“The Shallows” Sticks All Too Close to the Surface

Sorry to say that “The Shallows” has made itself too easy a target with its title: it stays all too close to the surface of its story, a young woman’s pure physical struggle to survive while confronting a shark at an isolated beach. Since the young woman, Nancy Adams, is played by a star, Blake Lively, it seems a foregone conclusion that she’ll survive the ordeal, and the only question is how—or, rather, what credibility-straining heroics and cinematic shock effects the director, Jaume Collet-Serra, will cram into the story of her survival.