Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Green demonstrates no control over his star, who dodders through the movie in a sleepy daze.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
The low-key, dialed-down acting that Green has elicited from the frequently hammy Pacino - on the heels of Nicolas Cage's sensitive turn in Green's Joe - establishes the filmmaker as the go-to sponsor for members of Overactors Anonymous.

Name : Joe Leydon / Alias : Variety
Like most if not all faith-based entertainments, "Where Hope Grows" embraces the idea that God works in mysterious ways. But it also insists that God helps only those who help themselves.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Director Chris Dowling should have taken another swing at his script for the sake of clarity and dimension before cameras rolled.

Name : Neil Genzlinger / Alias : New York Times
Not to be flip, but "Where Hope Grows" has the potential to be a decent inspirational film until God shows up.

Name : Michael Nordine / Alias : Village Voice
Writer-director Chris Dowling handles [the] worrisome premise with a more even hand than this genre's ill-advised predecessors .

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
"Where Hope Grows" wears its heart on its sleeve, hawking its message of salvation through faith to anyone who's in the market for cheesy uplift and saccharine sentiment.

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.