Name : Richard Roeper a.k.a Chicago Sun-Times
The Shallows is a great-looking film, peppered with overhead long shots of the amazingly clear water, and some terrific underwater photography as well.

Name : Brad Wheeler a.k.a Globe and Mail
School's out, schlock's in - no lessons here.

Name : Glenn Kenny a.k.a New York Times
[Lively] acquits herself well here, especially in the vulnerable-to-shark-attack department.

Name : Liz Braun a.k.a Toronto Sun
The Shallows is brisk and engaging, and a great vehicle for Lively. The film has the sort of breathtaking cinematography that will inspire you to visit the ocean. And a story that may stop you from ever going into the water again.

Name : Alonso Duralde a.k.a TheWrap
It's not going to make anyone forget Jaws, but it delivers the kind of breathless tension that justifies its existence.

Name : Andrea Gronvall a.k.a Chicago Reader
This is silly stuff but often genuinely scary, with excellent aerial and undersea photography and some persuasive special effects.

Name : Peter Debruge a.k.a Variety
Lively may have been cast primarily for her physique, but she proves a compelling heroine all the same.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky a.k.a AV Club
A fitfully entertaining mix of offscreen gore and Maxim-esque T&A.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz a.k.a Arizona Republic
We're gonna need a bigger boat?" "We're gonna need a smaller bikini," more like.

Name : Tom Russo a.k.a Boston Globe
Yes, there's shameless bikini ogling, but what could have been throwaway exploitation is instead a frequently gripping portrait of dire-straits resourcefulness.

Name : Edward Douglas a.k.a New York Daily News
The Shallows isn't bad as much-needed escapist summer fun

Name : Rafer Guzman a.k.a Newsday
A snack-size thriller that isn't quite enough to satisfy.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan a.k.a Washington Post
Is "The Shallows" a thriller for the ages? No, but it's decent popcorn fare.

Name : Matthew Lickona a.k.a San Diego Reader
The progression from personal drama to surf film to (wo)man vs. nature story to full-on creature feature is smooth, even expert, and always managed with handsome panache.

Name : Stephen Whitty a.k.a Newark Star-Ledger
Lively can act, and she does a good job with a very difficult role here - holding our interest and sympathy for a feature-length movie with no one to talk to for most of it.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf a.k.a Time Out
You're gonna need a bigger Blake (and you're going to get one) in Lively's enjoyably trashy shark-survival movie, the definition of summer fun.

Name : Adam Graham a.k.a Detroit News
For what it is, "The Shallows" works.

Name : Chris Klimek a.k.a NPR
The Shallows is a thoroughly mediocre specimen of the externalized-grief survival flick, distinguished by a strong performance from Gossip Girl alumnus Lively.

Name : Chris Nashawaty a.k.a Entertainment Weekly
Clocking in at a svelte 87 minutes, the film knows its audience and the limits of that audience's patience with fare like this.

Name : Michael Phillips a.k.a Chicago Tribune
If the amount of surfing/suffering/staring-at-dark-skies footage rendered in slow motion were depicted at normal speed, "The Shallows" would run about a minute and a half.

Name : James Berardinelli a.k.a ReelViews
The Shallows is almost a good movie.

Name : Kyle Smith a.k.a New York Post
The girl kept talking and strategizing as heavy string music played on the soundtrack.

Name : Peter Howell a.k.a Toronto Star
The Shallows pushes the buttons it's supposed to push for a summerthriller, even if the outcome is as deflating as it dumb.

Name : Peter Hartlaub a.k.a San Francisco Chronicle
The most important parts, the ones involving the shark, don't feel genuine.

Name : Justin Chang a.k.a Los Angeles Times
If you're looking for a quick and satisfying summer thrill - a reminder that all you really need to make a movie is a girl and a flare gun - then the aptly titled Blake Lively-vs.-shark thriller "The Shallows" should serve you nicely.

Name : Peter Travers a.k.a Rolling Stone
It's all patently ridiculous. But Blake Lively, director Collet-Serra and a digital shark show no mercy in hooking us with the B-movie tension. And we bite.

Name : Owen Gleiberman a.k.a Variety
"Free State of Jones" is one of those historical dramas with a script that's big on crowning lines of moral fervor and not so big on nuts-and-bolts detail.

Name : Joe Dziemianowicz a.k.a New York Daily News
McConaughey's star turn is straight-up and persuasive. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is earthy and believable as Rachel, the slave Knight falls for and has a child with.

Name : Michael Phillips a.k.a Chicago Tribune
From camera composition to production design, everything looks and feels fresh-scrubbed and somewhat staid, and you don't quite believe what you're seeing.

