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Bob Mann (459 KP) rated The Meg (2018) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021
Fins ain’t what they used to be.
OK, OK, so I must be about the last person in the country – at least, those who want to see this at the cinema – who actually has! Maybe its something about the summer slipping into autumn that made me crave for one last summer blockbuster hoorah! In any case, I feel like a bit of a traitor, since I was very scathing about this film’s trailer when it came out. But – do you know – as a brainless piece of popcorn entertainment, I quite enjoyed it!
Jason Statham – the unthinking man’s Dwayne Johnson – plays our hero Jonas Taylor. (Jonas? Surely some sly joke?). Jonas is drinking his life away in Thailand after being traumatised by an underwater rescue mission in which he was 90% successful. (Yeah, I know. Bloody perfectionists. Hate ’em). But he is needed again, since his cute ex-wife Lori (Jessica McNamee) is stuck at the bottom of the sea being terrorised by a terrifying creature: no, not Spongebob Square Pants… the titular prehistoric shark.
Lori is working at an undersea research station – Mana One – off the coast of China, funded by the annoyingly brash billionaire Morris (Rainn Wilson, from “The Office”), who you just HOPE HOPE HOPE will get munched at some point!
Running the station (in the most shameless Hollywood/Chinese market crossover since “The Great Wall“) is Zhang (Winston Chao) assisted by his cute daughter Suyin (played by the gloriously named and very talented Bingbing Li) and his even cuter granddaughter Meiying (Sophia Cai). The race is on to use their brains and Taylor’s brawn to stop the monster from reaching the seaside resort of Sanya Bay for lunch.
The action is, of course, absurd with so many near misses for Jonas from gnashing teeth that he could be The Meg’s registered dentist. There is a really nice dynamic though built up between Jonas, his potential cross-cultural love interest Suyin and young Meiying. Suyin is a classic TimesUp heroine for 2018, with an assertive f***-you attitude and not remotely giving an inch to Statham’s hero.
But it’s young Sophia as Meying who really steals lines and steals hearts with a truly charming performance, and would get my ‘man of the match’ were it not for…
…research assistant Jaxx (Australian model, Ruby Rose). She has an absolutely extraordinary look in this film. Chiselled and tattooed, she literally looks like she has stepped out of a Final Fantasy video game… and acts well too: the complete package.
As referenced above, the Hollywood/Chinese crossover is quite striking in this film, with the Chinese beach location looking like Amity Island on crack! (Cue the overweight Chinese kid as the Jaws “Alex” replacement… who knew China had a child obesity issue too… and that they also have ‘Zoom’ ice lollies!) Unusually for a mainstream Western film, a significant number of lines in the film are in Chinese with English subtitles.
In the league table of shark movies, it is far nearer to “Deep Blue Sea” than it is to “Jaws”, the reigning league champion, and all are far in excess of the ridiculous “Sharknado”. But compared to “Deep Blue Sea”, and even compared to “Jaws” – now, astonishingly, 43 years old! – it’s a curiously bloodless concoction, presumably to guarantee it’s 12A certificate. I have seen far bloodier and more violent 12A’s, and if anything I think director Jon Turteltaub (“National Treasure”) rather overdid the sanitisation.
It’s not going to win many gongs at the Oscars, but it is a slice of movie fun nonetheless.
Jason Statham – the unthinking man’s Dwayne Johnson – plays our hero Jonas Taylor. (Jonas? Surely some sly joke?). Jonas is drinking his life away in Thailand after being traumatised by an underwater rescue mission in which he was 90% successful. (Yeah, I know. Bloody perfectionists. Hate ’em). But he is needed again, since his cute ex-wife Lori (Jessica McNamee) is stuck at the bottom of the sea being terrorised by a terrifying creature: no, not Spongebob Square Pants… the titular prehistoric shark.
Lori is working at an undersea research station – Mana One – off the coast of China, funded by the annoyingly brash billionaire Morris (Rainn Wilson, from “The Office”), who you just HOPE HOPE HOPE will get munched at some point!
Running the station (in the most shameless Hollywood/Chinese market crossover since “The Great Wall“) is Zhang (Winston Chao) assisted by his cute daughter Suyin (played by the gloriously named and very talented Bingbing Li) and his even cuter granddaughter Meiying (Sophia Cai). The race is on to use their brains and Taylor’s brawn to stop the monster from reaching the seaside resort of Sanya Bay for lunch.
The action is, of course, absurd with so many near misses for Jonas from gnashing teeth that he could be The Meg’s registered dentist. There is a really nice dynamic though built up between Jonas, his potential cross-cultural love interest Suyin and young Meiying. Suyin is a classic TimesUp heroine for 2018, with an assertive f***-you attitude and not remotely giving an inch to Statham’s hero.
But it’s young Sophia as Meying who really steals lines and steals hearts with a truly charming performance, and would get my ‘man of the match’ were it not for…
…research assistant Jaxx (Australian model, Ruby Rose). She has an absolutely extraordinary look in this film. Chiselled and tattooed, she literally looks like she has stepped out of a Final Fantasy video game… and acts well too: the complete package.
