Movie Review The Meg 2: The Trench

The Meg 2: The Trench (2023) 

Directed by Ben Wheatley 

Written by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Dean Georgaris 

Starring Jason Stathan, Cliff Curtis, Wu Jing, Page Kennedy, Sophia Cali

Release Date August 4th, 2023 

Published August 4th, 2023 

The Meg 2: The Trench is not great. Here we have yet another in a seeming series of mediocre, manufactured sequel/remake intended to nakedly capitalize on a vaguely appreciated Intellectual Property. There isn't a single person working on The Meg 2: The Trench who appears to have enjoyed making this movie. No one appears to be having fun, each is merely going through the motions of an idiot plot, a series of dimwitted set pieces that stack the odds impossibly against our heroes only to have main character powers intervene to protect Jason Statham and the young girl who provides his motivation as a character. 

The Meg of the title is a Megalodon, a theoretical construct of an ancient shark that lives in a trench heretofore unexplored and unmapped by human eyes. Or so we think. In reality, a heartless group of mercenary capitalists who managed not only to map and navigate The Trench, they managed to build an entire mining colony on the ocean floor, completely under the noses of our heroes. A spy in the operation of Jonas (Jason Statham) and his pal, Mac (Cliff Curtis), has helped steal proprietary equipment from their boss, Jiuming (Wu Jing). 

Now that the team has traveled to The Trench for an exploration of the area, the spy sets about a game of sabotage, attempting to make sure that no one finds out about the illegal mining operation and the risk it provides to potentially allowing deadly Megalodons to escape from their undersea home and into the inhabited waters of nearby islands. Naturally, of course, The Meg's get loose and the mining operation was a mistake, and you know all of this before you ever get to this point in the movie. 

The trailer has already told you that Jonas has a fight against Meg's in which he's trying to spear them. Thus, there is no tension or suspense, the movie has promised this fight at if it hasn't happened yet, then why should you worry that our characters might not survive the underwater fight sequence we suffer through for most of the second act of The Meg 2: The Trench. Not that the movie was ever going to place Jason Statham in a context where he might not survive, that's silly, he has main character powers. The only minor suspense in The Meg 2: The Trench is who, other than Statham and Jonas' step-daughter, have main character powers strong enough to never be in danger. 

Spoiler alert, most of the characters you see in The Meg 2: The Trench, have main character powers. This means there is incredibly little tension or excitement in the movie. The danger feels forced and perfunctory. Each action set piece lacks in pacing and believability. It's all very silly but not silly in a fun way, silly in a fashion that leads to eye rolling. The makers of The Meg 2: The Trench needed to lean into the silliness and respect the fact that they are making a big dumb blockbuster. Sadly, there is a dour, dispirited quality to The Meg 2: The Trench that prevents camp, ironic appreciation of the film from setting in. 

I did laugh during The Meg 2: The Trench but I don't get the sense that I was laughing at something intended to be funny. These weren't the kind of tension breaking cathartic laughs that a movie like this should inspire. Rather, this was derisive laughter, laughing at the movie rather than with the movie. It's not so much laughing at the ballsy absurdity of the film, something the Fast and the Furious franchise thrives on. No, this was more of a 'wow, this is really dumb kind of laugh that accompanies an eye roll and a check of your phone to see how much longer the movie is. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Crossing Over

Crossing Over (2009) 

Directed by Wayne Kramer 

Written by Wayne Kramer 

Starring Harrison Ford. Cliff Curtis, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd

Release Date February 27th, 2009 

Published February 28th, 2009 

I'll give director Wayne Kramer this, he doesn't do things half way. His The Cooler thrived on heavy duty sexuality and grit. His follow-up, Running Scared was an adrenalized, hyper-caffeinated action movie that traded soully on style, zero substance. He's back at another extreme with his third feature; an immigration drama called Crossing Over.

With a great deal more substance than Running Scared, Crossing Over goes to another extreme as Kramer attempts to tell more stories than any one movie can stand.

