Tag Archives: Sharks

Meg 2: The Trench Review

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It’s time for the big sequel to the original Meg title. The first one wasn’t exactly a top caliber film and unfortunately neither is this one. The Trench certainly does throw in a whole lot more action when it comes to the human combatants but it will also be a long while until you see the Sharks in action. In a sense that can be a good thing for the film since the sharks are usually going to be the title’s downfall. At the same time, you know they will show up eventually so either way it’s not like this will have much of an effect long term. In that case, you might as well get it over with. Sure enough, the film does fall into old habits at that point.

The film focuses around Jonas who has been fighting off eco-terrorists and saving the day from the shadows. His crew is also busy raising one of the Megs and Jiuming is even so overconfident as to think that the Meg won’t eat him. This puts him into danger almost immediately but somehow he manages to get to safety. Everyone tells him what a bad idea this is but he doesn’t care. The heroes go further into the ocean than they had planned and end up finding out that there are several Megs. They just won’t have time to do much about this because of an insurrection. Turns out corporate still has a few tricks up their sleeve and now the heroes will be stuck underwater…forever. Can Jonas figure a way out of here?

A good chunk of the film is really an underwater survival mission. How do you get out of a submarine with no escape pods left and the villains watching your every move? This will definitely make you even more paranoid about being left so far under the sea. It’s just not a good business move especially when it seems like there is a traitor behind every door. Corporate doesn’t have the greatest of plans here as they basically pull a Jurassic World but we have the villainous smirks and cackling throughout the film which is the real important thing. You can tell that these villains really think the world of themselves.

Jonas is a solid lead as always. He is a solid fighter and doesn’t underestimate the terrors of the deep. He is always the voice of reason here and ultimately is the one to get things done. Without him the rest of the crew would not have lasted more than a few minutes. They are seriously outmatched without him there at all times. That’s why Jonas is the head honcho after all.

Meiying is supposed to be the fun child character but she does tend to be more on the annoying side. Stowing away on a dangerous underwater adventure is really not the play. She may have some scientific knowledge that comes in handy from time to time but she also spends a whole lot of time just slowing everyone down. She is physically unable to compete when the going gets tough and that is exactly why kids stay out of missions like this.

Unfortunately Jiuming may be even worse at times. He was a second away from completely traumatizing the kid by getting eaten by the Meg. He was way too confident in his sonar gadget and should have been doing a whole lot of further test studies before actually getting in the ocean. He had to rely on pure luck to stay alive and I can tell you now that this is not a good meter for success. You can’t count on luck to bail you out of every opportunity. That’s just not happening, it’s not a good way to play the odds.

The guy doesn’t really learn his lesson as he is constantly running into danger. Now you may be wondering if every character was completely unprepared for action but I can at least say that DJ was ready. This guy decided to properly arm himself in case the going got tough. Some would call him paranoid, I would call him realistic. This is exactly the kind of initiative I like to see in these events. He had some hand to hand skills, a taser, and other miscellaneous equipment. He saves the day on several accounts here. Every time you think DJ is done, he pulls something else out of his toolbox.

He really stole the show in his quick scenes here. I wish I could say the same about the villains. The lady had a great line though where she asks if another villain is crying. That about sums up how threatening these guys are to be honest. This does give us a chance to give Jonas a solid one liner as he kicks someone off a bridge later on though. When the film leans into a little bit of cheesy behavior, you know that it has a ton of confidence. On the whole the film had a good blend of action and humor. I would say the tone was solid and the fight scenes even had some good choreography. One mistake the film had was in having the best action scene be at the very beginning of the film though. When you peak that early there are always going to be some problems.

So like I said the sharks don’t appear for a while. Unless you count the opening scene I suppose. So the film was mainly doing good but once the Sharks show up then the animal violence begins. One of the big problems with creature films like this is how the monsters don’t actually end up being all that scary. The main character is ultimately able to take a few on with just basic equipment after all. Not the best look for these creatures right? So sadly they are stabbed and blown up. Also the opening scene is fairly graphic with all of the animals getting chopped.

It’s why the creature genre tends to be doomed on arrival. Either the monsters show up and get crushed, or they don’t appear much and you were in a whole bait and switch operation. In either event, the film is probably not going to get the highest score. I would say if you take out all of the animals then this could have been an easy 6 out of 10. Throw in all of the shark bashing and of course it’s going to go lower. Props to the film for not bumping off the dog though, now that would have been really crossing the line.

