ultimatenexus

The second I saw the trailer on Netflix and realized that Mads Mikkelsen was a retired assassin, I was instantly on board. Mikkelsen is a treasure, and I'll watch anything that has him in a starring role (thus promising that he won't be disgustingly underused like he was TWICE in 2017, in Rogue One and Dr. Strange).

Watching this movie is like watching Mads Mikkelsen on the home set of the Hannibal series as he slices ideas and dices genre cliches and blends them all in a juicer into a colourful, blood-tinged cocktail with the delicate finesse of a chef. Unsurprisingly, Mikkelsen is the best thing about this movie.

The assassins goof around, yell, do drugs, have sex, and act like entitled rich kids who I guess we're supposed to find funny. And then there's Mikkelsen--he's the straight man in this weird yet basic film that constantly shifts tones between colourful and trendy to muted and gritty. The irony here is that the funniest moments are all from him.

Sometimes, the cinematography is gorgeous to look at. Other times, it looks like an unpleasant, rainbow-y candy-coloured glob of chewed bubblegum. The assassins and the big boss man are all obnoxious, snarky, and in serious need of a new fashion trend--they all looked like they stepped out of a sex shop with anything and everything that was bright yellow, pink, orange, or purple.

The villain himself is a disappointment--they say an action hero is only as good as the villain he's at odds against. Here, Mikkelsen, a calm, regretful, reserved old man battles a cartoonish egomaniac and his army of loudmouthed decadent fools. Somewhere in this clash of two very different worlds, there is a good joke to be told. Sometimes, yes, the joke was funny, and most of the time, the film overall was pretty entertaining despite its out-of-place juvenile humour.

Ex-Disney Princess Vanessa Hudgens surprised me, though. She made a very convincing performance as Mikkelsen's troubled, depressed neighbour, although in the final half of the film she doesn't get much to work with.

The action scenes are stylish, gory, brutal as hell. A couple of times I laughed at the absurd, creative deaths Mikkelsen's character dished out. THey're filmed and edited well, and like the film itself, they're not bad, though not great, either.

There is no other way for me to describe Polar except to crack a bad pun and say that it is a polarizing film. It lives up to its title. I can't say I can be disappointed by that. Well played.

It's Jason Statham versus Megalodon, so my standards weren't all that high to begin with.

I'm unfamiliar with the original novel source material, so I can't judge its merits as a film adaptation, but as a film, The Meg is underwhelming and incredibly stupid, but still in its own way, fun.

Jonas Taylor, played by Jason Statham, is a disgraced deep sea rescue diver who, after the opening scene, escapes to Thailand to drink for a while. Strangely enough, the last Statham film I'd seen in theatres, Mechanic Resurrection, also had him running to Thailand after the opening scene. Funny coincidence. Anyway, after an exploration through the bottom of the Mariana's Trench goes awry, Taylor is pulled right back in to rescue the explorers, and winds up becoming the ace in the hole for the scientists and explorers of the underwater research facility,'Mana One' when the Meg gets out and becomes the new terror of the sea.

Despite some fun sequences and some decent visuals (especially underwater), The Meg is a half-baked end to the summer blockbuster season. I think part of the problem is its PG-13 rating. This could have been the Piranha 3D of shark films, especially where the beach sequence is concerned (which could have one-upped the Spring Break massacre scene in the Piranha remake if only the creators and the financiers behind The Meg were willing to go all the way).

Alas, what we got was a relatively tame film in the veins of Jurassic World with a moderate body count and some of the dumbest, most hilariously idiotic helicopter pilots I've witnessed onscreen in quite a long time. It also has a middle-of-the-runtime twist that feels implausible and weak that I won't spoil for you, but you'll know it when you see it, because it only reinforces the implausibility of what had already gone on, and stretches it well into unbelievable territory.

No matter. I laughed. I was entertained, and that's what's really important, right? Just don't go into this expecting something smart, or even remotely profound, and you should be in for a good time.