Unemployed and hitting the bottle hard Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is struggling in her relationship with Tim (Dan Stevens) who find it increasingly difficult to tolerate her out of control lifestyle, so when he breaks up the relationship Gloria has no choice but to return to her home town which is a far cry from the New York City lifestyle she has become used to.

A chance encounter with her old friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis) seems to be a lifeline as he is more than welcoming towards her and helps her get back on her feet, even offering her a job at the bar he runs, not exactly the kind of environment for a girl trying to give up a party lifestyle but she embraces the moment and soon becomes welcomed as part of the group of barflies who frequent Oscar’s establishment. One night after another heavy session Gloria wakes up to the news that a giant kaiju has appeared in Seoul, after a couple of repeat drinking sessions and kaiju re-appearances Gloria begins to realise that she may just have some form of link with this giant monster, so after some further testing of her theory she realises that the kaiju will appear at certain times during the day and mimics her actions precisely as long as she is located in a certain point in town.

 

If this sounds a little bizarre, I can’t argue with your statement, but what director Nacho Vigalondo has created is a clever story which investigates the bizarreness without every taking the plot too much into the farcical field. Both Hathaway & Sudeikis play off each other superbly, making a believable friendship which gives the situation a realistic feel of two people just trying to make the most of what life has thrown them, who are cast into the middle of this zany situation.

 

Despite all the comedy and laughs the movie does not back away from dealing with the darker issues at hand with alcoholism, self loathing, relationship control or external cries for help all featuring heavily and what looks like it could be a straight up comedy injects some real moments where we question which is the real monster and whether the kaiju is just a large scale projection of Gloria, albeit on the other side of the world, who has the potential to wreak havoc with one wrong step.

There are issues with the balance of the film and some of the character changes are stretched to the limits, but it’s all brought together nicely when the movie finally does come full circle. Although the last fifteen minutes were a little too far fetched for me, I was pleasantly surprised just how entertained I was overall. This is definitely going to be one of the most unique films you’ll see this year.

DJ Speaks Movies Rating: 6 Out Of 10

©Darren Jones 2017

Take ideas from some of the best moments in the Alien franchise movies to date, link them into a storyline and allow Ridley Scott to take the helm. Sounds like a guaranteed winner? Not quite.

Set in 2104, the period between the Prometheus and Alien movies, we join the colony ship The Covenant, on its way with 2000 colonisers and 1000 embryos, to start a populous on the planet Origae-6. But, as always, the cosmos is an unpredictable place and after the ship is hit by a Solar Flare the crew is awakened to avoid a catastrophe. Although averting total disaster they are left in a quandary with regard to the condition of the ship and the risk to the success of the mission, so when they happen across an unusual signal emitting from a nearby planet they decide to investigate, the rest, if you know anything about the franchise, is inevitable.

It’s a bit disappointing when the best things about a movie with this budget and expectation levels are the great visuals and excellent score, both of which are marvellous. Although it is aided by the technological leaps made over the years the movie looks beautiful, with some great camera work especially in using lighting changes at just the right moment to change the tone of a scene, coupled with Jed Kurzel using elements of the original Jerry Goldsmith score to build tension at just the right times. These two features, working in tandem really gave the movie something extra. Not that these aspects of a film are not important or deserving of praise in any movie but they should work with the rest of the ingredients to enhance the experience rather than dominate it, as they did at times. Maybe the problem is that we have become too de-sensitised by modern movies, but this just never seemed to lift itself into the realms of being a great film. There were claustrophobic moments. but not enough of them, there were decent action sequences, but too few of those and there was some good sci-fi aspects but nothing new or exciting and these were the key threads in the success of the franchise to date so diluting them and playing mixologist to try and concoct a winning combination was ambitious, but a step too far.

Still rooted with the themes that have run through all the movies in the franchise, mistrust, aspects of faith, God complex, religion vs science and God vs Satan, but it felt more like the man battling science tale featured in Prometheus rather than the desperation tinged, man against monster battles of the originals.