Harrison Ford leads a wide ranging cast as immigration officer Max Brogan. With his partner Hamid (Cliff Curtis), Max leads raids on sweat shops and other underground locations where a large number of immigrants are centrally located. In one of these raids Max busts a young woman named Maria. She has a small child being cared for by a friend and she begs Max to find him and make sure he is cared for.

Meanwhile, running parallel to this story, all of which emanate in Los Angeles, for the most part, is the story of Gavin (Jim Sturgess) an Israeli immigrant on a visa soon to expire. Though an atheist, Gavin has managed to stay in the country posing as a religious scholar. He is in love with an Australian actress and immigrant named Claire. While his scam is vaguely plausible, she is going the fake documents route.

That path leads her to man named Cole Frankel (Ray Liotta) a bureaucrat at the immigration office who can help her. Help her he does after she agrees to have sex with him regularly for two months while he pushes her paperwork through. Cole is married to Denise (Ashley Judd) an immigration lawyer who defends people trying to stay in the country.

She is involved in the case of an Iranian family in which the teenage daughter incited a terror threat with a speech in her high school class saying she understood the 9/11 hijackers. Several more characters bounce in and out of frame but fail to register as well as the recognizable stars.

There is a worthy and moving drama somewhere in the morass of Crossing Over. Unfortunately, it's buried between too many subplots that crash (HA, Crash get it, multi-plotted Oscar winning drama crash) into one another but don't really connect beyond a very basic characteristic, all of them involve immigrants. For instance, one plot strand involves a Korean family who happen to be Max Brogan's regular dry cleaner.

Ashley Judd is a wonderful actress but her plot and that of the young Iranian girl are extraneous beyond belief. Kramer uses the girl basically to make a point about freedom of speech and thought and about post 9/11 paranoia. That's a powerful topic but it has little to do with the rest of the movie. Each of the character connections are tenuous at best, but Judd is beyond tenuous, she's in the movie for marquee value and little more.

Now, though I find fault with much of Crossing Over, especially Director Kramer's indulgent point making and lack of narrative focus, there are some powerful moments in Crossing Over. A standout is Ford's confrontation with his partner over a murder investigation. Ford's charisma and powerful emotional connections create and convey this scene beyond what it might be in the hands of a lesser actor.

Curtis himself has a powerful moment involving a convenience story robbery that gives him and the movie a moment of real depth and heart. Ray Liotta shines ever so briefly opposite Alice Eve's Claire in a scene where he drops the con man bit and reveals his true pain and hope for salvation. Her response is brave and shocking and if there were more to the plot behind it, it would have had some serious emotional repercussions.

Sadly, as happens throughout Crossing Over, good work gets lost amid the jumble of too many characters and too much plot.

Crossing Over is a valiant attempt to shine a light on the heartbreaking bureaucracy that is at the center of our immigration debate. It's a drama of great depth and emotion. Unfortunately, it's also indulgent bit of Oscar baiting aimed at capitalizing on the wave of big ensembles with big ideas. First it was Soderbergh's Traffic, all about drugs. Then it was Crash with racism. Now comes Crossing Over about immigration. The formula still has some juice but without the skill of a Soderbergh or a Haggis, the results are muted, reflecting the glory of those movies without earning any of its own.

Movie Review: Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep (2019) 

Directed by Mike Flanagan

Written by Mike Flanagan

Starring Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Cliff Curtis

Release Date November 8th, 2019 

Published November 7th, 2019 

Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) took years to recover from his father’s rampage at the Overlook Hotel. His mother died not long after his father attempted to murder them both and her death led to a spiral of self-destruction for her son. Dan fell hard into alcoholism in his attempt to quiet the voices in his head, the voices that he could hear any time via his ‘Shine,’ the psychic abilities that he discovered as a child at the Overlook and has run from ever since. 

Now, several years sober, Dan has found friend, Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis), and a steady job as an orderly at a hospice in New Hampshire. Here, Dan’s Shine has a way of providing comfort to people when they need it the most, as they transition toward death. Dan becomes known at the hospice as Doctor Sleep as he shows up when it is time for the dying to enter their final sleep under his watchful and caring eye. 

