The Meg (2018)

[Drunk Monk]

This has been on my sonar since it came out, soley because Li Bingbing is in it. She’s joins an odd cast - Jason Statham as the action hero, Rainn Wilson as the tycoon, Masi Oka & Ruby Rose as crew, and Li is a scientist single mom. It’s another Jaws update like any shark flick, but instead of a sharknado or 3-headed shark, it’s a megalodon, a dinosaur shark. It’s a bad cgi monster. Nothing that new here - same tension as characters flail in the water while the shark approacheth. All rather predictable regarding who will get eaten. It’s mildly rewarding when the despicable characters gets chomped and dramatically tragic when the heroes sacrifice themselves so that others might live. It’s shot in Shanghai, and I did like the Chinese angle like the Sanya Bay attacks, but I wanted more of that. Li was ok for performing in English. Everyone else was pretty much playing the roles they always play. I did like Ruby.

I’m amazed this was so successful at the box office. Pop tastes are dumb. 

Not D00M recommended.

[Drunk Monk]

Meg 2: The Trench

If the first one was so bad, why bother with the sequel? Wu Jing, that’s why. And yeah, the sequel is even worse. It’s a true sequel - we’re following the adventures of Statham as he fights toxic polluters. 

The premise of the Meg is that there’s this super deep trench that’s sealed of from the rest of the ocean by some sort of layer. Prehistoric creatures live in that trench. There’s the good guys (team Statham) who just want to study it. The bad guys want to mine it for rare metals and they don’t care that their waste opens a hole in that layer and lets Megs out. Not only Megs, but also these Dino-crocodiles that move like otters and behave like Jurassic raptors, and a kraken. Yup, tentacles. 

There’s some deep sea ridiculousness in the first half as team Statham gets trapped in the trench. Then all the monsters and terrorists descend on Fun island, a resort area and that carnage is mildly amusing. 

The worst part of this is Wu Jing, who plays a rich CEO type. He does very little action, leaving it all to Statham. Wu is PRC’s top action star right now, totally eclipsing Jackie, Jet & Donnie, and he doesn’t even get a fight scene. Didn’t the director know who he is? Such a waste of talent.

Definitely not D00M recommended. I can’t remember now if I saw this on Netflix or Amazon Prime but it doesn’t matter because you really want to avoid this travesty - my final crap watch of 2023.