers hugely for her art. She spends most of the film in or just on the water. There is some gore when she sews a shark bite in her leg, and we see the nasty wound s few times. Otherwise it is just tension and wondering how it will end. (Yes, I know, it's not really in doubt - or is it?) Recomended to fans of Blake and Shark films, and surfing (some great shots),and an excellent price currently, if you aren't sure whether to buy it's worth a punt.