Name : Lindsey Bahr a.k.a Associated Press
The Civil War and reconstruction were messy, and Free State of Jones wants to tackle it all. In the end, it's too much for any one film to handle compellingly with such specificity.

Name : J. R. Jones a.k.a Chicago Reader
American history is a mutable thing, shaped by our evolving sense of ourselves as a nation, which is why this Civil War drama, based on the little-known story of Newton Knight, seems so vividly modern.

Name : Jesse Hassenger a.k.a AV Club
Instead of building to a crescendo, the movie trails off. By the end, serious-minded adult moviegoers may find themselves longing for another product from the well-oiled sequel machine.

Name : Rafer Guzman a.k.a Newsday
Strong work from McConaughey as a charismatic leader, but the film's meandering historical scope will test your patience.

Name : Calvin Wilson a.k.a St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Free State of Jones" aspires to greatness but fumbles badly.

Name : Cary Darling a.k.a Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
The last third of the film, as it stuffs more and more in, feels less like a movie and more like cramming for a history exam at 2 a.m.

Name : Ann Hornaday a.k.a Washington Post
An earnest but inert and unwieldy historical drama that, in its commendable attempt to rescue a forgotten figure from obscurity, too often looks and feels like "12 Years a Woke Dude."

Name : Peter Travers a.k.a Rolling Stone
If you think a thick, juicy slab of Civil War history can't be boiled down to 145 minutes of speechifying, stultifying cinema, then grab a seat. Even McConaughey is sucked dry of his usual acting panache.

Name : Kyle Smith a.k.a New York Post
If McConaughey's performance is a little too jut-jawed and noble, the script has plenty of force.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz a.k.a Arizona Republic
"Free State of Jones" is a well-intentioned slog through a potentially fascinating bit of Civil War history, brought to life only by Matthew McConaughey's performance, and then only occasionally.

Name : Richard Roeper a.k.a Chicago Sun-Times
This is no history lesson, but it's mainstream Hollywood entertainment that respects the history and seems to invite discussion and debate.

Name : Ty Burr a.k.a Boston Globe
"Free State of Jones" is a deeply strange movie, but that's fine - so is the history on which it's based.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek a.k.a TIME Magazine
The movie works as a quasi-historical ramble, thanks largely to Matthew McConaughey as Knight and the quietly valiant Gugu Mbatha-Raw as his second, common-law wife, the freed slave Rachel.

Name : Brad Wheeler a.k.a Globe and Mail
Instead of captivating us with swagger, McConaughey chooses to go grim and dogged. Director Ross does the same.

Name : Joe McGovern a.k.a Entertainment Weekly
Ross wants to shake up the format . but like so many directors who have tackled historical social issues before him, he confuses noble, cornball sermonizing for art.

Name : Adam Graham a.k.a Detroit News
Call it a civil bore.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani a.k.a Philadelphia Inquirer
Mixing elements from documentaries, biopics, war flicks, and Hallmark romances, Ross' film is a living history tour, but with gory special effects and a smoldering smattering of sex appeal.

Name : Joe Morgenstern a.k.a Wall Street Journal
This screenplay is so arid in its didacticism, so pallid in its would-be passion, that it defeats [McConaughey's] efforts and our involvement, however much we may want to cut the film some slack for being about things of consequence.

Name : Todd McCarthy a.k.a Hollywood Reporter
A compelling and little-known story of the Civil War period is studiously reduced to a dry and cautious history lesson.

Name : Richard Brody a.k.a New Yorker
The director and screenwriter Gary Ross illuminates immense historical spans with the true story of one man's revolt during the Civil War.

Name : Peter Rainer a.k.a Christian Science Monitor
It's a powerful story but, as written and directed by Gary Ross, it has a by-the-books straightforwardness that sacrifices nuance for homiletics.

Name : Peter Howell a.k.a Toronto Star
A Civil War rebellion becomes an enervating movie by Gary Ross.

Name : Bruce Kirkland a.k.a Toronto Sun
Free State of Jones is a great opportunity lost.

Name : Robert Abele a.k.a TheWrap
The movie doesn't entirely escape an arid, educational quality, coming off mostly as a curious hybrid of the best and the regrettable in right-side-of-history cinema.

Name : John Hartl a.k.a Seattle Times
"Free State" can't settle down and concentrate. The effect is sometimes exhilarating, but covering several decades of Southern history turns out to be an energy drain.

Name : Bilge Ebiri a.k.a Village Voice
Diligent and informative but also fragmented and inert, it plays like a series of scenes and notes for a longer, more fleshed-out movie.

Name : A.O. Scott a.k.a New York Times
A riveting visual history lesson, whose occasional didacticism is integral to its power.

Name : Mick LaSalle a.k.a San Francisco Chronicle
It's a good film, absorbing from beginning to end, but it's also important.