No shark-attack movie has gotten what made Jaws the classic it is, and that misconception is perfectly understandable. It was not the predatory stalking and eventual violent mastication of human flesh and muscle; it was the people of Amity, their fear and hysterical reaction to the terror of a potential shark attack that fueled its existence for 40-plus years. 

Still, were The Shallows a fifth addition to the king of all shark franchises, it would be better than Jaws 3 and Jaws: The Revenge, both of which are awful, awful movies. Blake Lively stars as Nancy, a med student surfing a remote Mexican beach which doubles as the feeding ground for a massive great white in this big-screen expansion to Shark Week.

Though its impact on pop culture is bound to be short-lived, The Shallows should not disappoint viewers hungry solely for an effective man-versus-shark thriller. A deeper dive into Nancy’s backstory might have made The Shallows more compelling and less shallow (see what I did there?), but frankly, it would have lessened the impact of the attack. What The Shallows really needed was to ditch the PG-13 and let the blood really flow.