As referenced above, the Hollywood/Chinese crossover is quite striking in this film, with the Chinese beach location looking like Amity Island on crack! (Cue the overweight Chinese kid as the Jaws “Alex” replacement… who knew China had a child obesity issue too… and that they also have ‘Zoom’ ice lollies!) Unusually for a mainstream Western film, a significant number of lines in the film are in Chinese with English subtitles.
In the league table of shark movies, it is far nearer to “Deep Blue Sea” than it is to “Jaws”, the reigning league champion, and all are far in excess of the ridiculous “Sharknado”. But compared to “Deep Blue Sea”, and even compared to “Jaws” – now, astonishingly, 43 years old! – it’s a curiously bloodless concoction, presumably to guarantee it’s 12A certificate. I have seen far bloodier and more violent 12A’s, and if anything I think director Jon Turteltaub (“National Treasure”) rather overdid the sanitisation.
It’s not going to win many gongs at the Oscars, but it is a slice of movie fun nonetheless.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Downsizing (2017) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
Tiny People, Big Mess.
From the trailer this film looked quirky, funny and interesting and has been on my “looking forward to” list for many months. Oh dear, what a let down.
Matt Damon (“The Martian“, “The Great Wall“, “Jason Bourne“) and Kristen Wiig (“mother!“, “Ghostbusters“) play Paul and Audrey Safranek. Paul is a laid-back and hardworking occupational therapist; Audrey has materialistic ambitions over and above their available finances. The two decide to “downsize” making use of a revolutionary Norwegian invention that reduces humans, and most other lifeforms, to a fraction of their normal size. This offers huge wealth to the normal American, since the cost of living in downsized form within the mini-estate called LeisureLand is tiny in comparison to “big folks”. But all does not go well in the transition (unlike the trailer, no spoilers here) and Paul needs to find a new purpose in life as bigger problems loom.
It’s clearly written to be a social satire, and there are some clever angles to be explored here: everyone publicly positions their downsizing based on ‘environmental issues’ and ‘saving the planet’, but most everyone’s real reason is the lifestyle benefits. Also lightly touched on, but never deeply explored, are the impacts that the downsizing initiative is having on the broader American economy and property markets, with the ‘big people’ questioning why small people should have the same rights and votes as them.
But the film never really gets into the meat of any of this. Worse than that, the movie never settles on what it is trying to be. I think we can write off “Sci-Fi” pretty early on. But is it a drama? A comedy? A love story? A socialist rant? An environmental cri de coeur? The film jumbles all these aspects together and treats each so halfheartedly that none of them get properly addressed.
Not only are the audience confused: none of the actors seem to be too sure why they’re there either. Damon – never Mr Personality – should have been able to develop some chemistry with the feisty and dynamic Ms Wiig, but even these early scenes plod along with you thinking “what a dull film”. Things perk up slightly at the LeisureLand sales fair, where Neil Patrick Harris (“Gone Girl“) and a naked Laura Dern (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi“) glibly try to sell a luxury doll’s house to the assembled crowd. American consumerism in miniature.
But post-downsizing the film crashes back to ‘Dullesville Arizona’ again, but with added depression, requiring Christophe Waltz (“Django Unchanined”, “Spectre“), as a dodgy Serbian entrepreneur Dusan Mirkovic, to over-act manically to try to add any sort of energy into the film (which he is only mildly successful at doing). There’s a rather bizarre supporting role from Udo Kier – looking for all the world like Terence Stamp – as Mirkovic’s ship-owning pal, and an almost cameo performance from Jason Sudeikis (“Colossal“).
Enter stage-left Thai-born Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran, a Vietnamese cleaner. There’s a clever angle here: where “average American Joes” like Safranek can live like kings, but the poor still have to scrape by, living in ‘skyscraper Portacabins’, as the menial classes: there’s no escaping class structures, even when 5 inches tall. Chau sums up the uneven nature of the film, as she mostly plays her lines for laughs but then (in a spectacularly good bit of acting in the midst of, I have to say, some pretty poor hamming) bursts into uncontrollable tears.
Just when you think things are going to limp to a unmemorable close, the film ups and leaves LeisureLand to add a completely bizarre final act. (It’s pretty unusual in the UK for people to walk out of a cinema mid-film, but a couple did so at this point). This segment bears no relationship to the downsizing theme whatsoever, since all the players at this point could be full-sized. Aside from an amusing “50 shades of f**k” speech from Ngoc Lan Tran and a “massive explosion”, this story goes nowhere, says nothing (at least not to me) and merely irritates. Throw in a completely anti-climatic non-ending and I genuinely shared a “WTF look” with the stranger sat next to me!
This is all very strange, since this comes from Alexander Payne, who also directed and co-wrote “The Descendants”, one of the most impressive films of the decade. Jim Taylor co-writes (as he has co-written numerous other films with Payne).
I note that in this morning’s London Times that their film critic, Kevin Maher – someone who’s views I am generally pretty well aligned with – gave it 4 *’s out of 5. I can only assume that he either saw a completely different cut of the film, or he is a lot cleverer than I am and understood amazing sub-texts that completely passed me by! Maybe… but I have a sneaking suspicion that the general viewing public will more share my opinion on this than his.