Adding to the disappointment was the fact that the characters weren’t given enough depth in terms of dialogue or plot events to make them appealing, so they merely served as cannon fodder for the most part and this left nobody that you really wanted to root for. It’s hard to get invested in a film where you are so apathetic towards the main players. Credit where credit is due though and Michael Fassbender was excellent reprising his role as the crew android plus Danny McBride was a surprise for me, playing it straight for a change, standing out from the pack and being the one crew member you might just have got behind if he’d been given a bit more impact.

If you’re a fan of the series then there are plenty of nods and winks to the earlier movies that will catch your eye but this also causes the movie to feel like it’s a bit of a re-hash of things seen in the series before without being done as well and, with a small number of exceptions, there’s nothing surprising in terms of the plot. It’s still an enjoyable watch, of a similar entertainment level as Prometheus, but still miles short of the levels of two classics that have set the bar so high. So, it’s yet another case of a potential summer blockbuster going by the wayside in terms of quality vs expectation and I hope this doesn’t start a trend for the coming months.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 Out Of 10

©Darren Jones 2017

Set as prequel to the awful 2014 movie, Origin Of Evil is another in the growing number of possession tales which seem to be littering the horror genre. This is not a bad thing if done well but, as we seen to our detriment in the original film, if done poorly it all ends up as a mess of jump scares and generally bad acting. Where does this one sit? Probably somewhere in the middle but let me break it down.

Set in 1967 we meet the struggling Zander family who are still coping with the loss of their patriarch and with financial issues growing ever more desperate the mother, Alice (Elizabeth Reaser) decides to enhance the spiritualist con they have set up by adding a Ouija board to the proceedings. However unbeknownst to her this prop has a far bigger impact on the scam than expected as youngest daughter Doris (Lulu Wilson) immediately seems to have a connection with the board and can communicate with the spirits with ease and leads to an increase in business as word spreads about how ‘real’ their sessions are. When Doris claims that she can speak with her dead father Alice is wholly behind the girls claims as she can seemingly answer personal questions correctly. Eldest daughter Paulina (Annalise Basso) is not so sure as she sees a dramatic change in her sister that her mother is blind to. Once she approaches a priest, Tom Hogan (Henry Thomas) for help it becomes apparent that there a lot more going on that initially realised. As the battle to save Doris escalates so does the danger to the family and anyone else who threatens to get in the way of the malevolent spirit.

Although this is essentially a subtle advertisement for the Hasbro owned Ouija board it is not a terrible movie with director Mike Flanagan, who also brought us the underrated Hush earlier this year, doing a good job of keeping the intrigue levels high. The retro feel of the movie is captured excellently and for a tale which has been done so many times before there is enough originality and surprise to keep you on your toes. The set up and purpose for the actions of those involved feel genuine and the clever use of the innocence of the daughter being juxtaposed with her transformation as the evil takes over is a nice touch, even if it is a little akin to what happened to Regan in The Exorcist. There are no loud bursts of music accompanying the jump scares which was refreshing and made them much more effective as there was a sinister feel to them given the subtler approach and there are some very clever dialogue scenes.

Lulu Wilson does a great job as the possessed girl, her facial expressions spoke volumes and her smile was both beaming and sarcastic at the same time. There was also a superb scene with Paulinas’ boyfriend Mikey (Parker Mack) which will give you the shivers in how such a calm speech can have so much threatening context. The rest of the cast played their parts well, even if they were playing second fiddle to Doris, but the performances were strong enough that you still feel interested in the characters by the time things begin to take a turn for the worse. The exception would be Henry Thomas as Tom Hogan. It’s not the actors fault, as his whole plot line felt tacked on and the relationship between him and Alice just did not play out well. Although he has a great scene towards the end the use of a priest character just didn’t sit well with me alongside the rest of the movies content.