Meanwhile, Dan is also allowing his Shine to reach out to a young girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran), a fellow psychic, younger and more powerful than Dan. Their friendship is kind and Dan offers the kind of comfort, support and understanding that Abra’s parents cannot as they do not have her special ability. Abra fears her parents will not understand or worse, may fear her remarkable gifts. 

Abra’s powerful shine unfortunately catches the attention of Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson). Rose leads a cabal of supernaturally powered villains who’ve discovered their own version of the fountain of youth, one that centers on people like Abra. The group is genuinely scary and the movie underlines how fearsome they are with visual flair. The ways in which we witness their evil are a little hard to watch as the terror of their victims has a visceral quality. 

Abra proves to be Rose The Hat’s white whale, a shine more powerful than even her own. The hunt for Abra, and Dan’s attempts to protect her and guide her,  make for a surface level take on the plot of Doctor Sleep. Thankfully, Doctor Sleep has a few surprises in store for those who give it a chance. This sequel to both Stephen King’s The Shining (novel) and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (Movie) looks like a debacle at first glance but turns out to be a brilliant gamble. 

Directed by Michael Flanagan, best known for such mainstream efforts as Oculus, Ouija: Origin of Evil and the Stephen King-Netflix adaptation, Gerald’s Game, Flanagan takes a big, bold step forward as a filmmaker in Doctor Sleep. Until now, Flanagan has been a rather mediocre horror director. Here, however, with Doctor Sleep, Flanagan arrives as a bold, risk taking filmmaker who is willing to bet big on a project that could have been his complete undoing. 

There is no margin of error in making Doctor Sleep. Flanagan was always going to be under intense scrutiny by intending to sequelize both the Stephen King and the Kubrick movie that King was not a fan of. That Flanagan brilliantly bridges the gap between King’s novel and Kubrick’s movie is one of the great strengths of Doctor Sleep. Even the author himself has acknowledged that Flanagan did the near impossible of pleasing the two masters of this sequel. 

Kyliegh Curran is a revelation as young Abra. A wonderful character, Curran infuses her with life, curiosity, humor and bravery. I loved how the movie allows Abra to be both youthful and naive and yet resourceful and more than capable of holding her own against Ferguson’s incredible villain performance. As a member of the Critics Choice Award voting mass, I can say for certain that I will be voting for Ms Curran in our Best Young Actor category. She’s just outstanding. 

Just about everything about Doctor Sleep is outstanding. Seeing the Overlook Hotel again, the remarkable recreation of the period detail of the overlook. Even the logic that help us arrive at the Overlook is solid and compelling. The script by director Mike Flanagan, quite smartly establishes Abra as every bit the equal in power and bravery as her adult co-stars. I especially enjoyed the earliest scenes between Curran and Rebecca Ferguson whose Rose the Hat is a terrific villain, especially when she underestimates our young heroine. 

Holding the whole movie together is Ewan McGregor as Danny. Though the when of the setting of Doctor Sleep is badly fudged so we don’t know how old McGregor is supposed to be, it turns out not to be an issue as McGregor melts into this performance. McGregor is a steady hand with strong instincts, the perfect leader for this movie. He has movie star good looks and charisma to draw in the mainstream and just the right amount of haunted conflict and a touch of madness needed for a great horror movie. 

I had low expectations for Doctor Sleep based on the fact of it being a sequel to a Stanley Kubrick movie without, obviously, Stanley Kubrick, as well as an underwhelming trailer. But, after seeing it, I am now a huge fan. The tone, the pace, the characters, the scares, they are all working in Doctor Sleep and I was excited and entertained throughout. This truly is the sequel to The Shining that I did not think was possible, an absolutely brilliant movie that lives up to the original book and movie in a big, big way. 

Movie Review: Fracture

Fracture (2007) 

Directed by Gregory Hoblit

Written by Daniel Pyne, Glenn Gers

Starring Ryan Gosling, Anthony Hopkins, David Straithairn, Rosamund Pike, Embeth Davidtz, Cliff Curtis, Billy Burke, Fiona Shaw 

Release Date April 20th, 2007

Published 19th, 2007

There is plenty of Oscar related gravitas to go around on the new thriller Fracture. Star Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for Silence of the Lambs. His young co-star Ryan Gosling is fresh off of his first nomination for Half Nelson and David Straithairn isn't long from his Best actor nomination for Good Night and Good Luck. With all of that Oscar gold shining  it could be easy to miss how shallow and unworthy a movie like Fracture is.

