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Tag Archives: Rob Mayes

Don’t Go in the Water! – The Meg (2018) and Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018)

27 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Bingbing Li, Cliff Curtis, Danielle Savre, Darin Scott, Drama, Jason Statham, Jon Turteltaub, Literary adaptation, Megalodon, Michael Beach, Rainn Wilson, Research facility, Review, Rob Mayes, Sci-fi, Sequel, Sharks, Thriller

It happens so often that it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. A major studio release is announced, and before you know it, a “rival” production is rushed onto our screens. These so-called “rivals” often operate on a fraction of the budget of the mainstream release, have a cast that few people have heard of, and betray their lack of originality at every turn. Such is the case in 2018 with The Meg being pipped to the release post by Deep Blue Sea 2, a sequel/remake that no one wanted or needed (especially nineteen years after Renny Harlin’s enjoyable if still risible original).

The Meg (2018) / D: Jon Turteltaub / 113m

Cast: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Shuya Sophia Cai, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Jessica McNamee, Masi Oka

The Meg is a silly, silly movie – let’s get that out of the way from the start. It provokes far more laughs than it does gasps, but at least it’s aware that it’s preposterous. This is most definitely a good thing, because if it wasn’t so self-aware, this would be an horrendously difficult movie to sit through. There are moments where the script (by Dean Georgaris and Jon and Erich Hoeber from the novel by Steve Alten) strives for serious drama – usually when someone dies, or the gravity of the situation needs reinforcing – but otherwise keeps things easy-going for much of its running time. It’s as if it can’t wait to poke fun at itself, whether it’s by giving Statham lines of the calibre of “Meg versus man isn’t a fight… it’s a slaughter” (though he does miss out on saying “Megalo-don’t”), or having its characters behave foolishly (add up how many times they deliberately put themselves at risk when there’s no need to). It’s also a movie that seems reluctant to give the Meg free rein when the script puts a resort full of swimmers, and a small dog, in its path. Anyone expecting mass carnage is going to be disappointed; better to watch Piranha 3D (2010) instead.

Of course, this is all professionally made with a suitably excessive budget needed to make the special effects look as impressive as possible, but as with many movies that have a larger than normal protagonist at its centre – see also Rampage (2018) – there are problems with the Meg’s size, and keeping it proportionally realistic in relation to its human co-stars. But there are bigger problems: the movie soon settles for being a series of showdowns between Statham’s gung-ho marine rescue specialist and the Meg that rely too often on the Meg swimming off once their encounters are over; so much for being a super-predator. Of course, this repetition is to allow the cast of characters to be picked off one by one, even though it’s obvious just who is still going to be around when the Meg is finally taken care of. Statham is fine as the improbably named Jonas (the makers clearly wanted to call him Jonah – but too much context maybe?), while Curtis and Wilson stand out because they both seem to have the measure of the material, and are obviously having fun. Turteltaub’s direction is competent without being flashy, there’s one climax too many, and sadly, Statham doesn’t get to punch or head butt the Meg (what were the makers thinking?).

Rating: 6/10 – nothing more or less than a summer popcorn movie with no other ambition than to provide audiences with a good time, The Meg is surprisingly toothless when it matters most; glossy and sleek, it goes where it needs to, but doesn’t offer the necessary thrills to make it stand out from the crowd, all of which just goes to prove that size isn’t everything.

 

Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018) / D: Darin Scott / 94m

Cast: Danielle Savre, Rob Mayes, Michael Beach, Nathan Lynn, Kim Syster, Jeremy Boado, Adrian Collins, Cameron Robertson, Darron Meyer

Where The Meg is a silly, silly movie, Deep Blue Sea 2 is a dreadful, dreadful movie, an uninspired retread of the original, and a chore to sit through (unless your standards are non-existent or you’ve suffered a recent brain trauma). Having the number two in the title would seem to make it a sequel, but in fact this is an unofficial remake, with several scenes rehashed from the first movie, and the action taking place in yet another submerged research station where genetic experiments have been carried out on – surprise! – a number of bull sharks. Sooner than you can say “shark lunch in a tin can”, things start to go wrong, and the tasty morsels – sorry, characters – inside the research facility are being picked off one by one. This tries for grim humour at times, but manages to miss the mark at every attempt; it can’t even raise some much needed unintentional humour either. Instead, the main response it provokes is one of profound ennui, and a deep regret that you started watching it in the first place. To say that it lacks energy, pace, commitment, good performances, and a decent script would be stating the obvious.

It does trade in a healthy amount of rampant absurdity, though, as evidenced by the decision to give the sharks a female leader who gives birth (thankfully off-screen) to a dozen or so little nippers who take over their mother’s murderous duties, and who make loud screeching noises when they attack (these sounds are audible above the water line – of course). Unlike The Meg, Deep Blue Sea 2 has no problem with showing the gory after effects of a shark attack, but against the odds this is one of the very few aspects it gets right. Again, the performances range from very poor (Savre) to perfunctory (Mayes, Lynn), while Beach outdoes the sharks for chewing the scenery as (the meg)alomaniacal sponsor of the research facility. Scott, clearly a long way from his days as a producer on movies such as To Sleep With Anger (1990) and Menace II Society (1993), struggles to make anything out of the by-the-numbers screenplay, its dreary nature and one-dimensional characters proving impossible to root for. If you have to see one shark-based movie in 2018, then make sure it isn’t this one. You have been warned.

