MOVIE OF THE WEEK (8/10/18): THE MEG
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| "This isn't the Build-A-Bear workshop ..." Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) stares into the massive mouth of a Megalodon shark in a scene from THE MEG. Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. 2018 Warner Bros. Pictures, Gravity Pictures Film Production Company and Apell ES Entertainment, Inc. |
KEY CAST MEMBERS: Jason Statham, Rainn Wilson, Bingbing Li, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Jessica McNamee, Page Kennedy, Shuya Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Robert Taylor, Masi Oka and Olafur Darri Olafsson
WRITER(S): John Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Dean Georgaris (screenplay); Steve Alten (writer, Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror on which the film is based)
DIRECTOR(S): Jon Turtletaub
WEB SITE: http://www.themeg.movie/
HERE'S THE STORY: Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) was a paleontologist/deep sea diver who specialized in rescuing people stuck in dangerous situations. Then came the incident where he was forced to make a decision that has haunted him for the past 5 years.
But while Jonas has since retired into a perpetual state of drunkenness in Thailand, Dr. Zhang (Winston Chao), his daughter Suyin (Bingbing Li) - who's lovable and precocious 8 year-old daughter Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) is always present - and their billionaire, Air Jordan-wearing boss Morris (Rainn Wilson) are now dealing with a problem of their own: Three member of their crew - Toshi (Masi Oka), "The Wall" (Olafur Darri Olafsson) and Jonas' ex-wife Lori (Jessica McNamee) - are now stuck at the deepest part of the ocean in a previously undiscovered trench. And why are they stuck? Because they have been attacked by something that has disabled their sub, even though they don't know what it is.
But trust and believe they - and the rest of the Pacific Ocean's beach-loving revelers - are about to find out ...
HERE'S THE STORY: Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) was a paleontologist/deep sea diver who specialized in rescuing people stuck in dangerous situations. Then came the incident where he was forced to make a decision that has haunted him for the past 5 years.
But while Jonas has since retired into a perpetual state of drunkenness in Thailand, Dr. Zhang (Winston Chao), his daughter Suyin (Bingbing Li) - who's lovable and precocious 8 year-old daughter Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) is always present - and their billionaire, Air Jordan-wearing boss Morris (Rainn Wilson) are now dealing with a problem of their own: Three member of their crew - Toshi (Masi Oka), "The Wall" (Olafur Darri Olafsson) and Jonas' ex-wife Lori (Jessica McNamee) - are now stuck at the deepest part of the ocean in a previously undiscovered trench. And why are they stuck? Because they have been attacked by something that has disabled their sub, even though they don't know what it is.
But trust and believe they - and the rest of the Pacific Ocean's beach-loving revelers - are about to find out ...
WHO WILL LIKE THIS FILM THE MOST? People like movies like Sharknado, Godzilla (the Matthew Broderick version) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
WHO WON'T (OR SHOULDN'T) LIKE THIS MOVIE? Anyone who hated Jurassic World or Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom who hate paint-by-numbers monster animal movies, people who remember the debacle that is Jaws 4 and how much better (and it's not a great movie by any means) Warner Bros.' previous shark movie Deep Blue Sea is; anyone for whom Jaws is the end-all, be-all shark movie.
SO IS IT GOOD, BAD OR JUST AWFUL? A B-movie masquerading under the guise of a major motion picture complete the full backing of one of Hollywood's oldest studios, The Meg is quite possibly one of the lousiest, most formulaic and paint-by-numbers monster movies ever made. A combination of seemingly a teenage boy's Monster Energy and Mountain Dew-fueled overactive imagination coupled with easily digestible, dialogue that this multicultural cast that a politically correct studio executive likely drooled over to make sure the movie appeals to everyone emits like a bad high school production of Romeo & Juliet.
Seriously, The Meg will probably garner a lot of comparisons to Sharknado and deservedly so - because the movie is a cavalcade of cliched, tired tropes (the hardscrabble, grizzled veteran called in for one last battle, the optimistic but naive scientist, the billionaire with the secret but oh-so-obvious hidden agenda - we saw that in Deep Blue Sea and Samuel L. Jackson did it better! - the super-cute-and-best-actor-in-the-movie-kid, the super expendable minor characters that you just know are gonna die, the black guy and of course, the shark that is basically the cinematic equivalent of Michael Myers). Yes, that previous sentence may have broken nearly every grammatical standard a good high school English teacher would try to convey to his or her students, but it had to be said. What shouldn't have to be said is that the film offers nothing that you haven't seen before (and likely done better).
Statham doesn't really do anything wrong as the film's lead; it's just that there's nothing being done in the movie that will inspire you to do anything other than a Bart Simpson-esque "meh." The love story between Statham and Li is a nice distraction and Cai is great, butfake Warren Sapp Page Kennedy's character will either make you laugh or grind your teeth with all of his expected, semi-effective one liners/common black person in this type of movie logic, Ruby Rose doesn't do much more than just showcase her tattoos and Wilson might get a nomination for a Razzie Award for his performance.
For those of you wondering "well, is the shark action at least cool?" Yeah, it's okay; it's the only interesting part of the movie. But with so many cookie cutter characters, predictable scene after predictable scene and general been there, done that, nature of the whole story, I can safely say that The Meg - which is based on a series of books by author Steve Alten - HAS to be better as a novel.
Because as a feature film, The Meg might be the first shark movie to jump itself.
SO IS IT GOOD, BAD OR JUST AWFUL? A B-movie masquerading under the guise of a major motion picture complete the full backing of one of Hollywood's oldest studios, The Meg is quite possibly one of the lousiest, most formulaic and paint-by-numbers monster movies ever made. A combination of seemingly a teenage boy's Monster Energy and Mountain Dew-fueled overactive imagination coupled with easily digestible, dialogue that this multicultural cast that a politically correct studio executive likely drooled over to make sure the movie appeals to everyone emits like a bad high school production of Romeo & Juliet.
Seriously, The Meg will probably garner a lot of comparisons to Sharknado and deservedly so - because the movie is a cavalcade of cliched, tired tropes (the hardscrabble, grizzled veteran called in for one last battle, the optimistic but naive scientist, the billionaire with the secret but oh-so-obvious hidden agenda - we saw that in Deep Blue Sea and Samuel L. Jackson did it better! - the super-cute-and-best-actor-in-the-movie-kid, the super expendable minor characters that you just know are gonna die, the black guy and of course, the shark that is basically the cinematic equivalent of Michael Myers). Yes, that previous sentence may have broken nearly every grammatical standard a good high school English teacher would try to convey to his or her students, but it had to be said. What shouldn't have to be said is that the film offers nothing that you haven't seen before (and likely done better).
Statham doesn't really do anything wrong as the film's lead; it's just that there's nothing being done in the movie that will inspire you to do anything other than a Bart Simpson-esque "meh." The love story between Statham and Li is a nice distraction and Cai is great, but
For those of you wondering "well, is the shark action at least cool?" Yeah, it's okay; it's the only interesting part of the movie. But with so many cookie cutter characters, predictable scene after predictable scene and general been there, done that, nature of the whole story, I can safely say that The Meg - which is based on a series of books by author Steve Alten - HAS to be better as a novel.
Because as a feature film, The Meg might be the first shark movie to jump itself.
OVERALL RATING (OUT OF FOUR POSSIBLE BUCKETS OF POPCORN):
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