Overall, Meg 2 feels impressively long but I can’t tell if that’s a good thing and the writers packed a lot in or it means that the pacing was a bit slower than I thought. Either way if you’re here for the sharks then you may find the first half way too slow but if you’re here for the character banter then the second half may not match up for you. If you’re a Dinosaur film then you’ll probably have a good time here because their role is way bigger than I thought it would be. Personally I figured that would maybe just be the opening scene or something but they actually stick around. I think it’s probably time for this series to retire but if we get a third then the only way to top this will be to finally add aliens or something like that.

Overall 3/10

Open Water

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Usually when you have a film based on true events you try to make the characters look pretty good but that’s not the case here. This film makes at least one of them look really suspect the whole time but it starts to make sense when you make it to the end of the story.

Daniel and Susan lead very busy lives so they have had a really difficult time trying to schedule any time to take a vacation with each other. Finally they are able to squeeze in a bit of time and decide to go scuba diving. They take a boat trip to the middle of the ocean since this is apparently something people like to do. I don’t get why all of these really dangerous activities became such big hobbies. Just look at mountain climbing, so many people die a year trying this but perhaps it’s the adrenaline that makes it seem worth it. Personally I’ll skip all of that and stick to my video games….

But they’re having a good time so it all seems good. Unfortunately when they come up for air the boat is gone. Unfortunately the main teacher miscounted so the boat ended up going back and there was no backup counter. Additionally when everyone disembarked nobody really paid any attention to the fact that there was still one box of supplies left. In fact, nobody even checked until the next day. There are no maintenance crews or anything since this whole set up isn’t the safest. Looks like the heroes are on their own.

It’s always tough to try and have a whole film in a really small space with no real movement. It’s incredibly tough to pull off and this film was not able to execute it. To do that you have to have top notch dialogue and incredible writing since otherwise it will get old fast. I would say this one probably got old halfway in. My main issue was really with Susan though.

She starts to panic almost immediately. From there on every single one of her lines is yelling about something or constantly being sharp with her responses to Daniel. At least he tries to think positively about what’s going on or take things in stride but she won’t have it. She just keeps on complaining for the entire length of the movie. The one time Daniel gets upset at their situation she immediately turns it on him. He put up with her antics the whole film so it felt rather petty. Then the blame game starts.

As I said, the film isn’t exactly trying to make these guys likable. Daniel was decent, at least he was taking things in stride which is a big thing for me in these thriller type films. The characters who panic just get annoying pretty fast. That’s really the extent of the film though. Not a whole lot happens as they just chat for a while as the film goes through its paces. I think you could have shortened this to around 40 minutes or so and still had the same impact.

For the debate between the characters on what to do, I do think they should have at least tried swimming in a direction. Logically I would argue your odds are slightly better than staying in place because hopefully you could at least reach some kind of object to grab onto. Whereas your odds of being spotted by a ship are the same whether you move or not. It’ll also give you something to do which can help you stay warm as opposed to being frozen in place.

Not doing anything just never seems like a good idea to me. Scientifically the odds may be close to the same but I’ll still take my chances moving. If anything they’re lucky that it wasn’t raining super hard the whole time or something. That would have definitely hurt their odds even more.

The beginning is rather slow before they get to the ocean and the actual ocean part doesn’t move the plot much so I wouldn’t give the pacing a thumbs up. In terms of action we don’t get any real shark action until near the end. That part can be a bit violent but for the most part the rest of the film is super tame. Once the sharks come up then you know you’re near the end of the film. In case you don’t know the story behind it I won’t say what the ending is.

Overall, Open Water isn’t really my kind of film. I think the only way you pull off a dialogue film like this with two characters talking to each other the whole time without moving is if it’s about some kind of very interesting topic or in an action setting with the characters strategizing. Look, I watch 10-15 hour streams of people debating One Piece power levels which is equivalent to some guys in a small room just chatting but it’s all very engaging because there’s a lot of energy in the room and everyone shouting over each other. For obvious reasons the characters don’t have that kind of energy here and aren’t even in a good mood like that either. For that reason I would say the very premise is doomed from the start. There is no way to make a film like this stay interesting for the duration of its run without some kind of extra hook. Not if you want to keep the serious tone. As a comedy…perhaps you have something here. I would say to read up on the events this film is based on instead.

47 Meters Down Review

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Time to look at a shark film! These are usually doomed right out of the gate because it’s going to be hard for them to dodge the animal violence issue. Put it this way, if the humans win and beat the shark then the shark’s probably going to die. If the shark wins then it’ll just be normal violence as he eats all of the humans and that won’t do the film any favors. There is a pretty clever twist in the movie, but aside from that there wasn’t really anything to note here that would have the potential to save the film.