The movie itself is not without its issues either. It’s a very slow build up with an excellent middle piece let down by a weak ending so you need to stay with the movie as it builds up the tension and back story before the best parts of the film kick in and that may put some people off. The ending is probably the most disappointing of all as it felt cheap in comparison to the rest of the film and became very clichéd in contrast to some of the more surprising turns the movie took earlier on. Also, having seen the first film I knew where they were going as soon as it took the first step along that path and that ruined the last third of the film for me.

Overall it’s a better than average attempt to kick start life into, what I can only assume will be a series of films around this tale and it has managed to keep an air of respectability to this years resurgence of sorts in the horror genre but its more creepy that scary and is saved by the performance of young actress who, if this performance is anything to go by, could have a big future.

DJ Speaks Movies Rating: 6 Out Of 10

©Darren Jones 2016

Mel Gibson is John Link, a washed up ex-con and recovering alcoholic who grinds out a meagre existence as a tattoo artist living in a trailer across from his sponsor Kirby (William H.Macy). Link is a hardened but broken man who still keeps the missing poster of his daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty) in his trailer and has her face tattooed on his body.

When he receives a call out of the blue from Lydia who has put herself in the line of fire of some drug barons he grasps at this chink of light in his otherwise bleak life and when he sees echoes of himself plus traits of similar error making in the person his daughter has become have finds purpose in ensuring that she does not follow his chosen path. After an encounter with some henchmen and an assassin they need to go on the run which begins a very dangerous road trip which becomes a bonding session or sorts until his daughter is kidnapped and Link becomes a one man avenging angel who will stop at nothing to save his daughter and find some redemption for his past errors.

With Peter Craig, who wrote the book working on the screenplay and as a co-producer it was always going to be a reasonably faithful adaptation and director Jean Francois Richer, who brought us the entertaining remake of Assault on Precinct 13 and the classic French film Mesrine, has managed to create a low budget, Grindhouse feel to the film without making it look cheap in terms of the  stunts or effects so the simplicity in tone suits the premise of the film. Gibson isn’t some super hero with a huge arsenal of guns hidden away, he’s a man with nothing to lose who is given a final chance to make a difference and atone for his errors in life and must rely on his street smarts and some favours from old criminal contacts to survive.

While the story line may feel familiar, and it is, with many echoes of Taken in particular, it also felt like a confessional for Gibson, echoing his apologies for his off screen antics with a performance full of guilt and regret yet searching for redemption. Grizzled, haggard yet looking bulked up, his performance has some great moments of classic Gibson performances. He is this movie, everything else is secondary and when he is not on screen the film slips back into mediocrity but to see him threaten somebody and look like he means it, then switch to a man full of compassion when dealing with his daughter is an art and it felt like the actor we all knew is still there, which was great to see.

The movie does suffer from the fact that, Gibson aside, the characters in the movie weren’t given much to shine with. Even Moriarty who has the biggest character arc plays second fiddle and when the movie is not focused on Gibson it suffers a lot of drag and even luminaries of the screen like Macy and Parks can’t help liven it up despite their best efforts.

If you want to see a, been there, seen it and have worn the t-shirt action revenge movie then this will keep you entertained. If you want something deep and thought provoking then leave it be but I can highly recommend that you watch this movie for one reason only, the return of the Mel Gibson we love as this could so easily have been a throw away film without his charisma and presence elevating it to another level.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 Out Of 10

©2016 Darren Jones

Agent Robert Mazur (Bryan Cranston) is an expert in undercover work and, despite being offered retirement he takes on another job chasing a drug cartel who are money laundering their cash through the US banking system but instead of taking the usual approach of chasing the drugs Mazur tries chasing the money to get to the big fish and finds much more success which brings about the birth of Bob Musella, an alias he uses to gain access to their world. Running with the cartel brings it’s own pressures however and when the job begins to leave his family in the line of danger the stakes are raised and Mazur is torn between his personal and professional lives as they begin to merge into one.