Rating: 3/10 – awful enough to make you wish for a shark to come along and put you out of your misery, Deep Blue Sea 2 is the cinematic equivalent of chum in the water; brazenly stealing all the best bits from its predecessor and then doing nothing constructive with them, this is a movie that wastes no time in wearing out its welcome, and becoming irredeemably, dramatically soggy.

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John Dies at the End (2012)

04 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Alternate dimensions, Chase Williamson, Clancy Brown, Dave, David Wong, Don Coscarelli, Glynn Turman, John, Korrok, Paul Giamatti, Review, Rob Mayes, Soy sauce

John Dies at the End

D: Don Coscarelli / 99m

Cast: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, Doug Jones, Daniel Roebuck, Fabianne Therese, Jonny Weston, Jimmy Wong, Tai Bennett

Adapted from the cult novel by David Wong, John Dies at the End has two things working against it from the start: condensing the novel into ninety minutes was always going to mean a shed load of situations, characters, storylines and nuances being left out, and whatever situations, characters, storylines and nuances were included were never going to marry up convincingly.  And so it proves, with the movie throwing everything it can at the screen and the audience in the hope that some of it will impress or resonate.

It begins with an amusing prologue that helps give the viewer an idea of the approach the movie’s going to take with the material, being both surreal and off-kilter.  From there, we meet Dave (Williamson), a nervous-eyed slacker getting ready to meet journalist Arnie Blondestone (Giamatti).  Dave begins to tell Arnie about his experiences in the previous two years, and while Arnie is sceptical, as Dave tells him about all the strange things that have happened to him, Arnie’s credulity is tested at every point.  Because Dave’s story is very strange indeed, and includes a rasta street magician; a black substance, nicknamed ‘soy sauce’ that when ingested gives a person the ability to read minds, see the future, and all manner of other psychic abilities; John calling Dave on the phone despite being dead; the involvement of the police represented by a world-weary detective (Turman); possession by entities from another dimension; a dog that may be more than he seems; renowned paranormal investigator Dr. Albert Marconi (Brown); a trip to another dimension; an evil entity called Korrok; exploding eyeballs; a girl with a prosthetic hand; “the mall of the dead”; and a man called Roger North (Jones).

John Dies at the End - scene

With so much – and more – being thrown into the mix the result is an uneven, occasionally unappealing movie that aims squarely for cultdom but never quite achieves it.  Director and writer Coscarelli (the Phantasm series) is an obvious choice for the material but with so much to choose from the novel, the finished product looks like he used a cherry picker.  It’s a scattershot movie, one that struggles to maintain a through line and ill-advisedly uses a non-linear approach to the material, giving it a stop-start, stutter-like feel.  Some scenes follow each other without the barest connection between the two, and characters generally lack both conviction and coherent motivation, leaving the viewer to either go with the flow and just accept what’s happening, or head for the exit in frustration.

If you do stick around then there are some incentives.  Despite being one of the barmiest movies in recent years, it’s somehow held together by Williamson’s bemused and confused performance, and – paradoxically – the fact that you can’t predict just what will happen next, or which odd tangent the movie will drag itself along.  John Dies at the End has so many WTF? moments it’s a little impressive, even though they don’t help the movie as a whole.  But Williamson finds a way to make Dave as fully rounded a character as possible, and finds able support from Mayes as the goofy John of the title.  Both actors intuit the material in a way that helps immeasurably in grounding things (however tenuously), and prove themselves a great team in the process.  There’s also a good line in black humour (though it’s as inconsistent as the rest of the movie), and there’s a couple of great sight gags.

The rest of the cast fare as best as they can but are largely ill-served by Coscarelli’s script.  Brown’s appearance amounts to a cameo, while Turman seizes his chance and makes his detective the only character in Dave’s story we might recognise in the real world.  Giamatti delivers the best performance and in truth that’s not much of a surprise, but it’s good to have him aboard, especially when he sees what’s in the back of Dave’s car.

There are many books and novels that are regarded as “unfilmable”, and while John Dies at the End certainly presents more than its fair share of problems for the aspiring adaptor, a more focused version could be made.  Until that happens, it’s likely that fans of the novel will be disappointed, and newcomers to Dave and John’s universe(s) are likely to be left asking themselves, “What the hell was that all about?”  A shame, as under the right conditions, and with the right script, that version of John Dies at the End would definitely be the cult classic this adaptation is aiming for.

Rating: 5/10 – a mishmash of ideas and plot threads that often wither and die before they’re fully developed, John Dies at the End gives us fantasy for fantasy’s sake in lieu of a decent plot; an incoherent mess given a boost by some creative low-budget visuals.

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