The Shallows

Girl v. Shark.

Ok, so in terms of thriller tension, and keeping a viewer on the edge of their seat pretty much the entire film without resorting to ghosts and demons, this does a pretty good job. Our heroine (Blake Lively) has traveled to a secret beach in Mexico where her mom once surfed. She is there as a tribute to her mom, who has recently lost her battle with cancer. While surfing, a great white comes into the picture and the battle begins. Now, having stated that this film fulfills its goal of providing thriller tension, let me reveal some of my pet peeves. When there is no reason for science to be bad, why do filmmakers allow it to be so. For example, I don't think that a great white will really circle a rock for hours and hours because a potential food source sits on that rock, especially when a readily available food source in the form of a dead whale is 40 feet away. This implies that the shark is angry, or holds harmful intent toward the girl on the rock, which is just not true. However, this I can overlook because it is necessary for the story. If the shark in fact just eats a bit of the whale and leaves, then it is not a very good movie. On the other hand, the filmmaker also manufactures that there is only one tide per day in this secret bay, and then proceeds to explicitly show through a series of cuts between rock and wristwatch, that the tide is basically unchanged for 23 hours, and then increased by 6 feet in 10 minutes. This is not necessary for the story. It demonstrates (and teaches) an incorrect understanding of tides, and the story would have been just as effective had the filmmakers included good science. Maybe my original assessment that I was on the edge of my seat "pretty much the entire film" was not quite correct if I was able to pick up on (and be bugged by) tide science throughout.
3 stars (out of 5)