I was tempted to give this just one star as it was such a disappointment to me, but the underlying concept is a good one: it is just one that has, in my humble opinion, been implemented in a bizarrely slipshod manner.
Definitely not recommended. Go and see “Coco” instead!
Matt Damon (“The Martian“, “The Great Wall“, “Jason Bourne“) and Kristen Wiig (“mother!“, “Ghostbusters“) play Paul and Audrey Safranek. Paul is a laid-back and hardworking occupational therapist; Audrey has materialistic ambitions over and above their available finances. The two decide to “downsize” making use of a revolutionary Norwegian invention that reduces humans, and most other lifeforms, to a fraction of their normal size. This offers huge wealth to the normal American, since the cost of living in downsized form within the mini-estate called LeisureLand is tiny in comparison to “big folks”. But all does not go well in the transition (unlike the trailer, no spoilers here) and Paul needs to find a new purpose in life as bigger problems loom.
It’s clearly written to be a social satire, and there are some clever angles to be explored here: everyone publicly positions their downsizing based on ‘environmental issues’ and ‘saving the planet’, but most everyone’s real reason is the lifestyle benefits. Also lightly touched on, but never deeply explored, are the impacts that the downsizing initiative is having on the broader American economy and property markets, with the ‘big people’ questioning why small people should have the same rights and votes as them.
But the film never really gets into the meat of any of this. Worse than that, the movie never settles on what it is trying to be. I think we can write off “Sci-Fi” pretty early on. But is it a drama? A comedy? A love story? A socialist rant? An environmental cri de coeur? The film jumbles all these aspects together and treats each so halfheartedly that none of them get properly addressed.
Not only are the audience confused: none of the actors seem to be too sure why they’re there either. Damon – never Mr Personality – should have been able to develop some chemistry with the feisty and dynamic Ms Wiig, but even these early scenes plod along with you thinking “what a dull film”. Things perk up slightly at the LeisureLand sales fair, where Neil Patrick Harris (“Gone Girl“) and a naked Laura Dern (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi“) glibly try to sell a luxury doll’s house to the assembled crowd. American consumerism in miniature.
But post-downsizing the film crashes back to ‘Dullesville Arizona’ again, but with added depression, requiring Christophe Waltz (“Django Unchanined”, “Spectre“), as a dodgy Serbian entrepreneur Dusan Mirkovic, to over-act manically to try to add any sort of energy into the film (which he is only mildly successful at doing). There’s a rather bizarre supporting role from Udo Kier – looking for all the world like Terence Stamp – as Mirkovic’s ship-owning pal, and an almost cameo performance from Jason Sudeikis (“Colossal“).
Enter stage-left Thai-born Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran, a Vietnamese cleaner. There’s a clever angle here: where “average American Joes” like Safranek can live like kings, but the poor still have to scrape by, living in ‘skyscraper Portacabins’, as the menial classes: there’s no escaping class structures, even when 5 inches tall. Chau sums up the uneven nature of the film, as she mostly plays her lines for laughs but then (in a spectacularly good bit of acting in the midst of, I have to say, some pretty poor hamming) bursts into uncontrollable tears.
Just when you think things are going to limp to a unmemorable close, the film ups and leaves LeisureLand to add a completely bizarre final act. (It’s pretty unusual in the UK for people to walk out of a cinema mid-film, but a couple did so at this point). This segment bears no relationship to the downsizing theme whatsoever, since all the players at this point could be full-sized. Aside from an amusing “50 shades of f**k” speech from Ngoc Lan Tran and a “massive explosion”, this story goes nowhere, says nothing (at least not to me) and merely irritates. Throw in a completely anti-climatic non-ending and I genuinely shared a “WTF look” with the stranger sat next to me!
This is all very strange, since this comes from Alexander Payne, who also directed and co-wrote “The Descendants”, one of the most impressive films of the decade. Jim Taylor co-writes (as he has co-written numerous other films with Payne).
I note that in this morning’s London Times that their film critic, Kevin Maher – someone who’s views I am generally pretty well aligned with – gave it 4 *’s out of 5. I can only assume that he either saw a completely different cut of the film, or he is a lot cleverer than I am and understood amazing sub-texts that completely passed me by! Maybe… but I have a sneaking suspicion that the general viewing public will more share my opinion on this than his.
I was tempted to give this just one star as it was such a disappointment to me, but the underlying concept is a good one: it is just one that has, in my humble opinion, been implemented in a bizarrely slipshod manner.
Definitely not recommended. Go and see “Coco” instead!
Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Cats (2019) in Movies
Dec 27, 2019
[Nostalgia enters the room looking cheery. A cat lurks in the background. Nostalgia starts tapdancing. Suddenly a red dot appears on Nostalgia's back and the cat savagely attacks it, leaving it bloody and beaten on the ground.]
As I've been saying to people... this film isn't good, but it's also not entirely bad, it has its moments.
Let's talk about the CGI first. You know what? It's not all that bad. Take out whatever you think about the concept of the human cats the fur in the second trailer looked much better than its first outing. During the film, Old Deuteronomy looked so fluffy I just wanted to pet her. The ear movements were pretty good, if a little consistent, it felt a little like they'd looked up cat actions in a book and taken the textbook description to animate rather than watching an actual cat. The cats as a whole could probably been a little larger compared to the "life-sized" staging around them because the ratio did feel a little off, but it wasn't really enough to make it off-putting.