This movie of the week, sub-Law & Order-CSI, thriller wastes a group of great actors on a plot full of minor cracks and imperfections or fractures if you will.

Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) has one foot out the door. Having just landed a big paycheck; corporate law gig; Willy is leaving behind the district attorney's office and his 100% conviction rate. He just has one case left on the docket and it looks like a slam dunk. A wealthy older man, Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins), has attempted to murder his much younger wife (Embeth Davidtz). Crawford confessed to shooting her. The police on the scene found the gun in his hand. They were the only people in the house. This guy is guilty.

So how can this guy Ted plead not guilty? And why did he decide to represent himself in court. If Willy weren't already out the door on his way to that new job; he might have asked these important questions and maybe he wouldn't have been ambushed in court and made to look like a fool when it's revealed that the lead cop on the case, detective Rob Nunnally (Billy Burke), the man who took the confession and found the murder weapon, was sleeping with the victim.

Now, a case that should have been a slam dunk; is now a case that could cost Willy his career.

With the Oscar pedigreed cast and a complicated thriller plot, Fracture should work. Unfortunately, director Gregory Hoblit and writers Daniel Pyne Glen Gers can't get out of the way of these remarkable actors. Placing them in an untenable maze of cop and lawyer show garbage, Fracture unfolds like an average CSI or Law & Order episode, only less believable.

Despite a plot that betrays him, Ryan Gosling turns in a surprisingly good performance. Watching him work is like watching a young Newman or Redford as they came into their own as actors. Gosling has the looks and the brains of those legends and most importantly that classic smolder of a leading man. There is a scene in Fracture with Gosling and Rosamund Pike who plays his very brief love interest. They meet for the first time at an opera and sitting down the aisle from one another; Gosling gives Pike a look that has more heat than your average sex scene. It's a look that only a great leading man could give.

Anthony Hopkins can't help but be entertaining but in Fracture he seems a little more tired than we've ever seen him. Sleepwalking through this underwhelming plot' Hopkins falls back on a gleem in his eye and a forced creepy smile to sell this malevolent character. He also has Hannibal Lecter to fall back on and there are plenty of laconic Lecter-isms in Ted Crawford. Hopkins is still watchable but there is a cruise control feel to this performance.

What the creators of Fracture fail to realize is that modern audiences in the age of Court TV, CSI and Law & Order audiences are more savvy and knowledgeable about the law and law enforcement than ever before. So, when Willy misses an obvious bit of legal maneuvering, the cops seem to ignore pertinent information, or the killer makes an obvious forensic mistake, we notice and it takes us out of the movie.

I spent more time in Fracture pulling apart its legal logic, or lack of knowledge, than I did watching these two wonderful actors work together. It's a shame, because the few minutes I did watch the actors, they were very good.

Two great actors, one not so great movie, Fracture fails to take advantage of a seriously good pedigree. Instead we get a sub-cop show thriller that relies on ill logic and poor decision making by characters who should no better.  The creators of Fracture underestimate the intelligence of their audience and think they can play fast and loose with the rules of law enforcement. However, in the day and age of Court TV and Forensic Files, we know more than they give us credit for and the ill-logic of Fracture shows through.

Movie Review: Collateral Damage

Collateral Damage (2002) 

Directed by Andrew Davis

Written by David Griffiths, Ronald Roose 

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elias Koteas, Cliff Curtis, John Leguizamo, John Turturro, Tyler Posey 

Release Date February 8th, 2002 

Published February 8th, 2002 

Is America ready? I'm not talking about is America ready for a violent action film so close to anniversary of 9/11. I mean is America ready for an Arnold Schwarzenegger that doesn't entirely suck. In Collateral Damage, Schwarzenegger is Gordy Breuer a Los Angeles firefighter who witnesses an explosion that kills his wife and child. Not only did he see what happened but also he saw the man responsible, a terrorist called the Wolf (Cliff Curtis).

