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The Shallows | 2016 | PG-13 | - 2.7.5
While surfing alone in Mexican waters and after a shark wounds her, a woman (Blake Lively) is stranded on a rock not far from an isolated beach. She plots an innovative escape from the circling shark, anxious to find a way to cover the 200 yards between her and safety. Also with Oscar Jaenada, Brett Cullen and Sedona Legge. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. [1:27]
SEX/NUDITY 2 - A woman wears a skimpy bikini that shows significant cleavage, abdomen and partial buttocks. A woman wears cut-off short-shorts and a lace top over a bikini and removes the outerwear in close-up to reveal significant cleavage, abdomen and partial buttocks. Two men are shirtless in one scene. Several photographs show a woman wearing a bikini top and a long sarong that shows some cleavage and abdomen.
► A woman is said to have visited "Pregnant Woman's Island." A woman texts another woman that she is going to meet a cute guy for a date.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A man on a beach laughs and waves to a woman on a rock in the water who is calling for help, he steals her backpack from the beach, drops it and swims to a surfboard; we hear the man screaming and the sounds of loud splashing off-screen until we see the man pulling himself from the water (we see that his body is missing below the bloody waistline and some sea water is red).
► Two men enter a bay with surfboards and a large shark breaches and grabs one man by the torso, pulling him under as the other man swims away, but something pulls him under the surface of the water, which turns red; he surfaces near a rock and a woman sitting there tries to pull him out, but a shark pulls him under and air bubbles stop abruptly. A woman falls in shallow water, hits the bottom hard and surfaces; a shark pulls her under and the water goes red (we see blood on her thigh, back of the knee, and lower leg) as she screams and climbs onto a dead whale, gasping (we also hear her scream underwater). A woman is pursued by a shark and swims under water among stinging jelly fish, screaming as tentacles wrap around her bare arm; the shark swims through the jellyfish, slamming them out of the way. A woman steps on fire coral in shallow water twice, screaming in pain.
► A wounded woman jumps into water, loosens a chain from a buoy as a shark pursues her and she dives and swerves away just before reaching spikes from the top of the buoy, now sticking out of the sea floor and the shark slams into the spikes.
► A woman with a V-shaped shark bite on the thigh closes part of the wound with sharp earrings and a long, sharp pendant, screaming and shuddering as we see the sharp points go in and out of the skin; she rips a sleeve from a rubber jacket and places it as a compression bandage and she shrieks in pain as she gets the rubber into place. After two days without drinking water and no shade, a woman's lower leg is purple and the toes are swollen and she says that gangrene is setting in; her lower leg and foot and her arm are deep red from fire coral and jellyfish stings, her shoulders and hands are scraped, she is sunburned on the face and shoulders, and her lips are cracked and dry; we see from her perspective that everything looks blurry as she says that she is losing strength.
► A shark fin circles a dead whale where a wounded surfer sits several times and an aerial view shows the long body of the shark. A shark fin extends above the water, going around a rock where a wounded surfer sits every 32 seconds, as she times it. A young boy finds helmet-cam video footage of a man drowning after a shark appears and later sees a woman in the footage with an SOS message (the boy runs for help). A close-up of video footage from a helmet-cam shows a large hook through a shark's cheek and mouth.
► A woman alone in a bay swims to a large buoy, chased by a shark that chews on the base of the buoy several times, knocks the buoy around, and bites the top off; the shark slams into the buoy several times, shaking the woman and causing her bandaged leg to bleed as the woman breaks open a metal box, finds a flare gun, and fires two flares at a passing freighter, but both flares fizzle as she cries and whispers, "Come back, come back, come back." A wounded woman fires a flare into the water and spilled fuel from an emergency container on a buoy ignites the water and a shark; the shark's fire goes out as it swims underwater.
► A wounded woman climbs into the center of a buoy which is a type of cage (the side of her face is bloody from a scratch). A woman swims to a rock and sits, where her cut thigh bleeds into the water several times, turning the water red and she screams when salt water splashes on the cut; blood splashes onto the wing of a seagull on the rock. A wounded woman takes a band from her ankle and places it around her upper thigh as a tourniquet as she screams toward a beach for help, but a man on the beach drives away.
► A man runs along a beach and finds a woman floating in the bay; he pulls her out and a close-up shows the woman coughing up water and opening her eyes as she sees a vision of her deceased mother smiling down at her; she tells the vision, "I love you."
► A woman picks up a seagull and tells it that its wing is dislocated; she pulls on the bones quickly and we hear some snapping and the wing looks fine and the bird snaps his beak around her finger several times after a quick screech of pain (the bird is later able to fly away). A close-up of a woman's bare thigh at a beach shows a large, indented V-shaped scar extending about a foot down the thigh and crossing above the knee to the back of the leg. A photo shows a woman wearing a hospital gown, an IV needle in her hand, and we hear that she died. A dead whale floats in a bay, a large chunk of flesh missing from a red hole and a long gash down one bloody side; seagulls peck at the open white and red flesh. A shark becomes stuck in a clump of sea coral near a woman swimmer, breaks it apart and swims away. A woman on a rock feels small sea crabs crawling on her, yelps, and brushes them off. A man and a woman each fall off surfboards a couple of times.
► After several tries, a wounded woman sitting on a rock retrieves a helmet cam and records an SOS and goodbye message, then tosses the helmet into the water to hopefully land on the beach. A woman and her father argue over Skype briefly. A man tells a woman that fire coral stings like jellyfish. Ominous music precedes a dolphin jumping over a woman and her surfboard.
► A woman eats a sea crab then vomits it into the sea with yellow and white vomit.
LANGUAGE 5 - At least 1 F-word, 2 scatological terms, 2 anatomical terms, name-calling (little girl, insane, bossy, gringos), exclamations (shut-up), 2 religious exclamations (Oh My God, God).
SUBSTANCE USE - An empty bottle of alcohol is seen beside a sleeping man on a beach and when he awakens he stumbles and swerves, and a woman says that her friend called off a surfing session because of the "Irish flu" (implying a hangover).
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Traveling alone in a foreign country, surfing, water safety, danger, shark attacks, courage, intelligence, survival, helping others, accidents, death, loss, regret, family.
MESSAGE - Take proper precautions in isolated surfing areas and foreign countries.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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