We see very early that Mazur is a man that will go the extra mile to complete his mission but we also see that he is a family man who quite obviously loves his wife Evelyn (Juliet Aubrey) and kids so much so that when he is undercover he refuses to be unfaithful or participate in the taking of narcotics even though it potentially hampers the strengthening of his undercover persona. When he is partnered with Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo) who is much more of a seat of your pants guy against Mazurs’ methodical approach it looks like the two will be unable to work together plus, when his principals force him to pretend he has a fiancée it requires a third party in the form of Kathy Ertz (Diane Kruger) as his soon to be wife complicating things further but between the three of them they manage to worm their way into the Medellin cartel and when they show that they can be of use they are introduced to higher level members,  eventually managing to build up a relationship with Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt) a lieutenant of Pablo Escobar.

Whenever I see a movie in this genre, especially about undercover work, I find it very difficult to remove it from the classics such as Donnie Brasco or The Departed so there tends to be a high bar set and it is no different here. It’s a good film but it’s not a classic because we’ve seen it all before and it has been done better. It’s not that there are not some good tense scenes, there are moments when their lives are on the line and there are situations where one wrong word will bring their façade falling down, throw in the fact that Javier Ospina (Yul Vazquez) never warms to Mazur so with his instable personality coupled with his mistrust leave their meetings on a knife edge but the sense of danger never really comes across on screen in the way I expected it should given the situation.

The saving grace for the movie comes in the form of the performance of the three agents, Kruger is excellent as the rookie field operative who takes to the role like a fish to water, Leguizamo gives arguably, his best screen performance as Abreu and while it is not his best role, Cranston solidifies his position in the top echelon of the industry with a great lead performance. Watch out for the restaurant scene where he is having dinner with his wife which was the best couple of minutes in the whole movie for me.

Also keep your eyes peeled for two interesting performances in small roles with both Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, who you will remember as Nidge from Love /Hate and appearing as Mazurs work colleague Steve Cook and Joe Gilgun, who played Woody in This Is England, as Mazurs go to man for inside knowledge, Dominic. It was good to see two really good actors from this side of the water appear in a big Hollywood film.

If you like crime dramas then you will enjoy it but despite the ‘based of a true story’ links and the seriousness of the situation, the lack of palpable tension and suspense leave you feeling a bit empty upon the conclusion of the movie.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 Out Of 10

Miles Teller is David Packouz who scrapes a living out as a masseuse in Miami where he resides with his girlfriend Iz (Ana De Armas) but he is tired living on the bread line so in an attempt to break out of the slump he decides to invest his life savings in bed sheets but when this venture fails miserably and he finds out that Iz is pregnant David is desperate to find an additional means of income. When at a funeral he bumps into his old high school friend Efraim Diveroli (Johan Hill) who has set up his own company, AEY, which acts as a middle man in the selling of arms to the US Government. While initially sceptical David quickly realises just how much earning potential there is so he agrees to work for Efraim, all the while pretending to his girlfriend that he is still selling sheets.

As the business grows both David and Efraim get deeper and deeper into the business leading to them making even more money which in turns allows them to bid for more profitable contracts and even expanding the business to take on staff. When a deal arrives to supply arms to the Afghan military, which is worth hundreds of millions they decided that this is the big one but such a big contract is proving too much for the guys so after an encounter with legendary arms dealer Henry Girard (Bradley Cooper) they decide to utilise his experience to locate a hundred million rounds of AK47 ammunition in Albania which in turn allows them to place their bid although their naivety leads to them massively underbidding. When thing start to go wrong the guys find themselves getting deeper into the mire trying desperately to find solutions but when the FBI start to poke their nose into the business their house of cards begins to crumble and things take a nasty turn.