Schwarzenegger characters are anything but passive, and Gordy is quick to dismiss warnings from government officials including Elias Koteas, the CIA Agent who was the target of the bomb that killed Gordy's wife and child. It doesn't take a genius to know Gordy is going to Columbia to find the Wolf and avenge the death of his family.

If it were that simple there wouldn't be much of a film. Director Andrew Davis (the lensman behind The Fugitive) expertly builds suspense by keeping the film’s pace clicking along quickly. It doesn’t hurt to use Schwarzenegger's previously established action persona to give the audience the feeling that anything could happen at any moment.

The film's special effects are surprisingly cheesy at times, especially the CGI sequences that look as fake as they are. And at 50+ years old, Schwartzenegger obviously can no longer do his own stunts, so it would help to find a stuntman that looks a little more like him.

Those problems aside Collateral Damage is exciting and suspenseful from beginning to end. The film has an especially good twist near the end that I honestly didn't see coming. Is America ready for Collateral Damage? Well they should be because on video and DVD and it's definitely a worthy rental.

Movie Review Push

Push (2009) 

Directed by Paul McGuigan

Written by David Bourla 

Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle, Ming Na, Cliff Curtis 

Release Date February 6th, 2009

Published February 5th, 2009 

Director Paul McGuigan directed the clever, funny, con-man comedy Lucky Number Slevin. It was his first feature and it should have portended great things for his career. Sadly for his Slevin follow up McGuigan chose Push, a terribly goofy comic book movie about psychic superheroes and a government conspiracy. Where Slevin was endlessly inventive, Push is predictable and sloppy.

What a shame.

Handsomely mild actor Chris Evans stars in Push as Nick a man on the run since his father was hunted down and murdered by a mysterious  government entity. Since then Nick has lived off the grid in Japan hoping to keep a low enough profile to be left alone. That all changes when Nick is discovered by a teenage psychic named Cassie (Dakota Fanning) who has had a vision about him and her and their deaths.

On the bright side, she's also had a vision about a young woman named Kira (Camilla Belle) who may be able to save them. Kira is the only person ever to escape from the shadowy government forces chasing Nick and Cassie and if they find her she could be the key to bringing the conspiracy down. Add in a helpful psychic con man (Cliff Curtis) and another more powerful psychic hiding out as a fake psychic (Ming Na) and you have a misfit team ready for battle.

The premise of Push plays not at all unlike the TV series Heroes. Both are about shady conspiracy, hunting down people with special abilities and wild special effects. Both are also wildly divergent in quality, Heroes can vary from week to week with good episodes and not so good ones. Push has one chance to work and fails.

I have been a little dismissive of the story potential of Push. There is certainly nothing wrong with a comic book style movie about superheroes. The key is making those heroes compelling and their journey interesting beyond their powers. Director McGuigan and screenwriter David Bourla fail this by vaguely defining the powers and muddying the government conspiracy premise.

Not that a cleaner narrative might have made much of a difference. The super powers on display, people pushing other people with their minds or controlling objects with their minds or seeing the future, simply are not all that interesting. The best superheroes have powers that comment on their personality. The abilities reflect the man (or less often the woman) and we learn something about them through their uniqueness.

No such comment or reflection emerges from Push. Instead we have a series of dull, uninspired effects scenes.

I expected much more from Director Paul McGuigan. Lucky Number Slevin was the kind of debut that promises so much more from a director's future. It was a far from perfect movie but a clever, funny, imaginative film. Push is nearly the complete opposite. Derivative and uninspired, Push is disappointing beyond Director Paul McGuigan. It's disappointing to have to have sat through such a lacking effort.

Movie Review Sunshine

Sunshine (2007)

Directed by Danny Boyle

Written by Alex Garland 

Starring Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Troy Garity. Michelle Yeoh

Release Date July 20th, 2007

Published July 19th, 2007

Director Danny Boyle hasn't always been my favorite director. I am one of the rare critics who found Trainspotting tedious. 28 Days Later was an undeniably impressive move into the horror genre. But with the release of his minimalist family drama Millions, I joined the Danny Boyle fan club. That was such a wonderfully small film with such grand ambitions that it burst from the screen.