Ever since I saw Cats at the cinema I've been singing the songs, but that's off the back of me listening to the stage recordings on Spotify and not the film versions. They don't quite have the same pep of the originals, watching them wasn't the wondrous experience I was hoping for. There are small exceptions. Taylor Swift was excellent and set a perfect tone for her number. Jason Derulo is a showman in this and after his Red Dwarf Cat-like clip in the trailer I was excited for his full numbers, they didn't disappoint.
Memory has to be my favourite song since seeing it on the stage and I was keen to see the talented Jennifer Hudson perform it. When it surfaced briefly I was worried, there was no impact, no heart... potential disaster. Finally the full number happened at the end and I was convinced. I listened to Hudson sing with such emotion that I cried, streams of tears and a quivering lip. It was beautiful.
The rest of the cast, while chockful of talent, didn't have quite the same buzz about it.
Francesca Hayward is a massively talented ballerina but the acting portion of the performance didn't quite hit the spot. This wasn't helped by the advert that has been running with her and Jennifer Hudson before the trailer was running before every film I watched for about two weeks.
I love Dame Judi and Sir Ian, and it was fun seeing them in this, but both had their issues. I wasn't a fan of Dench's moments of singing and the melancholy role of Gus for McKellen was a little unsettling. Who doesn't love seeing an Idris Elba film? He does the bad "guy" well but there was something wrong here too, I think that was partly to do with that fur torso.
It would be entirely possible to go on and on about this and all its ins and outs, but I don't think either of us have the time for that. I do feel that having the previous knowledge of Cats on the stage will help immensely when seeing this. That does also have some drawbacks though, when we saw it at the theatre it was a very interactive experience with the cats in the aisles with the audience and that's something the film can't compete with. I'm tempted to say that they should have forgone CGI aspects for the most part and had costumed cast. Making something more realistic when everything around it is unrealistic (in that it's not quite what we're used to as regular-sized humans) makes everything more confusing, perhaps the low tech angle would have made it a little less scary to some.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2019/12/cats-movie-review.html
As I've been saying to people... this film isn't good, but it's also not entirely bad, it has its moments.
Let's talk about the CGI first. You know what? It's not all that bad. Take out whatever you think about the concept of the human cats the fur in the second trailer looked much better than its first outing. During the film, Old Deuteronomy looked so fluffy I just wanted to pet her. The ear movements were pretty good, if a little consistent, it felt a little like they'd looked up cat actions in a book and taken the textbook description to animate rather than watching an actual cat. The cats as a whole could probably been a little larger compared to the "life-sized" staging around them because the ratio did feel a little off, but it wasn't really enough to make it off-putting.
Ever since I saw Cats at the cinema I've been singing the songs, but that's off the back of me listening to the stage recordings on Spotify and not the film versions. They don't quite have the same pep of the originals, watching them wasn't the wondrous experience I was hoping for. There are small exceptions. Taylor Swift was excellent and set a perfect tone for her number. Jason Derulo is a showman in this and after his Red Dwarf Cat-like clip in the trailer I was excited for his full numbers, they didn't disappoint.
Memory has to be my favourite song since seeing it on the stage and I was keen to see the talented Jennifer Hudson perform it. When it surfaced briefly I was worried, there was no impact, no heart... potential disaster. Finally the full number happened at the end and I was convinced. I listened to Hudson sing with such emotion that I cried, streams of tears and a quivering lip. It was beautiful.
The rest of the cast, while chockful of talent, didn't have quite the same buzz about it.
Francesca Hayward is a massively talented ballerina but the acting portion of the performance didn't quite hit the spot. This wasn't helped by the advert that has been running with her and Jennifer Hudson before the trailer was running before every film I watched for about two weeks.
I love Dame Judi and Sir Ian, and it was fun seeing them in this, but both had their issues. I wasn't a fan of Dench's moments of singing and the melancholy role of Gus for McKellen was a little unsettling. Who doesn't love seeing an Idris Elba film? He does the bad "guy" well but there was something wrong here too, I think that was partly to do with that fur torso.