The film starts with Lisa’s boyfriend breaking up with her. This pretty much ruins Lisa’s vacation in part because of how sudden it was. This wasn’t news that she expected to hear right at this moment. Kate tries to cheer Lisa up for a while and when they are given an offer to swim with the sharks she jumps at the opportunity. The way this is supposed to work is some guys will lower the heroines in a cage and then lure sharks with fresh meat. The two sisters will get to see the sharks through the cage and then after a few minutes they’ll bring them back up. Lisa feels like this is a bad idea, but Kate convinces her that this is the only way to make her ex super jealous. Lisa ends up going through with this, but she may end up regretting such a decision.

With a movie like this you are probably expecting the premise to revolve around the leads making bad decisions so you probably won’t be very surprised at how this plays out. That’s exactly the case. The two guys make it pretty clear through their actions that this is super shady and not at all legal. The skipper even asks if they can dive and Lisa lies by saying she has experience. Then we see the guys dumping the bait into the ocean which is also illegal. There are a ton of safety reasons as to why this is a bad idea, but none of the two leads really stop to think about this for more than a moment. They were really just looking for a thrill even if it came at a super high price and that’s definitely no good.

Lisa’s also not a good main character with how fast she’s rebounding. It’s fine to take the guy dumping her fairly hard as everyone deals with it differently. Immediately moving in on a new guy is a terrible way by any stretch of the imagination though. It was partially due to peer pressure and partially to forget the other guy, but no matter how you slice it, it weakens her character. During the course of the film she does her best to overcome her fears of being underwater, but she never should have gone on the boat.

Then you have Kate who does her best to be supportive of Lisa. She wants the heroine to get back in good spirits and figures that having her do something extreme like this is the way to do it. She heavily pressures Lisa into doing this so she is partially responsible for what happens here. (Of course, ultimately it was still Lisa’s decision) Kate is very pro-active and does her best to keep on trying new plans to escape while in the cage. It’s a super tough situation, but she stays calm and always has a plan so from the two leads I definitely preferred her.

It’s a pretty small cast because the other characters are just the random guys and the captain of the ship. None of them get to do much or even appear all that often after the girls get in the cage. There really isn’t much they can do from above water, but they do their best by calling the coast guard and one of them goes under to help. With all the sharks around you can probably imagine that things get pretty dicey. The opening segments aren’t particularly strong, but for the movie the really dangerous part naturally comes from when the sharks actually start to appear.

This leads us to some classic animal violence. The film actually managed to reasonably avoid it for the most part, but there is a particularly gruesome scene involving a shark eye near the end of the film. It was definitely one that hurt and especially with the film so close to being over. Beyond that the film just also gets hurt on account of most of it taking place underwater. Mobility is limited down there so it doesn’t really make for very engaging scenes. The heroines trying to escape the cage and swimming around isn’t really that exciting. We get some nice visuals like the sharks all around them, but all in all I’d prefer to be on land for more of the movie.

Parts of the climax feel pretty cheesy with characters surviving attacks you wouldn’t expect them to. Due to how the film handles this I wouldn’t call it bad writing though. It actually makes sense the way the film explains this, but without that I would have had a very tough time buying into it. The film’s ending isn’t really my style so it doesn’t help the movie either. I wouldn’t say it hurts too much or anything, but the film really needed more positives to get it back up and this didn’t help.

More characters would have helped the movie’s dynamic. Part of the issue here is that Lisa and Kate aren’t professionals so a good chunk of the time they’re panicking a bit or just sad at what’s happening. Part of the fun with having a lead who’s a professional or just arrogant is at least they’re talking tough or making one liners the whole time. It’s more fun to watch a character who seems to have everything under control compared to more of a civilian type character who is written to act as you would expect someone to be. That means a lot of panicking and crying as opposed to just punching everything out.

While this was a minor scene, I was also annoyed at how the heroines just dropped the camera into the ocean. It happens almost immediately which is iffy because the other guys made such a big deal about not dropping it. It came off as rather clumsy and they should have used the strap around the wrist so that eliminates the risk of it plunging like that. You gotta be more careful with equipment like that, especially when underwater where sharks are a constant threat.

Overall, 47 Meters Down plays out pretty much like you would expect it to. The characters are lowered into the ocean in a cage and must find a way up. The premise speaks for itself and you can reasonably predict the entire movie right away. Aside from the twist which was pretty original, the film doesn’t really do anything else to try and make a name for itself. I’d give it a thumbs down for the animal violence and in general it’s just not all that fun. I think you need at least an underwater base and a few characters who can fight to make this one better. If you want a film about the ocean, check out Aquaman instead.

Overall 2/10