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

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

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

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

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : 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 : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
The Shallows is almost a good movie.

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

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

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

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

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : 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 : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
The girl kept talking and strategizing as heavy string music played on the soundtrack.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : 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 : Matthew Lickona / Alias : 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 : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : 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 : Peter Travers / Alias : 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 : Michael Phillips / Alias : 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 : Chris Klimek / Alias : 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 : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
The most important parts, the ones involving the shark, don't feel genuine.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : 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 : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A snack-size thriller that isn't quite enough to satisfy.

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

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

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : 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 : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It's a movie with a lot of things to say, but walking out, you feel like you're still waiting for it to say them.

Name : John Anderson / Alias : TIME Magazine
Yes, such things happened. Gavron's touch, though, renders them melodramatic.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Suffragette expends its energy selling us on what we already believe rather than examining the way these activists pressed the world into believing it.

Name : Sasha Stone / Alias : TheWrap
The supporting cast, including Helena Bonham Carter, Romola Garai and Anne-Marie Duff, are all top notch, and a reminder of how few films like this exist anywhere.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It's a movie that's easier to respect than love, but it is something to respect.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
An intriguing premise dampened by thin characters and a formulaic story.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"Suffragette" derives its considerable intellectual and emotional might from recognizing the symbolic nature of the vote. . That practical view makes the [film] not just an urgent history lesson but also a perceptive human drama.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Though ably acted and indisputably on the side of the angels, "Suffragette" as directed by Sarah Gavron is more dead-on earnest and schematic than it needs to be.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
It's always compelling; you feel grateful, watching, that this story is being told at all.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
The movie does well to shine a light on the venerable struggle, but its beam is narrow, and often pallid.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
As a period piece, Suffragette captures and preserves the pulse and passion of a past era, yet strengthens the vibrant urgency of a cause that continues to inform the future.

Name : Kristin Tillotson / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Mulligan, in particular, delivers, bringing believability to a role that's quite a stretch, given the transformation her character has to go through from workaday mum to first-wave feminist superhero.

Name : Karen D'Souza / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
"Suffragette" urges us to look at the dynamics of gender, class and power then and now with fresh eyes.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
It depicts an important movement that remains relevant today as a historical obligation of a movie, dutiful and often surprisingly dull.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
A picture whose politics prove rather more commendable than its artistry.

Name : Sarah Bryan Miller / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Morgan's writing is occasionally pedestrian, but the sweep of the story, the performances and Gavron's vision make up for it.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
If we now take a woman's right to vote and to hold public office for granted, Suffragette reminds us that it wasn't that long ago when things were different.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Suffragette has the power to shock even those familiar with the early days of the feminist movement it dramatizes.

Name : Stephen Farber / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A rousing, relevant slice of feminist history.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Despite Mulligan bringing her A-game, the film falls short of its potential.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
This period drama shows how awful it was to be a working-class woman at that time. [but] scenes dramatizing the political organizing and protests are less effective, bogged down by pedantic dialogue and historical generalizations.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
In a sea of Hollywood escapism, Suffragette - flaws and all - is a movie that matters.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
[Mulligan is] a fiercely intelligent performer, and that suits her here. She gives some human weight to Maud's big moments, especially when they veer dangerously close to hokum.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"Suffragette" is an absorbing, ultimately moving portrait of thwarted ideals that rings all too true today.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
It riles you up and at times may move you to tears of rage.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
The script, by Abi Morgan, filters out the contextual complexities of politics, and Sarah Gavron's direction reduces difficult situations to simple sentiments.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
Gavron splits the difference between didactic history lesson and "relatable" storytelling without quite reaching either goal.

Name : Barbara VanDenburgh / Alias : Arizona Republic
Suffragette, like Maud, is modest in scope and ambition, and is more emotionally affecting for it.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
From a historical perspective, Suffragette is riddled with inaccuracies, but that's less of a problem than its questionable dramatic arc.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It's a shame that, despite some excellent performances, this urgent, well-intentioned film feels so conventional and stolid.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Suffragette is easy to look at, populated by strong actors who move through a world furnished with lovely period detail, but it feels hollow at the centre.

Name : Julia Cooper / Alias : Globe and Mail
Mulligan's performance, coupled with a solid script by Abi Morgan, shows us just how much is at stake when a woman decides to wage war.

Name : Jocelyn Noveck / Alias : Associated Press
In Suffragette, which without [Mulligan] would be a far, far less compelling movie, she doesn't merely entertain us with her skill. She brings to vibrant life an important part of our global history that's easy to forget.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
Stirring and cleareyed - the best kind of history lesson.

Name : Connie Ogle / Alias : Miami Herald
Suffragette occasionally turns hard truths into platitudes. But the story is inspiring, buoyed by a fine cast, a pointed, important examination of the price paid for a shot at equality.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
In minimizing the usual scenes that fill this sort of film - terribly awkward breakfasts at the country house, men wagging their chinwhiskers at each other - Gavron finds room for others.

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
It's a tremendous, awards-worthy performance from Carey Mulligan.