It would be entirely possible to go on and on about this and all its ins and outs, but I don't think either of us have the time for that. I do feel that having the previous knowledge of Cats on the stage will help immensely when seeing this. That does also have some drawbacks though, when we saw it at the theatre it was a very interactive experience with the cats in the aisles with the audience and that's something the film can't compete with. I'm tempted to say that they should have forgone CGI aspects for the most part and had costumed cast. Making something more realistic when everything around it is unrealistic (in that it's not quite what we're used to as regular-sized humans) makes everything more confusing, perhaps the low tech angle would have made it a little less scary to some.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2019/12/cats-movie-review.html
Gareth von Kallenbach (968 KP) rated Downsizing (2017) in Movies
Jul 11, 2019
Overpopulation is a growing problem in the world and two Doctors, Dr. Jorgen Asbjornsen (Rolf Lassgard) and Dr. Andreas Jacobsen (Soren Pilmark) have found what they believe is the answer. The have discovered how to shrink all kinds of living matter, including humans. Asbjornsen and a group of volunteers are shrunk and live for years before showing the world. They believe that they can help solve the worlds hunger crisis as well as overpopulation. When occupational therapist Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) first hears of this he is fascinated with the idea of doing something grand to help save the world. But it isn’t until years later when he and his wife, Audrey Safranek (Kristen Wiig), run into an old college friend, Dave Johnson (Jason Sudeikis), who has been shrunk that he realizes he might be able to have a better life at four inches tall. Because of how cheap everything is to build for new tiny people there is an opportunity to live lavishly on meager means. The Safrankek’s have been struggling to get by and really be able enjoy life. When they hear that their hundreds of thousands could be millions they see this as their chance to live the luxury life. The head out to Leisureland Estates, a tiny community, to see what the small world has to offer. After the visit they are convinced and decide to go through with the procedure and begin the irreversible process of becoming “small.” On the operation date they go to separate areas to get completely shaved and prepped. When Paul wakes up he is surprised that Audrey is not with him and she has decided she cannot go through the irreversible process. After his divorce he is left alone trying to find himself and where he fits in a whole new world, at a whole new size.
This Alexander Payne (The Descendants, Nebraska, Sideways) written (co-written by Jim Taylor) and directed film is interesting and fun. If you look at this movie as a satire and don’t get too caught up in is this actually plausible you will be fine. For instance they make mention to how the people who are shrunk are pretty much left alone by things like mosquitoes and other insects but never mention things like rodents or other predators that would be difficult to fend off. I also was surprised by how in depth they get into social issues as the trailer I saw made it look more comedic than the film turned out to be. Not saying that there are not funny moments but the emphasis was really on issues like global overpopulation, exploitation of the poor, etc. and how one man decides to tackle these issues as the present themselves. I was taken by surprise at first but by the end of the film it really put everything into perspective.
Hong Chau, as Ngoc Lan Tran in the film, stood out and was really funny at times. The rest of the cast was good and fit the story well. The story did tend to drift between comedy and drama and not always as smoothly as intended. The film comes in at 2 hours and 15 minutes which is a little long but really if it was shorter the story would be even more all over the place. The plausibility of most of the film was in question for me and that was definitely distracting. But looking back if I spent less time on that I would have enjoyed the film more. Visually nothing really stand out like I thought it would and there was potential. The novelty of everyday things being bigger did get over done a little.
This Alexander Payne (The Descendants, Nebraska, Sideways) written (co-written by Jim Taylor) and directed film is interesting and fun. If you look at this movie as a satire and don’t get too caught up in is this actually plausible you will be fine. For instance they make mention to how the people who are shrunk are pretty much left alone by things like mosquitoes and other insects but never mention things like rodents or other predators that would be difficult to fend off. I also was surprised by how in depth they get into social issues as the trailer I saw made it look more comedic than the film turned out to be. Not saying that there are not funny moments but the emphasis was really on issues like global overpopulation, exploitation of the poor, etc. and how one man decides to tackle these issues as the present themselves. I was taken by surprise at first but by the end of the film it really put everything into perspective.
Hong Chau, as Ngoc Lan Tran in the film, stood out and was really funny at times. The rest of the cast was good and fit the story well. The story did tend to drift between comedy and drama and not always as smoothly as intended. The film comes in at 2 hours and 15 minutes which is a little long but really if it was shorter the story would be even more all over the place. The plausibility of most of the film was in question for me and that was definitely distracting. But looking back if I spent less time on that I would have enjoyed the film more. Visually nothing really stand out like I thought it would and there was potential. The novelty of everyday things being bigger did get over done a little.
Gareth von Kallenbach (968 KP) rated The Meg (2018) in Movies
Jun 19, 2019
The long journey to bring “The Meg” to the big screen is finally over as Author Steve Alten’s classic book series has arrived.
The film stars Jason Statham as Jonas Taylor, an expert in underwater rescues who has to makes a very difficult choice when a rescue goes bad after suffering a very unexpected encounter mid-rescue.
Five years later Jonas is out of the rescue game as he has been labeled as unreliable and prone to PTSD so he drinks his time away in Thailand working on local boats.
200 miles off the coasts of China is an advanced research lab which is the pet project of a Billionaire named Morris (Rainn Wilson), who arrives in time to witness an attempt by the crew to go deeper than ever thought possible by going through a layer that was previously believed to be the ocean floor. The experiment works and the crew is amazed by their new discoveries until something violently attacks their ship leaving them stranded on the bottom of the ocean.
With a limited amount of air and time ticking away, Jonas is recruited despite his numerous refusals as not only is one of the stranded people his ex; but the last transmission sent by the sub mentions how Jonas had been right all along when he had years early claimed they were not alone during the rescue attempt gone bad.
Jonas is teamed with a spirited member of the team named Suyin (Bingbing Li), who has taken a sub down ahead of Jonas as she was not willing to wait for outside help to arrive. She locates her comrades and is attacked by a massive shark long thought extinct.
The harrowing rescue goes off but again Jonas is faced with a no-win situation and is blamed by a former colleague for the issues.
