Blake Lively's Best Movie On Rotten Tomatoes Came Out Over A Decade Ago

Blake Lively has always made interesting choices as an artist. As /Film's Hannah Shaw-Williams noted while writing about the larger-than-anticipated box office debut for Lively's romantic drama "It Ends with Us," the "Gossip Girl" alum is the rare actor to become "a reliable star of so-called 'chick flicks' i.e. movies overtly marketed towards a female audience" in recent years. This dates back to her breakout role nearly 20 years ago in Ken Kwapis' "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," a deeply earnest coming-of-age film that also happens to be about a pair of jeans that magically fits four teen girls with decidedly different body types. It's a good movie!

As she settled into adulthood, Lively continued to branch out, collaborating with auteurs like Rebecca Miller and Oliver Stone while primarily focusing on low-to-mid-budget, non-franchise fare at a time when such films were being banished to the direct-to-streaming realm. ("Green Lantern," for all its notoriety, is the exception in her oeuvre.) That's not to say she hasn't made any missteps along the way, like collaborating with Woody Allen on "Café Society" around the time that the disturbing allegations against him had re-emerged — to say nothing of her and Ryan Reynolds' infamous plantation wedding ceremony, which the pair have since apologized for. Despite that and the currently-unfolding story that is the reported behind-the-scenes drama on "It Ends with Us," Lively's output has never been fully eclipsed by her off-screen life.

A quick survey of her filmography on Rotten Tomatoes will reveal that Lively has often been the toast of critics — and, frankly, some of her films deserve better than the "splat" they've been assigned on the website (see also: "The Age of Adaline," which also features one of Harrison Ford's best performances). But which one ranks the highest?

A year before the misfire that was "Green Lantern," Lively cemented her acting bonafides with "The Town." The 2010 Ben Affleck-directed crime thriller is, like so many of Lively's subsequent movies, mid-budget, has no interest in setting up sequels, and boasts strong performances across the board by the likes of honest-to-goodness character actors such as Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Chris Cooper, the late, great Pete Postlethwaite, and even a pre-"Avengers" Jeremy Renner in an Oscar-nominated supporting role. Meanwhile, Affleck crafts some properly white-knuckle bank robbery sequences while also delivering a fine turn as protagonist Douglas "Doug" MacRay, a Boston career crook who attempts to leave his old life behind him upon falling for a woman (Hall) he held hostage during a job with his crew.

"The Town" itself is also Lively's highest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes with a 92 percent "Fresh" critics score and an average rating of 7.4 from 239 reviews (including 87 percent from "Top Critics"). As the film's consensus aptly puts it: "Tense, smartly written, and wonderfully cast, 'The Town' proves that Ben Affleck has rediscovered his muse — and that he's a director to be reckoned with." The only problem? "The Town" is in no way a vehicle for Lively. For as much as she vanishes comfortably into the role of Doug's former flame Krista aka. "Kris," a lost soul whose brother (played by Renner) is a faithful member of Doug's crew, she's only in a handful of scenes. More to the point, Lively can only do so much with a character whose primary function is to complicate the plot.

If you want a true showcase for Lively, might I point your attention towards another well-received thriller on her resume?

Much as I was tempted to go with "A Simple Favor," I'm also well aware that we here at /Film have sung the praises of Paul Feig's quirky comedy-crime thriller before. So, instead, I'd like to direct your attention to 2016's "The Shallows," another Lively film that is Certified Fresh on RT.

Jaume Collet-Serra, for those unfamiliar, has emerged as an expert in the field of stylish and shlocky (complimentary) thrillers and horror flicks over the last two decades, going back to his feature debut on the 2005 "House of Wax" remake and continuing on to his many Liam Neeson pictures like "Non-Stop," "Run All Night," and "The Commuter." Contrary to what the director's staid Dwayne Johnston tentpoles "Jungle Cruise" and "Black Adam" would suggest, Collet-Serra excels at making darker, harder-edged genre films like "The Shallows" — a movie that pits Lively against a hungry great white shark.

Said shark, lest we unfairly vilify it, happens to be feasting on a nearby whale carcass when Lively's character, Nancy Adams, is catching waves on a remote beach, and it leaves her injured and stranded far from the shore. For as much as its premise calls "Jaws" to mind, however, Collet-Serra's shark flick hews closer to another Steven Spielberg thriller: "Duel." Like that movie, it's largely a one-person show in the form of a lean, mean fight to survive in which our hero must rely on their wits and tenacity if they hope to walk away in one piece.

"The Shallows" also has some emotional depth, as Lively's character (a medical school drop-out) is still reeling in the wake of her mom dying from cancer. Plus, she gains a sidekick in the form of an injured gull whom she dubs "Steven Seagull." Now that's what I call peak Blake Lively.