All through this movie I kept things just how like a cut price Scorsese movie this was with many similarities to both Goodfellas and The Wolf Of Wall Street, the protagonists are bad guys, there’s drug taking which gets out of control, the unpredictable character calling the shots, the excellent use of music to enhance scenes and the freeze frame with voice over moments. I’m not saying it is anywhere near that class but it certainly suited the tale and subject matter. The difference here is that I felt no sympathy for Teller, not because of his acting which was good but because he came across as spineless and easily led. Always being manipulated by Hill and most of the time knowing exactly what was going on but rarely doing anything about it even when his relationship with Armas, who acts as the moral compass in the movie but is still more than happy with her new lavish lifestyle, is straining because of his constant lies. He’s sold as this good guy at heart but didn’t come across that way from his actions. Hill was excellent as Diveroli, a loose cannon who will do whatever it takes for the cash and watch out for his laugh which itself both hilarious and evil depending on the context of its use.

There’s a certain ironic feel to the contents this film no more so that very early where the real life David Packouz is sitting in an old folk home singing Don’t Fear The Reaper on acoustic guitar. Director Todd Phillips who also brought us the Hangover movies does a decent job of keeping the tension and action moving and keeps us intrigued, however the movies characters are very unbalanced which causes some tonal issues. The chemistry between Hill and Teller is excellent and gives us most of the best moments even when the story is in its slower pieces. Although having a pivotal role in the second part of the movie Cooper has very little screen time although it was nice to see him play the unemotional big shot, despite the off putting enlarging of his eyes through his glasses giving him a slightly comical feel and when on screen you hung on his word as his lack of facial expressions left you in no doubt that this was a man you didn’t cross.

In the end the movie tries to be too clever for it’s own good and it gets lost in not knowing if it’s a buddy caper movie, a crime drama about gun smuggling or a tale of a man who’s life spirals out of control and he is forced along on a ride he is unequipped to deal with. If you leave the analysis aside it’s a good comedy drama elevated by another excellent performance by Hill.

Amy Mitchell (Mila Kunis) is an everyday working mother who struggles to balance her part time job as a sales rep for a new age coffee company, where she is the oldest employee, with the demands of her children’s lives in school runs, homework issues, extra curricular activities and the all important PTA meetings. When she catches her husband Mike (David Walton) with another woman via Web Cam she throws him out which only adds to her workload and after one particularly bad day when she attends an emergency PTA meeting which turns out to be about the upcoming bake sale she loses it completely, decides that she has had enough, speaks up against the head of the association Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate) and quits.

As she is having a drink at a nearby bar she recognises Carla (Kathryn Hahn), another mother from the school and they are also joined by Kiki (Kristen Bell) who was impressed with the way Amy stood up for herself. The three woman end up getting extremely drunk and decide that instead of being the mothers they are expected to be they are going to be moms that do what they want to do and enjoy life.

Directors Scott Moore and Jon Lucas, who also brought us the Hangover, do a good job in taking the mix of the everyday expectations of life and mixing them with the inevitable boozy parties we always see in movies of this genre without ever fully taking the film either way which breaks the movie up well. The acting is spot on with Applegate superb as the all seeing head of the PTA who runs the school as she pleases and is feared by all. Kunis and Bell are great as the frustrated mothers but they are all outshone by Hahn as the sex mad, alcoholic Carla. She absolutely steals the show and had me in stitches with her antics with a role that reminded me of her character of Alice Huff in Step Brothers.

Despite all the humour and bad behaviour there is some good character development and social commentary hidden behind the mania and it is a testament to the skill of all involved that the friendship and the bitchiness felt real and it felt like all the cast really developed a chemistry as felt like everybody was having fun. Although it runs out a steam a little in the final third the film still never felt like it dragged even if it took the obvious route in the end when it would have been nice to see something unpredictable given the nature of the rest of the movie.

Better than both of the other female driven comedies I have recently watched (Bad Neighbours 2 and Ghostbusters), Bad Moms is well worth checking out if you’re a comedy fan and watch out for the scene with the marriage guidance counsellor which, while short, is hilarious thanks to the reactions of Wanda Sykes as Amy and Mike verbally tear into each other in gradually increasing volume.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 Out Of 10

Fifteen years after the evens in The Office David Brent (Ricky Gervais) is an office rep working for a company called Lavichem. He is still chasing his dream of breaking into the music industry mainstream and is using his pension money to fund a tour with his band Forgone Conclusion, which is made up of session players and his friend and rapper Dom Johnson (Ben Bailey Smith) and this movie is a documentary style look at the events surrounding the tour.