While Morris is eager to exploit the new find for the huge financial opportunity it presents, their plans change when the creature emerges from its contained area and threatens a level of carnage on the seas the likes of which society and the ecosystem are very unprepared for.
What follows is a frantic and often intense series of engagements as Jonas and the crew must battle the massive and deadly creature and find a way to survive.
The film has some very solid effects and the intensity at times had people in the press screening partially covering their eyes during some of the more harrowing moments.
The cast is solid and work well with one another as the film does what it can to keep some of the characters from being little more than generic victims for the Meg.
The movie does differ from the book in terms of being set off China versus California but this was largely due to the joint-production with Chinese owned Gravity Pictures. The film is also much less gory than the book as Director Jon Turteltaub was mandated to deliver a PG-13 film by the studio to improve the odds of returning on the $150.00 million invested in the film.
The dialogue is also a bit stilted and formulaic in parts but action films are not known for their complex plots or advanced dialogue and I attributed this largely to the challenges of a blended cast; many of whom do not speak English as their primary language.
Despite a delay from its planned 2017 release date, “The Meg” is a solid and fun action-thriller that gives audiences one of the best excuses not to go swimming since “Jaws”. While there have been numerous Shark films over the years, “The Meg” deftly weaves good sets and production values with a top-notch cast and lavish visuals to bring the film to life.
With several other books in the series already available, I hope we see the next film surface in a few years as I cannot wait to see what comes next.
http://sknr.net/2018/08/08/the-meg/
The film stars Jason Statham as Jonas Taylor, an expert in underwater rescues who has to makes a very difficult choice when a rescue goes bad after suffering a very unexpected encounter mid-rescue.
Five years later Jonas is out of the rescue game as he has been labeled as unreliable and prone to PTSD so he drinks his time away in Thailand working on local boats.
200 miles off the coasts of China is an advanced research lab which is the pet project of a Billionaire named Morris (Rainn Wilson), who arrives in time to witness an attempt by the crew to go deeper than ever thought possible by going through a layer that was previously believed to be the ocean floor. The experiment works and the crew is amazed by their new discoveries until something violently attacks their ship leaving them stranded on the bottom of the ocean.
With a limited amount of air and time ticking away, Jonas is recruited despite his numerous refusals as not only is one of the stranded people his ex; but the last transmission sent by the sub mentions how Jonas had been right all along when he had years early claimed they were not alone during the rescue attempt gone bad.
Jonas is teamed with a spirited member of the team named Suyin (Bingbing Li), who has taken a sub down ahead of Jonas as she was not willing to wait for outside help to arrive. She locates her comrades and is attacked by a massive shark long thought extinct.
The harrowing rescue goes off but again Jonas is faced with a no-win situation and is blamed by a former colleague for the issues.
While Morris is eager to exploit the new find for the huge financial opportunity it presents, their plans change when the creature emerges from its contained area and threatens a level of carnage on the seas the likes of which society and the ecosystem are very unprepared for.
What follows is a frantic and often intense series of engagements as Jonas and the crew must battle the massive and deadly creature and find a way to survive.
The film has some very solid effects and the intensity at times had people in the press screening partially covering their eyes during some of the more harrowing moments.
The cast is solid and work well with one another as the film does what it can to keep some of the characters from being little more than generic victims for the Meg.
The movie does differ from the book in terms of being set off China versus California but this was largely due to the joint-production with Chinese owned Gravity Pictures. The film is also much less gory than the book as Director Jon Turteltaub was mandated to deliver a PG-13 film by the studio to improve the odds of returning on the $150.00 million invested in the film.
The dialogue is also a bit stilted and formulaic in parts but action films are not known for their complex plots or advanced dialogue and I attributed this largely to the challenges of a blended cast; many of whom do not speak English as their primary language.
Despite a delay from its planned 2017 release date, “The Meg” is a solid and fun action-thriller that gives audiences one of the best excuses not to go swimming since “Jaws”. While there have been numerous Shark films over the years, “The Meg” deftly weaves good sets and production values with a top-notch cast and lavish visuals to bring the film to life.
With several other books in the series already available, I hope we see the next film surface in a few years as I cannot wait to see what comes next.
http://sknr.net/2018/08/08/the-meg/
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Tenet (2020) in Movies
Aug 28, 2020
Spectacular action set pieces done "in camera" (1 more)
Branagh and Debecki, both superb
Sound mix makes dialogue unintelligible (1 more)
In the words of Huey Lewis, "You're too darn loud"
Only Nolan and Schrödinger’s cat knows what’s going on.
Tenet is the long awaited new movie from Christopher Nolan. The movie that's set to reboot the multiplexes post-Covid. It's a manic, extremely loud, extremely baffling sci-fi cum spy rollercoaster that will please a lot of Nolan fan-boys but which left me with very mixed views.
How to write a spoiler-free plot summary? John David Washington (Denzel's lad) plays "The Protagonist" - a crack-CIA field operative who is an unstoppable one-man army in the style of Hobbs or Shaw. Recruited into an even more shadowy organisation, he's on the trail of an international arms dealer, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh in full villain mode). Sator is bullying his estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) over custody of their son (and the film unusually has a BBFC warning about "Domestic Abuse"). Our hero jets the world to try to prevent a very particular kind of Armageddon while also keeping the vulnerable and attractive Kat alive.
