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+

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Watch SyFy... "Sharknado"

My Achilles heel...

I love shark movies.

The Story:

A hurricane is bearing down on Los Angeles, and it's bringing killer sharks onto the land as the whole area is flooding.

Chaos ensues!

First, yes, I realized what I was getting into when I added this to the queue.  It was from SyFy, and I've lamented their output on here many times.  Their efforts are often pedestrian, at best, so why would I go through it?

Sharks.

I'm a sucker for a shark movie. 

Yes, even the bad ones.

And this was spectacularly bad, in a car crash way that I couldn't not watch.

Watch as plot holes and ludicrous dialogue or (or?  More like and...) cheesy special effects race across the screen at breakneck speed.

The movie brings Ian Ziering and Tara Reid to the big small screen as a former couple who have two kids that really need a slap upside the head.

Don't worry though, before the end of the film, those two will find their feelings reconciled after surviving dozens of deadly sharks being rained down into Los Angeles by way of tornados generated by hurricanes.

Forget that hurricanes are Atlantic Ocean storms, and typhoons generate in the Pacific, but apparently that logic was thrown out the door at the beginning.

Creative shark killing abounds as these poor critters are served up as fodder to these survivors.

Trust me, by the end, I was hoping a few people would still get eaten.

Thankfully...there's a sequel in the works.  : /

And tell me if you find it creepy that the girl that likes Fin winds up in love with his son by the end of the movie.

Creepy.

Don't get me started on how she survives...

Final Grade: C-

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: No, but I'll probably get suckered into Sharknado 2... I know... I'm ashamed too.