Just When You Thought It Was Finally Safe..."The Shallows"

The Shallows (2016)  

Rated PG-13

Starring Blake Lively

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

The Story:

Nancy (Lively) goes out surfing at a secluded beach where her mom once tore up the waves. When a few other surfers head to shore, Nancy decides to try for one more wave.

Clearly Nancy has not grown up watching shark movies!

:)

Arguably, this is one of the best shark movies since Jaws, and I've sat through enough of them to know what I'm talking about here.

Collet-Serra breaks from his usual thrillers with Liam Neeson to direct a thriller with a killer shark instead.

Apparently Liam Neeson wasn't available to play the part of the killer shark.

So instead, this is all about Nancy and her fight for survival just a few hundred yards off shore and safety.

Thankfully she went to medical school, so she will be able to tend to her wounds to keep her from simply bleeding to death and making the movie rather boring.

The film follows very much in Spielberg's shoes by letting a lot of the killer shark go unseen, and just ratchet the tension by knowing he's out there, waiting, and there's nothing our human protagonist can do about it.

So that leaves Lively to carry the film, and she does so quite admirably. Put in a bikini and stuck on a rock for most of the film, she does her best to run the gamut of emotions and keep you enthralled with her desperate plight.

At the end, there's got to be a showdown between human and monster, and while it may be a little over-the-top, this is B-movie thriller/monster movie and the conclusion works perfectly for the film.

Overall, I was very entertained from start to finish, and someday I'll add it to the film library.

Final Grade: B+

Never Fly "Non-Stop" With Liam Neeson

Non-Stop (2014)

Rated PG-13

Starring Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore,

Directed by Jaume Collett-Serra

The Story:

Bill Marks (Neeson) is an Air Marshal. Boarding a flight to London, he begins to receive texts on his secure phone. If he doesn't pay a huge ransom, passengers will start being murdered every 20 minutes. As if on cue, the body count starts piling up, but on a flight full of red herrings and authorities on the ground thinking Marks has gone rogue, the odds are stacked against him.

First bad guys stole his family.

Now they've stolen his plane!

Wait, wrong movie franchise.

:)

Neeson has reinvigorated his career as the quiet, angry man who gets things done.

I've enjoyed both Taken films and found The Grey, well, to be less than spectacular.

This one is much more in line with the Taken franchise, along with every other action hero against the odds film ever made.

As the movie rolls along at a fairly quick pace, passengers are revealed as suspects, get cleared or wind up as victims at a rapid pace.  Soon, much like Neeson, you're wondering who really is the hijacker?

Then you begin to wonder...

Is Neeson suffering from split personality disorder?

Now the trick will be to see if they bring this back with a sequel?


Final Grade: C+

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Pretty good flick, but not a whole lot of replay factor in it once the mystery is solved.