For those of you who don’t know the character, Brent is a guy who speaks before he thinks, wants to be the center of attention and loved by all so he will say anything he thinks will gain favour with people. This often leads to embarrassing situations for him and others who happen to be nearby as his fabrications are so obvious to all and while he seems to have issues with ethnic minorities, equal equality for women and the disabled he tries desperately to mask this fact by trying so hard to be politically correct that he ends up showing his true colours and ignorance on most occasions in the most mortifying of ways.

Needless to say this whole movie is a jump from one awful situation to another as he throw money at one thing after another trying to find a way to get himself noticed all the while leaving the members of his band exasperated as one cringe worthy moment leads to further disaster and he is slowly dragging them with himself into the annuls of obscurity.

Despite all this there is something that Gervais brings to the character that makes him redeemable in a way that almost forces you take pity on the desperation of the character and, without spoiling any of the humerous moments in the movie, there are scenes around his counselling sessions and a battle with depression, an office going away party he is expecting, his attempts to get a tattoo to give him more street credibility and his lyrical penmanship being challenged for using Wikipedia which are all hilarious scenes but add to the pity you cannot help but feel for the guy.

I was reminded a little of This Is Spinal Tap on occasions, which is not a bad thing and there were a few moments where I found myself laughing uncontrollably at his demise but then again I have always liked watching Brent, and his terrible people skills, in action. All in all the movie had a feel of an overlong Xmas special, especially with the ending so I reckon it could have started that way and then was altered to try and give Jervais a hit on the big screen as the film would have worked just as well over two parts as a TV show. If you are a fan of Gervais and liked The Office then you will laugh your way through the situations that arise but Gervais can be an acquired taste, so like Marmite you will either love it or hate it.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 Out Of 10

A remake of the Disney animated feature Pete’s Dragon switches to the mix of live action and CGI which worked so well in their earlier attempt from this year, The Jungle Book. Kicking off in 1977 (a nod to the year of the release of the original movie) Pete is on a road trip with his parents when a car accident leaves him orphaned and at the mercy of wolves but at the last moment he is rescued by a huge hairy (not scaly) dragon who he names Elliot after a character in his favourite book. They are shown happily living in a vast area of forest which has not been encroached upon but modernisation is catching up on them and some local logging is beginning to reach the areas of their habitat.

When a young girl Natalie (Oona Laurence) is accompanying her father Jack (Wes Bentley), owner of the lumber mill, to the work site she spots Pete (Oakes Fegley) and follows him into the forest. When her father and mother Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), a park ranger, come looking for Natalie they find Pete and take him back to town. At this stage Elliott has realised that he cannot find his friend, while searching for him he is spotted by Gavin (Karl Urban) a hunter who is also Jack’s brother and works for him, and he rounds up a posse to catch the legendary Millhaven dragon.

As they find out more about Pete they begin to realise that Graces father (Robert Redford) who’s stories about the time he spotted the dragon when he was younger look like they may not have been as fabricated as everybody thought so they set off into the forest with Pete to find his friend but it becomes a race against time as Gavin is also on the look out for the dragon with a very different agenda.

While watching this movie I began to notice that that there was something different in this movie when compared to recent Disney efforts and for a while I couldn’t work it out. The CGI was good but still a far cry from the aforementioned Jungle Book, the acting was decent with Howard doing a good job as the sympathetic mother like figure and it was great to see Redford still light up the screen when he appeared, showing that you cannot replace pure charisma and even at almost eighty years of age it still shines through. Urban and Bentley were wasted however as their characters never had any real chance to develop and the kids, Laurence and Fegley ware okay given what they had to do. Then I finally realised that what I was watching was a Disney movie of my younger years. The movie didn’t fill the time with exposition and a few moments of Redford narrative told us all we needed to know. There was no attempt to use comedy in the script to get some cheap laughs. The villains of the piece are not evil, they are just guys who don’t understand the situation and go about their ways with an almost comic ineptitude and the star of the film was, as it should be, the dragon.