Now, with his latest film Sunshine, Boyle once again shows that there is no genre limitation to his work. Sunshine is an intellectual dissection of morals, instincts and the basics of human nature all couched in a sci fi landscape with a dash of old fashioned horror movie tossed in for good measure. It's great idea that unfortunately gets lost in space.

Sunshine stars Cillian Murphy as science officer named Capa. A keep his own council type, Capa is the outcast of an international space flight crew that includes Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada), Life support officer Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), Navigator Trey (Benedict Wong), chief mechanic Mace (Chris Evans), medical officer Searle (Cliff Curtis) and pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne.

This is the crew of Icarus 2, a crew charged with the modest task of saving the world. It's 2057 and the sun is dying. Soon the earth will be pitched into a permanent, lightless winter and all life will quickly die. The Icarus 2 project's goal is to kickstart the sun by precisely dropping a nuclear weapon, the size of Manhattan, into the center of the sun.

This is the earth's last best hope after the first Icarus project failed and was never heard from again. That is until Icarus 1 is heard from by Icarus 2. As the crew moved out of range of earth communications they found another signal in the middle of space. It's a several years old distress call from Icarus 1. Now the crew must decide whether to continue the mission as planned or to rendezvous with Icarus 1 to check for survivors.

The side trip would be beneficial to Icarus 2 which could take on a second nuclear payload and thus two chances to save the world. Also, Icarus 2 has suffered some damage on the way, so scavenging what they can from Icarus 1 could be a big help if the crew somehow manages a return flight home.

That is the surface area of Sunshine, a deep and disturbing idea from the fluid minds of the 28 Days Later team of director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland. Beneath the surface of this homage to Kubrick's 2001, is a terrific study in character and the effects of isolation on the brain. With a large and capable ensemble we witness unique human dynamics emerge and an intriguing study of people in confined spaces under intense pressure.

Interesting idea, but where do does the movie go from there? For Boyle and Garland the exercise in human endurance unfortunately devolves into a slasher plot involving the survivors of the original mission. Up until that plot emerges, and in minor moments thereafter, there are a number of really interesting and abstract  ideas in Sunshine.

Danny Boyle is a director highly skilled in crafting tense, character testing situations and filming them with precision. In Sunshine his skills take aim at a terrific ensemble cast and put them through a series of trials and tribulations that are eye catching and intense. Cliff Curtis is a standout as the medical officer who is drawn to the ship's observation deck for searing stares at the surface of the sun.

We don't truly understand his motivations but Searle's odd musings and matter of fact approach to his insane and painful sunlight obsession are quite intriguing. Also good is Michele Yeoh as the life support officer Corazon. In charge of the ship's oxygen garden, Corazon's cabin fever has bonded her to her plants as if they are her children. When an accident destroys most of the garden, it pushes Corazon to unexpected lengths. Her character is unexplored by the end of the second act but there is nevertheless some very fine work from the underrated Ms. Yeoh.

Sadly Rose Byrne, Troy Garrity and Chris Evans are, for the most part, cyphers. Portrayed as delicate, ignorant and determined in that order, each takes that one character trait and is able only to work that. Whether there wasn't enough screen time for each to go deeper in their character or if they just weren't that interesting and thus left on the cutting room floor, is undetermined. My guess would be the latter.

As for star Cillian Murphy, this is another strong performance from this peculiar performer. Murphy's odd physicality and palpable vulnerability give an interesting twist to his characters. These traits work especially well for Murphy when doing genre work as he did as the villain in the thriller Red Eye and as he does here in Sunshine. His uniqueness gives a different context to typical characters in typical movie situations.

Sunshine is an ambitious sci-fi epic that comes up just short of greatness. Bowing to commercial concerns, director Danny Boyle succumbs to the money men and abandons the idea driven elements of Sunshine in favor of 28 Days Later in space. This approach is no doubt more marketable but it's far less satisfying.

