Film Review: The Meg

"That Thing's Out There. We Need To Find It And Kill It..."

Rushing onto the big screen and breaking the rules of conventional cinematic rules by managing to swerve away from straight-to-video bargain bucket where it undeniably belongs, everyone's favourite bald-headed Brit, Jason Statham (The Fate of the Furious) leads the cast of The Meg, a horrendously dire, B-Movie nightmare which sees Statham as Jonas Taylor, a seemingly invincible and overly irresistible rescue diver who is tasked alongside a team of awfully inane scientists to defeat the titular Megalodon, a seventy foot long murderous shark thought extinct which is released upon the world to chew upon the cannon fodder of citizens which lay in its' wake. Based upon the 1997 book "Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror" by American science fiction author, Steve Alten, The Meg fails on a comprehensive level of failing to be the type of movie which can be typecast as "so bad its' good", with the film's dire script, awful dialogue and shambolic acting performances all managing to co-exist together in a finished product which ranks up there with the worst cinema has offered up this year so far, a turgid release which makes you yearn for the sheer absurdity of Sharknado.

Whilst Jason Statham is the sort of actor whose presence is always welcome in any type of movie, his particular individual performance within The Meg is Oscar worthy in comparison to the carnival of awful side-notes which encompass the supporting cast, with the likes of Rainn Wilson (The Office), Ruby Rose (John Wick: Chapter Two) and the horrendously accented Li Bingbing (Transformers: Age of Extinction) all being handed woefully two-dimensional characters whose chemistry and comedic timing comes across utterly cringe-worthy at a range of different points during the action. With a screenplay which includes the type of dialogue where each character takes it in turn to shout obvious warnings and entirely lazy portions of tiresome exposition, The Meg seems to know the genre basis it attempts to sink its' teeth into quite clearly, but thanks to the staggeringly inadequate direction of Jon Turteltaub, a filmmaker renowned for the likes of The Sorcerers Apprentice and erm, Cool Runnings, the finished product is downright stale and unworthy of viewership, and whilst it's easy to poke fun at movies which try to be just good old fun instead of attempting to come across as the new Citizen Kane, The Meg just doesn't work at any level at all, and for a movie which happens to include the brooding baldness of Jason Statham, that's quite a startling feat in itself. 

Overall Score: 3/10

Film Review: John Wick: Chapter Two

"You Stabbed The Devil In The Back. To Him This Isn't Vengeance, This Is Justice..."

Along with The Raid movies in 2011 and 2014 respectively, 2015's John Wick stands up there as a prime example of how to do an action movie properly in modern-day cinema, utilising the somewhat distant characteristic of everyone's favourite Lebanese export by creating a stone-cold merciless killer and placing him in the middle of a quite admirable neo-noir backdrop which offered the opportunity for the titular retired hitman to kill as many bad guys as humanly possible. Where the original thrived in the best use of a handgun since Michael Mann's Collateral, with the thrilling action set pieces akin more to tightly packed choreographed dance scenes than just mindless free fire, the main pulling power of the original was the B-Movie-esque straightforward storytelling of the movie, one which at no point attempted to be something more than just a classic action adventure, inevitably resulting in a much more enjoyable thrill ride than one might have previously thought. As per the norm of current cinematic climates therefore, the success of Wick inevitably has brought with it a sequel, one which once again features Reeves in the leading role and a movie which actually manages to surpass the quality of its' predecessor, featuring bigger set pieces, cooler kills and a heightened sense of sheer lunacy which creates a sequel which takes the OTT nature of the Wickverse all the way up to eleven. 

Following on almost immediately from the conclusion of the first film, Chapter Two heads straight into the action-packed territory everyone in the audience seemed to expect, highlighting Wick's reunion with his dearly departed vehicle after a mildly intense car chase, a bout of tough hand-to-hand combat battles, and a peace treaty with guest star Peter Stormare, who chews the scenery portraying the sheepish relative of Wick's foes from the first movie in a theme-setting opening ten minutes. Although more stylised than the first movie, Chapter Two also ramps up the levels of violence depicted on-screen, with its' titular character using everything from high-powered weaponry to an everyday pencil in an attempt to kill as many cannon fodder as humanly possible. In the leading role, Reeves too seems to have found peace with the character, having fun where necessary in a performance which is once again low on dialogue but ripe in complete bad-assery from start to finish. Whilst the plot is pretty straightforward, the ambiguity and strangeness of the underworld nature of Wick's world is intriguing enough to carry the film to a conclusion which inevitably leads on to the certainty of a sequel, yet if the levels of quality continue to be as superb as Chapter Two, I look forward to see what eventually comes around next. 

Overall Score: 8/10

Film Review: xXx: The Return of Xander Cage

"We Need Someone Who Can Move Like Them, Fight Like Them. It's Time To Be A Patriot..."

Adding to the long list of sequels which no one really wanted this week is the return of Vin Diesel as Xander Cage, the thrill-seeking sports enthusiast turned spy who uses his extremely silly background to kick some bad guys half to death in an even sillier b-movie esque manner, one which brought with it a wholly forgettable sequel featuring Ice Cube in the lead role with the only meaningful link between the two being the appearance of Samuel L. Jackson. With The Return of Xander Cage therefore, it comes with no surprise whatsoever that this third instalment is utter dross from beginning to end, saved ever so slightly from being a London Has Fallen style hate-fest by not being a film which sets out to offend anyone but instead suffers from a knuckle dragging screenplay which seems to serve no purpose except to inflate the ego of its' leading star who takes on the challenge of being one of the film's many producers as an excuse to be at the helm of a movie which will no doubt be regarded as one of the most self-aggrandising releases in recent history. 

Although the film does manage to exhale a few cheesy laughs during the course of its' agonisingly overstayed welcome, the ridiculously generic narrative forces itself along in order for Mr. Diesel to sleep with, flirt with and throw grenades at as many of the female cast as possible, a female cast which of course seems to be entirely populated by Playboy style models who seem to serve no purpose within the movie except to be degrading eye candy. Ironically however, aside from the mass onslaught of female extras, the movie does at least feature some kick-ass female leads in the form of Ruby Rose and Deepika Padukone who when aren't shooting endless rounds of ammunition into bad guys, sink back into non-existence with sloppy and utterly cliched dialogue. As said previously, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage isn't exactly a film which sets out to harm anyone, it just really sucks at what it does set out to accomplish from start to finish. 

Overall Score: 3/10