So as much as this could have been a tale about a young boy who is rescued from a life in the forest and finds a family or of a town who are shown the error of their ways after their initial response to capture the ‘monster’ but instead it was a tale of a dragon who has become separated from it’s family, who befriends a child in the same situation and who learns that while humans may still be a danger, not all people are and is shown how important family is by his friend. Thrown in was a little nod to the consequences of deforestation and the down side to the instinct of the caveman hunter which is still embedded in our DNA. Most of all what this movie had, which has been lacking in a lot of recent kids film is heart and that is what the Disney films of my youth always had. On the downside I will say that a little more of the relationship between Pete and Elliot in the forest and less on the dragon hunt side would have been nice but I walked out having enjoyed it more than most of the other movies I have seen this summer. Unfortunately this film seems to have been swept aside in the melee of the recent bid budget filmaand that is a shame because there is a feel good factor to this story which is missing from a lot of this years releases.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 Out Of 10

Blake Lively is Nancy Adams, who is on holiday in Mexico, taking a sabbatical from her studies in medical school after her mother has passed away following a battle with cancer, in order to track down a secluded beach which was her mothers favourite spot. When her friend bails on a day on the water with her she decides to continue with her plan regardless and heads out for a day enjoying the waves.

All starts well as she meets up with some locals who give her a few tips about the dangers under the water such as coral and rocks but what none of them realise is that a far greater danger is nearby in a huge great white shark which has claimed the area as a feeding zone. When she is chasing one last wave before calling it a day she comes across a whale which has been attacked and realises that the waters may not be safe. As she is making her way back to the shore she is attacked by the shark and barely manages to haul herself onto a rock which has appeared as the water approaches low tide. Badly injured and seemingly without any means of escape she must use all of her survival instincts in order to win the battle of man (or in this case woman) versus nature.

The first thirty minutes or so of this film felt like it dragged a little, although it was needed to give some background and exposition via phone conversations with her sister Chloe (Sedona Legge) and father (Brett Cullen), photographs of her mother and a section of surfing which threw me back to the original Point Break movie, I wanted to see a shark and I was waiting to see a fin or some ominous underwater presence. I will say that once the shark does appear however it is worth the wait as it looks spectacular. The movie then kicks into it’s main event and for an hour or so we are treated to a good, tense and dramatic film. Lively does a good job of making the situation and most of her actions believable however there are a few moments which go a little too deep into asking me to suspend my belief, for instance there is a part where Lively does a bit of self surgery with what I termed her Swiss Army necklace which, while graphic and with the desire impact to make your toes curl, and while doing a good job of showing just how tenacious Lively is, felt a bit over the top to be realistic and there were a few moments of co-incidencal events that just felt included to move the story along.

All in all for a movie which is for the most part, in essence, about a woman trying to escape from a rock, with next to no interaction with any other actors and only the shark and Stephen Seagull for company (you’ll see what I mean) it done a very good job of keeping you watching and engrossed. There are a few heart in your mouth moments so the sense of the danger and peril was always there and Lively held the screen very well with her performance.

While it is obviously going to be compared with Jaws and there are a lot of nods to that movie, it was going to be a tall order to live up to the standard of one of the greatest films of all time so take it on it’s own merits, enjoy a survival tale where director Jaume Collet-Serra has done a does a good job of keeping you on the edge of your seat despite the very basic premise. The movie does have a few nice surprises as you expect one event but it doesn’t quite occur like that as the shark does something different which was a nice twist.

Forget this being sold as a horror movie and take it for a good action film which, as most good action movies do, expects a certain element of leaving your analysis on hold and just going along for the ride. If you can do that then there’s a good film in store for you although I recommend you catch this one on the big screen as I feel that some of the drama may be  lost in the transfer to the smaller screen.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 out Of 10