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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
As someone who's been a fan since 5, twisting away in my living room to their Ed Sullivan appearance, there isn't much I haven't seen. Or thought I hadn't. But Howard still digs up surprises .

Name : Neil Genzlinger / Alias : New York Times
90 percent familiar and a bit hagiographic as well, but just try watching it without smiling.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Taken on [its own] limited terms, "Eight Days a Week" plays nicely enough: the mostly uptempo Side A of a well-stocked greatest hits album, as it were.

Name : Godfrey Cheshire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
The group's fans today, of any age, are bound to welcome Eight Days a Week, in which Beatlemania's mid-'60s comet of joy and astonishment is thrillingly captured.

Name : Tom Shone / Alias : Newsweek
[Howard seems] as if he were intent on making a film for anyone who tuned in to The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, fell in love with the four adorable mop tops and regrets all the long-haired plonking about with sitars that came later.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Take the kids and watch their little minds get blown.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
I've heard "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" probably thousands of times, too, and I still like hearing them. So it is with Howard's movie - the story is so incredibly good, it's worth repeating.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
It all feels a little glossy, but who can complain when the vibes are so good and the tunes so catchy?

Name : Mark Caro / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Howard is more interested in wowing audiences with exuberant, hysteria-ridden performances than he is in digging for explanations.

Name : Dave Calhoun / Alias : Time Out
A sparky, moving and funny film about John, Paul, George and Ringo, whose own youthful words provide the film's best moments.

Name : Paul de Barros / Alias : Seattle Times
By using home-movie footage in hotel rooms, fly-on-the-wall tape from the studio control room, Howard's film often succeeds in making you feel it all from the four lads' astonished point of view.

Name : John DeFore / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
It will make a fine entry point for younger auds who grew up with the songs but never had Beatlemania shoved down their throats.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Ron Howard's documentary rightly keeps coming back to the music and the band's delight in making it. Good move. It truly is a joy forever.

Name : G. Allen Johnson / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
A must for any fan.

Name : Gersh Kuntzman / Alias : New York Daily News
You can't watch them in these days and not be caught up in Beatlemania.

Name : Alex McCown / Alias : AV Club
It's a testament to the buoyancy of the film that such exhausted, well-trod material can still feel fresh.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The music is so strong, and such a demonstration of how potent the group was in action, that it alone makes the film worth seeing.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Don't expect trenchant analysis or deep insights into the group's creative process. Do revel, however, in the gleeful tumult and the gorgeous music.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
The Beatles now belong to an honored past, stuck there like an obelisk, and yet here they are, alive-busting out all over, time and time again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Name : Melissa Anderson / Alias : Village Voice
Frantically rushing through the quartet's prodigious output during these years, Eight Days a Week is best when it slows down .

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
The familiar events presented here were covered more thoroughly in the band's own 11-hour Beatles Anthology, though Howard has dug up some good ancillary concert footage that illustrates the chaos swirling around every show.