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 

Classic Movie Review So I Married an Ax Murderer

So I Married an Ax Murderer (1993) 

Directed by Thomas Schlamme 

Written by Robbie Fox

Starring Mike Myers, Nancy Travis, Anthony LaPaglia, Brenda Fricker, Alan Arkin 

Release Date July 30th, 1993 

Published August 4th, 2023 

I feel like I should like the movie So I Married an Ax Murderer. I have the impression of the movie as a light hearted romp with a true crime twist. It sounds charming in description: Nice guy meets a woman who happens to have a bad history with men who disappear after marrying her. There are things about it that sound like a fun twist on the true crime and rom-com genre. And yet, every time I try watching So I Married an Ax Murderer, the film sets off the pedantic, cranky side of my personality. I like to think of myself as a pretty chill, relatively relaxed guy, but when I watch So I Married an Ax Murderer, my skin crawls and I get easily irritated. 

So I Married an Ax Murderer stars Mike Myers as Charlie. Charlie is a poet in San Francisco. Is being a poet in a coffee shop his job? He doesn't appear to have any other means of support so I guess that's what we are supposed to believe. Through Charlie's poetry, set to the beat of improvised jazz, we learn that Charlie is finicky about women. His most recent break up was dubiously related to his belief that his ex-girlfriend stole his cat. Charlie's best friend, a police detective, Tony (Anthony LaPaglia), believes Charlie is too hard on the women he dates and too picky about minor flaws they may or may not have. He thinks Charlie is simply afraid of commitment. 

This notion will be put to the test when Charlie meets Harriet (Nancy Travis), a beautiful woman who seems to speak his strange comic language. The two vibe over Charlie helping Harriet on a tough and busy day at her family Butcher Shop. Charlie's Dad, also played by Myers, was also a Butcher back in the day so Charlie volunteers to work for Harriet as a way to get the chance to hit on her all day. The two flirt mercilessly, mostly via various cuts of meat, I am in cringing just thinking about this scene. I can't help it. I kept thinking, this is her place of business, she's busy with a line of customers, and this guy is doing meat based schtick. She encourages it, but I only find that equally frustrating. 

The meaty flirtation leads to the two spending the night together and helps Charlie locate the first red flag about this new relationship. Harriet has a habit of talking and moaning in her sleep while talking about someone named Ralph. When confronted about Ralph, Harriet doesn't want to talk about it. Nor does Harriet want to talk about any aspect of her past, especially the number of times she's previously been married. By coincidence, Charlie's mom (Brenda Fricker), shows him a copy of the Weekly World News tabloid which has a story about a marrying serial killer who seduces and kills husbands. The pattern matches with some of Harriet's backstory and Charlie begins to end the relationship. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze (1991) 

Directed by Michael Pressman 

Written by Todd W. Langan 

Starring Paige Turco, David Warner, Vanilla Ice, Ernie Reyes Jr. 

Release Date March 22nd, 1991 

Published August 3rd, 2023 

If you don't realize that Hollywood studio executives are blood sucking snakes eager to suck the life blood out of anything that appears remotely like a hit, I have just one sequel for you, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. Pumped out in less than 12 months after the original and without director David Barron, the man responsible for the charming first live action Turtles adventure, is as nakedly commercial and mercenary as Hollywood can possibly be. I'm sure that Barron's director's chair still had his name on it when he was already being replaced by the cheaper, less experienced but very eager Michael Pressman. 

Barron dodged a bullet, for sure. Had he stuck around to make a sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel, he would have been blamed either for not giving the fans what they wanted, more Turtles, and, more than likely, he would be blamed for the film's mediocre performance in the rushed wake of making the first film and the studio bean counters urgency in making a second film in a hot, of the moment franchise. Naturally, not at all unexpectedly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lacks for not having the steady, ingenious hand of Steve Barron guiding the sequel. 

Instead, what we get is a movie that was made cheap and fast and not at all satisfyingly. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze isn't bad, but it is kind of cheap and ugly due to the nature of it being rushed into production simply to capitalize on the success of the first film. There is always going to be an icky quality to a sequel that exists purely as a way to wring a little extra cash out of an existing intellectual property. It's always going to feel like a movie that only exists as a product to be used as a flail slapped on to the moving going consumer with the sole purpose of separating people from their cash. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media