That said, there is enough good work, from the cinematography of Alwin Kuchler, to the terrific, for the most part, ensemble cast, to Boyle and Garland's many unfinished ideas, that I can give a partial recommendation to Sunshine.

Movie Review 10,000 B.C

10,000 B.C 

Directed by Roland Emmerich 

Written by Roland Emmerich, Harald Kloser 

Starring Steven Strait, Camilla Belle, Cliff Curtis 

Release Date March 7th, 2008 

Published March 6th, 2008 

Director Roland Emmerich has a track record that only Uwe Boll might envy. Based on the success of his one, Will Smith aided, success, Independence Day, Emmerich has been handed massive budget followed by massive budget to make one awful movie after another. There was Mel Gibson's jingoistic yay America, faux history actioner, The Patriot. Then Emmerich assassinated the legendary cheeseball Japanese monster Godzilla. Then he made a joke of environmental science with the mind numbingly awful The Day After Tomorrow. Now Emmerich is denigrating the stone age with his Flintstones-esque 10,000 B.C. I take that back, The Flintstones has more historical integrity than anything with Roland Emmerich's name on it.

Steven Strait, the vacant eyed, model cheekboned star of The Covenant takes the lead role in 10,000 B.C as D'leh. After his father deserted the tribe to chase the hunt, D'Leh became an outcast. Raised by dad's best friend Tic'Tic (Cliff Curtis), D'Leh lived to live down his father's shame. Thus when given the chance to hunt the massive wooly mammoth he risks his life to be the one to take down the beast. Secondary to overcoming his shame is winning the hand of the fair, blue eyed, Evolet (Camilla Bell), a transplant from another tribe that was overrun by four legged demons.

Those 4 legged demons are actually another tribe; smarter and more vicious than our heroes. They have horses. This evil tribe overruns other tribes, takes the men hostage and uses them to build temples to their pagan gods. When the four legged demons come to D'Leh's camp they kill men, women and children and take as many hostages as possible. A rare few survive and escape including D'Leh and his mentor Tic'Tic. Now they must hunt the hunters and free their people so that D'Leh can reclaim his girl, she was taken hostage, and become the leader of his tribe.

That is the plot in a linear, logical sense, and it's not bad in description. Unfortunately, as executed by Roland Emmerich and his apparently amateur effects team, 10,000 B.C plays alternately like the worst of Mystery Science Theater schlock or a bad Saturday Night Live skit. A scene early in the film where D'Leh and company hunt wooly mammoths literally features scenes of actors obviously running in place in front of a green screen. Later, the masses of extras building temples for the bad guys comes off as stolen stock footage of Liz Taylor's Cleopatra.

Then there is our star Steven Strait. Anyone who saw his work in the indie music drama Undiscovered, the film best known for the acting debut of Ashlee Simpson, knows that vacant stare and empty good looks. This ex-model leads a cast of gap ad ready cavemen into battle against what can only be described as the cast of the Arabic Project Runway. The bad guys, aside from a couple of toughs who lead the human hunting party, are an effete, pageantry loving people who mince like Rip Taylor in the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade. Why? Who knows why? But they do.

In a career of really bad movies, Roland Emmerich has finally hit his career low. If he can make a movie more ludicrous and amateurish, I hope we never see it. 10,000 B.C is a brutal, mind numbing, unintentionally humorous trip back in time.

Movie Review: The Meg

The Meg (2017) 

Directed by John Turteltaub 

Written by Dean Georgaris, John and Erich Hoeber 

Starring Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, Cliff Curtis 

Release Date August 10th, 2017 

Published August 9th, 2017 

The Meg stars Jason Statham as Jonas, a deep water rescue expert. When we meet Jonas for the first time he’s at the bottom of the ocean, inside a crashed submarine trying to save members of the crew. Unfortunately, something outside the sub is crushing it and Jonas is forced to make a terrible and tragic choice: save some of the crew and leave others behind or have everyone die at the hands of a monster only he believes is real.

