The Meg

I've written a review of a Dwayne Johnson popcorn action movie fairly recently, so I'm going to hold out on reviewing Skyscraper for a while longer. In the mean time, let's take a look at the action movie stylings of another member of the Bald is Beautiful club; Jason Statham. If you aren't familiar with Jason Statham, that's maybe not surprising, considering loads of you reading this probably don't watch R-rated movies. But cast your mind back (waaay back. No, further) to the remake of The Italian Job. He's Handsome Rob.

Oh, he was also in the last couple of Fast and Furious movies, starring opposite other notable baldies Vin Diesel and, again (because this guy cannot help but come up in any discussion of Hollywood these days), Dwayne Johnson.

Yeah, there you go. You're thinking along the right lines now. And heck, you've probably got a pretty good idea of where this is going.

Look, I'm'a level with you. If you are the type of person who would enjoy this movie, simply watching this trailer will make you want to watch this movie. What I'm here to do today is clear up whether this movie delivers on what the trailer promises, or whether the movie is in fact an enormous dumpster fire of disappointment and terrible filmmaking, like Battleship was back in 2012.

Or, I guess, if the movie is actually a heartfelt and intensely personal drama or a romantic comedy. Those would also constitute a failure to deliver on the giant shark movie the trailer promised.

Look, I'll address this first. This movie is a not-really-veiled-at-all attempt by Hollywood to appeal to Asian audiences. That trend has been increasing in frequency over the past few years, to my eye ever since Pacific Rim was rescued from box office disaster by Asian viewers who were probably just tickled pink to see Hollywood creating a big-budget blockbuster that presented their hemisphere as being both tactically important and full of competent people.

Which is a weird hill to climb when you consider Pacific Rim still had plenty of issues with representation, but the point is Hollywood realized that Asian viewers do, in fact, love movies (who doesn't?), and do, in fact, have money they're willing to spend on them. Ever since then we've gotten stuff like The Great Wall, Pacific Rim Uprising, Skyscraper, and The Meg. To me, a very western viewer from a very western background, all of this manifests as a wider variation of and increased sensitivity regarding cultural representation, and I love it. It's unique, it's changed the tone of Hollywood quite a bit, and you know what? I'm pretty sure it's stuff like this focus on broader representation that has actually kept Hollywood from getting really super boring for me the past few years. So keep it up, you money-grubbing executives. It's slow and maybe badly motivated improvement, but I'll take it.

So, how was the actual movie? Well, in short, fun. I had a good time. The conflict was contrived, the characters were two-dimensional, but the special effects were quality, the script was snappy, the pacing was pretty good (a little slow at times), and the "acting" was quality. Jason Statham, in particular, is used to taking thinly characterized, melodramatic parts and making them fun for the audience to watch. I mean, he's been in two Fast and Furious movies. That's basically the first requirement the casting directors on those look for.

Is it going to win any Oscars? No. Is it going to win any Razzies? Eh, maybe one. But does it give us a cast of fun characters tossed together into the salad-mixer of a bizarre conflict and let us enjoy the wacky action set-pieces that result? Yup. Did the trailer promise anything more than Jason Statham stoically staring down a megalodon? Nope.

It's a low bar, you're absolutely right. This movie will make some kids go "WHOAAAAA", but it's not going to become a classic like Jaws or anything like that. It's just not that well made. But it is as well made as any action movie from the 80's, and so to the younger folk who convince their parents to RedBox it this weekend, it'll be a fun memory to look back on. And for you older folk, you'll probably have a good time.

Or at the very least, you won't want to gouge your own eyes out.