Meg 2 -The Trench (2023) I came to realize some time ago that it's pointless to apply critical standards to a movie like this......
Mostly financed by China, it's not designed for people who'd read reviews before they go see a movie.
Then who's it for? Easy......for easiest-to-please audiences willing to put all rational thought processes in shutdown mode before the movie starts.....then sit back and let a rushing Tsunami of CGI and constant action assault them for two hours.
Now a confession I'm sure I've made before.....
At times, I feel no shame in doing just that.......click off the brain, break out the butter popcorn and plunge head first into a movie so idiotic, so pointless, so machine-tooled, that I couldn't possibly ever make any excuses for it.......or for me caught watching it......
Believe it or not, it's entirely possible to enjoy the hell out of 'Meg 2', if you view the movie for what it is....(a soulless, greed fueled fast cash grab)..... once you make your peace with that it's surprising how easy you can extract actual entertainment value out of this move. Yes, you can shake your head in bemused disbelief while you gape in a state of delirium, dazzled by pure unadulterated idiocy, fueled with millions of Chinese dollars.
So you heard me plainly....I'm admitting to watching 'Meg 2'......and (prepare for cinematic sacrilege and blasphemy).....and thought it was....do I even dare say it?......fun.
Talk about backstory flashbacks.......the film kicks off with a colorful live-action diorama of the Cretaceous period, with various oversized bugs and lizards devouring one another. A big ass T-Rex shows up to show 'em all who sits at the top of the prehistoric food chain......that is, until our beloved Meggy, the cruise-ship-sized Sharkzilla, pops up to snack on poor Rexxie as if he's a dino-chicken nugget.
From there, we're back to current day, where the seething, stoic Jason Statham and his bunch of multi-diverse oceanic explorers find themselves in one harrowing deep water adventure after another.....(none of which I'll bore you with any detailed descriptions......other than the gang's underwater with the Meg-inator, and various other nasty, toothy aquatic monsters....so you know right away a few of these folks won't be back for Meg 3...heh, heh, heh.
As if Meg-alicious isn't enough for Jason, there's also betrayal and villainy from a host of standard-issue corporate slimeballs and minions.......but rest assured, they're all scheduled for their just desserts (literally) via Meggy-Weggy a jumbo Octopussy and assorted leftover Cretaceous cohorts.
This is only way to approach a movie that celebrates and revels in its own dumbness with no shame whatsoever. Either love it for what it is.......or stay away from it altogether. And BQ visitors know by know that part of why I started this blog came from my lifelong, guilty pleasure affection for junk cinema,,,,,,the more outrageous, the better.
'Meg 2' is by no means any fly-by-night, mini budgeted cheeseball effort......there's eye-popping effects, ridiculous stunts unencumbered by physics or gravity, snappin' hungry monsters, foul villains.....and Mr. Congeniality himself Jason Statham. If nothing else, these filmmakers worked overtime to show you a senseless, simple-minded good time.
And that they do in the film's climax.....where Statham, Meg-0-rama-lama-ding-dong, creatures and villains all converge on a busy tropical resort called Fun Island......
Fun for us, for sure......not so much for the terrified Fun Island vacationers, some of whom end up as hors d'oeuvres....(something probably not mentioned in the travel agency brochures....)
As a perfect storm of a guilty pleasure....'Meg 2' does its very imbecilic best to earn 3 stars (***)....but pardon me now while I retrieve my brain cells and clean up whatever popcorn I spilled on the rug......
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