This is cinema at its biggest and boldest. Nolan has taken a cinema 'splurge' gun, filled it with money, set it on rapid fire, removed the safety and let rip at the screen. Given that Nolan is famous for doing all of his 'effects' for real and 'in camera', some of what you see performed is almost unbelievable. You thought crashing a train through rush-hour traffic in "Inception" was crazy? You ain't seen nothing yet with the airport scene! And for lovers of Chinooks (I must admit I am one and rush out of the house to see one if I hear it coming!) there is positively Chinook-p*rn on offer in the film's ridiculously huge finale.
The 'inversion' aspects of the story also lends itself to some fight scenes - one in particular in an airport 'freeport' - which are both bizarre to watch and, I imagine, technically extremely challenging to pull off. In this regard John David Washington is an acrobatic and talented stunt performer in his own right, and must have trained for months for this role.
Nolan's crew also certainly racked up their air miles pre-lockdown, since the locations range far and wide across the world. The locations encompassed Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States. Hoyte Van Hoytema's cinematography is lush in introducing these, especially the beautiful Italian coast scenes. Although I did miss the David Arnold strings that would typically introduce these in a Bond movie: it felt like that was missing.
The 'timey-wimey' aspects of the plot are also intriguing and very cleverly done. There are numerous points at which you think "Oh, that's a sloppy continuity error" or "Shame the production design team missed that cracked wing mirror". Then later in the movie, you get at least a dozen "Aha!" moments. Some of them (no spoilers) are jaw-droppingly spectacular.
Perhaps the best twist is hidden in the final line of the movie. I only processed it on the way home.
And so to the first of my significant gripes with Tenet. The sound mix in the movie is all over the place. I'd go stronger than that... it's truly awful (expletive deleted)! Nolan often implements Shakespeare's trick of having characters in the play provide exposition of the plot to aid comprehension. But unfortunately, all of this exposition dialogue was largely incomprehensible. This was due to:
- the ear-splitting volume of the sound: 2020 movie audiences are going to be suffering from 'Tenetis'! (that joke © David Moody, 2020);
- the dialogue is poorly mixed with the thumping music by Ludwig Göransson (Wot? No Hans Zimmer?);
- a large proportion of the dialogue was through masks of varying description (#covid-appropriate). Aaron Taylor-Johnson was particularly unintelligible to my ears.
Overall, watching this with subtitles at a special showing might be advisable!
OK, so I only have a PhD in Physics... but at times I was completely lost as to the intricacies of the plot. It made "Inception" look like "The Tiger Who Came to Tea". There was an obvious 'McGuffin' in "Inception" - - ("These 'dream levels'... how exactly are they architected??".... "Don't worry... they'll never notice". And we didn't!) In "Tenet" there are McGuffins nested in McGuffins. So much of this is casually waved away as "future stuff... you're not qualified" that it feels vaguely condescending to the audience. At one point Kat says "I don't understand what's going on" - darn right luv.
There are also gaps in the storyline that jar. The word "Tenet"? What does it mean. Is it just a password? I'm none the wiser.
The manic pace of Tenet and the constant din means that the movie gallops along like a series of disconnected (albeit brilliant) action set pieces. For me, it has none of the emotional heart of the Cobb's marriage problems from "Inception" or the father/daughter separation of "Interstellar". In fact, you barely care for anyone in the movie, perhaps with the exception of Kat.
It's a talented cast. As mentioned above, John David Washington is muscular and athletic in the role. It's a big load for the actor to carry in such a tent-pole movie, given his only significant starring role before was in the excellent BlacKkKlansman. But he carries it off well. A worthy successor to Gerard Butler and Jason Statham for action roles in the next 10 years.
This is also a great performance by Robert Pattinson, in his most high-profile film in a long time, playing the vaguely alcoholic and Carré-esque support guy. Pattinson's Potter co-star Clemence Poésy also pops up - rather more un-glam that usual - as the scientist plot-expositor early in the movie.
Nolan's regular Michael Caine also pops up. although the 87-year old legend is starting to show his age: His speech was obviously affected at the time of filming (though nice try Mr Nolan in trying to disguise that with a mouth full of food!). But in my book, any amount of Caine in a movie is a plus. He also gets to deliver the best killer line in the film about snobbery!
However, it's Kenneth Branagh and Elizabeth Debicki that really stand out. They were both fabulous, especially when they were bouncing off each other in their marital battle royale.
So, given this was my most anticipated movie of the year, it's a bit of a curate's egg for me. A mixture of being awe-struck at times and slightly disappointed at others. It's a movie which needs a second watch, so I'm heading back today to give my ear drums another bashing! And this is one where I reserve the right to revisit my rating after that second watch... it's not likely to go down... but it might go up.
(For the full graphical review, check out One Mann's Movies here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/08/28/tenet-only-nolan-and-schrodingers-cat-knows-whats-going-on/ .)
