[A] reasonably entertaining, imprudently daft aquatic thriller.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2016

The realism of the early scenes -- leaving aside Nancy's unaccountable willingness to be stranded alone in a remote place -- is replaced by increasingly silly scenes that lead eventually to a nonsensical conclusion.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 19, 2016

About half of what is now going on in all cinema is the product of technological advances in film-making and The Shallows makes much more intelligent use of them than the superheroes do.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 14, 2016

The real surprise about The Shallows is that it provides such depth of characterisation.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 11, 2016

If you're looking for a short, sharp hit of sun-soaked adrenaline (and who isn't?), you won't do any better than The Shallows.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 11, 2016

Gulp your doubts and follow the imperilled girl into adversities that turn this summer shark dish, if not into Jaws, then into a twisting, biting, exciting loner-in-crisis drama.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 11, 2016

Collet-Serra's rigorous craftsmanship and Lively's muscular-in-every-sense movie-star performance ... ensure every attack and counterattack convulses and grips.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 11, 2016

An exhilarating shark tale worth getting more than a little bit excited about.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 9, 2016

The stripped-down thriller The Shallows is effectively unsettling. Its simplicity-this is girl vs. shark, no filler-is its greatest asset.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2016

Lively's melodramatic power remains untapped.

| Jul 5, 2016

It's a nice bit of close-quarters cinema, offering some jolts and scares before the obligatory WTF ending.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 30, 2016

You're gonna need a bigger Blake (and you're going to get one) in Lively's enjoyably trashy shark-survival movie, the definition of summer fun.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 24, 2016

A splash of fresh seawater in the face of a rather dismal summer movie season. It's very cheesy, which is how escapist summer cinema should be, and part of its charm is that it's not self-reflective enough to be aware of its own cheesiness.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 24, 2016

Is "The Shallows" a thriller for the ages? No, but it's decent popcorn fare.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 24, 2016

School's out, schlock's in - no lessons here.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jun 24, 2016

For what it is, "The Shallows" works.

| Original Score: B- | Jun 24, 2016

Imagine an off-brand remix of the Tom Hanks movie Castaway with better hair, an exponentially more attractive lead, and almost none of the weighty philosophizing about human insignificance.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 23, 2016

Think of the film instead as the jellyfish that Nancy encounters in one fraught scene: lightweight, translucent, by turns graceful and awkward. And occasionally capable of a surprisingly potent jolt.

| Jun 23, 2016

It's all patently ridiculous. But Blake Lively, director Collet-Serra and a digital shark show no mercy in hooking us with the B-movie tension. And we bite.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 23, 2016

Navigating halfway between blatantly bonkers and bitingly brilliant, The Shallows sadly got stranded in beautiful but bush-league.

| Jun 23, 2016