Watch The Trailer And Read My Take On Summer Shark Thriller ‘The Shallows’

I am an avid lover of Blake Lively: the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, Gossip Girl, you name it, I've seen it. Once, at a party where I did not know anyone, I introduced myself as Serena van der Woodsen and my friend Amanda said she was Blair Waldorf just to see if anyone else would recognize the names (both are main character's in Gossip Girl... and for the record they called me Serena all night)!

Anyhow, The Shallows a PG-13 film, was newly released on June 24th, running about an hour and a half long starring.. you guessed it: Blake Lively! Classified as a drama/thriller, this movie features only 13 cast members actually seen in the film, including Lively herself and a special seagull named Sully.

The plot of the film itself involves main character, Nancy Adams (played by Lively), traveling to a secluded 'secret' beach to spend some time alone after the loss of her mother. Nancy is also a medical student, which comes into play later on in the movie. I don't want to spoil anything, but I think it's pretty clear that a great white shark attacks and Nancy is left stranded some 200 yards from shore and left to fight for her survival.

Overall, I would rate this movie about a 7 out of 10. The reason being, I felt the shark lacked a bit of realism, which seemed to take away from the thrill just a smidgen, as seeing a shark that looked a little fake brought me back to reality.

However, Lively's performance seemed genuine and strong, as the movie was mostly a one woman performance. Similar to other movies of its kind, there is a lot of waiting around and action-less points throughout as viewers wait in suspense. Toward the end, Nancy delivers a heart wrenching message to her father and sister, which brings the movie to a tear jerking state just before all the action commences. This twist in emotion helps develop the movie a little more after such long pauses in action - which are necessary to show the passing of time.

Overall, I would have to say it was worth the ticket - a great summer shark movie and I loved that it was starring a woman fighting for survival versus a damsel in distress, but it was not one of my favorite movies. If it were redone as an R rated film I could see more potential, meanwhile for PG-13, well done.

Popular movie rating site Rotten Tomatoes rated the movie a 6.5 out of 10 giving a critic consensus of: "Lean and solidly crafted, The Shallows transcends tired shark-attack tropes with nasty thrills and a powerful performance from Blake Lively."

Watch the trailer below!