How to write a spoiler-free plot summary? John David Washington (Denzel's lad) plays "The Protagonist" - a crack-CIA field operative who is an unstoppable one-man army in the style of Hobbs or Shaw. Recruited into an even more shadowy organisation, he's on the trail of an international arms dealer, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh in full villain mode). Sator is bullying his estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) over custody of their son (and the film unusually has a BBFC warning about "Domestic Abuse"). Our hero jets the world to try to prevent a very particular kind of Armageddon while also keeping the vulnerable and attractive Kat alive.
This is cinema at its biggest and boldest. Nolan has taken a cinema 'splurge' gun, filled it with money, set it on rapid fire, removed the safety and let rip at the screen. Given that Nolan is famous for doing all of his 'effects' for real and 'in camera', some of what you see performed is almost unbelievable. You thought crashing a train through rush-hour traffic in "Inception" was crazy? You ain't seen nothing yet with the airport scene! And for lovers of Chinooks (I must admit I am one and rush out of the house to see one if I hear it coming!) there is positively Chinook-p*rn on offer in the film's ridiculously huge finale.
The 'inversion' aspects of the story also lends itself to some fight scenes - one in particular in an airport 'freeport' - which are both bizarre to watch and, I imagine, technically extremely challenging to pull off. In this regard John David Washington is an acrobatic and talented stunt performer in his own right, and must have trained for months for this role.
Nolan's crew also certainly racked up their air miles pre-lockdown, since the locations range far and wide across the world. The locations encompassed Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States. Hoyte Van Hoytema's cinematography is lush in introducing these, especially the beautiful Italian coast scenes. Although I did miss the David Arnold strings that would typically introduce these in a Bond movie: it felt like that was missing.
The 'timey-wimey' aspects of the plot are also intriguing and very cleverly done. There are numerous points at which you think "Oh, that's a sloppy continuity error" or "Shame the production design team missed that cracked wing mirror". Then later in the movie, you get at least a dozen "Aha!" moments. Some of them (no spoilers) are jaw-droppingly spectacular.
Perhaps the best twist is hidden in the final line of the movie. I only processed it on the way home.
And so to the first of my significant gripes with Tenet. The sound mix in the movie is all over the place. I'd go stronger than that... it's truly awful (expletive deleted)! Nolan often implements Shakespeare's trick of having characters in the play provide exposition of the plot to aid comprehension. But unfortunately, all of this exposition dialogue was largely incomprehensible. This was due to:
- the ear-splitting volume of the sound: 2020 movie audiences are going to be suffering from 'Tenetis'! (that joke © David Moody, 2020);
- the dialogue is poorly mixed with the thumping music by Ludwig Göransson (Wot? No Hans Zimmer?);
- a large proportion of the dialogue was through masks of varying description (#covid-appropriate). Aaron Taylor-Johnson was particularly unintelligible to my ears.
Overall, watching this with subtitles at a special showing might be advisable!
OK, so I only have a PhD in Physics... but at times I was completely lost as to the intricacies of the plot. It made "Inception" look like "The Tiger Who Came to Tea". There was an obvious 'McGuffin' in "Inception" - - ("These 'dream levels'... how exactly are they architected??".... "Don't worry... they'll never notice". And we didn't!) In "Tenet" there are McGuffins nested in McGuffins. So much of this is casually waved away as "future stuff... you're not qualified" that it feels vaguely condescending to the audience. At one point Kat says "I don't understand what's going on" - darn right luv.
There are also gaps in the storyline that jar. The word "Tenet"? What does it mean. Is it just a password? I'm none the wiser.
The manic pace of Tenet and the constant din means that the movie gallops along like a series of disconnected (albeit brilliant) action set pieces. For me, it has none of the emotional heart of the Cobb's marriage problems from "Inception" or the father/daughter separation of "Interstellar". In fact, you barely care for anyone in the movie, perhaps with the exception of Kat.
It's a talented cast. As mentioned above, John David Washington is muscular and athletic in the role. It's a big load for the actor to carry in such a tent-pole movie, given his only significant starring role before was in the excellent BlacKkKlansman. But he carries it off well. A worthy successor to Gerard Butler and Jason Statham for action roles in the next 10 years.
This is also a great performance by Robert Pattinson, in his most high-profile film in a long time, playing the vaguely alcoholic and Carré-esque support guy. Pattinson's Potter co-star Clemence Poésy also pops up - rather more un-glam that usual - as the scientist plot-expositor early in the movie.
Nolan's regular Michael Caine also pops up. although the 87-year old legend is starting to show his age: His speech was obviously affected at the time of filming (though nice try Mr Nolan in trying to disguise that with a mouth full of food!). But in my book, any amount of Caine in a movie is a plus. He also gets to deliver the best killer line in the film about snobbery!
However, it's Kenneth Branagh and Elizabeth Debicki that really stand out. They were both fabulous, especially when they were bouncing off each other in their marital battle royale.
So, given this was my most anticipated movie of the year, it's a bit of a curate's egg for me. A mixture of being awe-struck at times and slightly disappointed at others. It's a movie which needs a second watch, so I'm heading back today to give my ear drums another bashing! And this is one where I reserve the right to revisit my rating after that second watch... it's not likely to go down... but it might go up.
(For the full graphical review, check out One Mann's Movies here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/08/28/tenet-only-nolan-and-schrodingers-cat-knows-whats-going-on/ .)