Cut to five years later, Jonas is living as a drunken hermit in Thailand when he gets a call from his friend, Mack (Cliff Curtis) telling him that his ex-wife, Lori (Jessica McNamee) and two other crew members are trapped in disabled sub at the bottom of the ocean. By bottom of the ocean, we’re not talking about the known bottom but a newly discovered bottom of the ocean, further down than anyone has ever traveled before.

Jonas, being the hero that he is, jumps back into action to save Lori and company but the rescue has unintended consequences. An explosion has caused a breach in a wall of frost that had kept an ancient monster of the sea hidden away for centuries. Now, the ancient and mythic Megalodon is free and ready to wreak havoc on the ocean. Only Jonas, along with the brilliant scientist and oceanographer Suyin (Li Bingbing), and her crew, including Mack, Jaxx (Ruby Rose) and D.J (Page Kennedy) can stop the monster shark.

Oh, Rainn Wilson is there as well as the comic relief billionaire who is funding the research that was just to find the new bottom of the ocean but now is to save the lives of anyone who is unwittingly in the ocean with the new super-predator on loose. Wilson can be a little annoyingly quirky at times in The Meg but his final scene makes it all worth it. I would recommend The Meg based almost entirely on that one scene.

The Meg was directed by Jon Turteltaub who knows a little something about making a goofy fun action movie; he’s best known as the man behind the National Treasure franchise with Nicholas Cage. It’s been 11 years since Turteltaub has had a hit movie, the National Treasure sequel, Book of Secrets, and 7 years since he made his most recent feature film. His most recent effort, 2010’s The Sorcerer's Apprentice, another attempt at a Cage led franchise, failed spectacularly with fans and critics.

Perhaps leaving Nicholas Cage behind was a good choice, Turteltaub seems reinvigorated by having a new star in Jason Statham who, since joining the Fast and Furious franchise, and appearing with Melissa McCarthy in Spy, has developed the skills that are a perfect fit for The Meg. Statham has the ability to take the nonsense seriously without taking it too seriously. He’s not winking at the audience constantly but he’s definitely in on the gag of how silly it all is, reminiscent of the approach of his pal Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.

Statham strikes all the right notes in The Meg, including the romantic notes. Statham has terrific chemistry with love interest Bingbing Li and allows himself to be playful, charming and vulnerable, a rare combination of traits in a Statham character. Sure, he’s still intense and intimidating as Jonas, but the moments where he lets his guard down are more effective here because they are so unexpectedly charming.

The Meg succeeds on Statham’s star performance though Bingbing Li is every bit his equal in likability and sympathy. Li’s Suyin is a loyal daughter, a terrific mother to scene-stealer Shuya Sophia Cai, and a good friend to her crew members. She even gets some of the films best laughs when she secretly ogles a shirtless Statham and is nearly caught. It’s an adorable and funny performance and Li elevates the goofy material.

Sadly, the special effects of The Meg, including the title character, are the weakest part of the movie. The Meg is just okay looking, it’s not all that special. There is a fuzzy quality to the Megalodon up close and the kills, though appropriately gory, have a low budget quality that keeps them from being legitimately scary. Whether this was director Turteltaub’s intent to make the film more suitable for mass audiences or a lack of care in the effects department, I can’t say. I can only say that the film suffers a little for the lack of genuine frights.

Only a little though, the mediocre effects do work well enough to underline the campy, good natured goofiness of The Meg. This is not Jaws, there doesn’t appear to be any real intent to make The Meg scary. It’s a B-movie production that aims squarely for the PG-13 thrill market rather than the R-Rated horror market. It’s a function of mercenary marketing strategy and not an artistic concern but at least the filmmakers don’t appear to be hiding the mercenary qualities, and rather are wearing them proudly as part of the film’s odd campy charm.

I was convinced I was going to hate The Meg. So, I really should not be surprised that the film overtook such low expectations. All Jon Turteltaub needed to do to impress me here was not annoy the bejesus out of me and I was going to be rather happy. That the film, especially Jason Statham, entertained me makes the movie a genuine pleasure. I’m reminded of the same low-quality high fun appeal of the Fast and the Furious movies. If Jason Statham can keep making movies in that vein, he and I are going to be actor and fan for years to come.