FILM REVIEW OF ''THE MEG" (2018)

“Jaws” for the “SpongeBob” generation, “The Meg” (** OUT OF ****) proves bigger isn’t always better when it comes to atmospheric suspense and a bloodthirsty R-rating.  “National Treasure” director Jon Turteltaub and “Life of Pi” scenarist Dean Georgaris with “Battleship” co-scripters Jon & Eric Hoeber have expunged all vestiges of horror from Steve Alten’s twenty-year old bestseller “The Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror” and pared it down to broad essentials with a wholesome PG-13 rating.  Moments that would have benefited from those deplorable, but effective jump scares are nowhere to be experienced.  “The Meg” does manage with its $130 million budget to attain an aura of credibility.  The people who made “The Meg” don’t exploit the camp factor like The Syfy Channel’s preposterous, so-awful-it's-good “Sharknado” franchise.  The Megsters are playing everything for authentic thrills.  Victims are eaten without buckets of blood.  Indeed, you can see only one victim in the Meg’s attack on a popular Asian beach.  The leviathan glides beneath hundreds of sun bathers elbow-to-elbow without munching them.  In Alten’s novel, a surfer swerved his board into the Meg’s gaping maw.  Admittedly, the 3-D effects add a modest dimension, but not enough to make you dread each appearance of the Carcharocles Megalodon like “Jaws” with its Great White shark.  Principally, ‘the chomp’ constitutes a fundamental element in any scary shark movie.  Sadly, we never see anybody chomped the way the Great White in “Jaws” chomped Robert Shaw.  A scene does occur which imitates Samuel L. Jackson’s demise in “Deep Blue Sea” when the shark chomped him ‘air jaws’ style. 

Jonas Tyler (Jason Statham of “The Expendables”) rescues eleven sailors stranded in a sunken submarine in an early scene in “The Meg” before some mysterious battering ram of sorts implodes the hull.  Jonas believes a prehistoric shark may have destroyed the sub.  He faces reprimands galore, particularly from the sub’s doctor, Heller (Robert Taylor of TV’s “Longmire”), who labels him a coward as well as a lunatic.  Jonas argues everyone would have died if he’d gone back after the two remaining sailors. Heller is adamant about Jonas’ cowardice.  In a rare exception to the rule, the magnitude of the film’s opening gambit overshadows the novel’s first scene where Jonas—suffering from too many hours on duty--reacts suddenly to the appearance of a Megalodon.  Reacting in panic, our overwrought oceanographer blew ballast and his deep-water aquatic sub ascended to the surface like a Polaris missile.  Miraculously, Jonas survived the encounter, while his two scientific colleagues perished in the process.  Afterward, when Jonas swore he saw a Megalodon, his incredulous superiors refused to swallow his saga about the prehistoric predator and discredited him as well as court-martialed him despite evidence that proved what his story.  A rival Navy officer tampered with the evidence and tossed a Meg tooth--wedged in the underwater Naval craft--overboard.  A situation similar to the novel occurs when oceanographers are trapped at the bottom of the sea and a Megalodon attacked because their lights exacerbated the creature in its habitat that lies far beneath what was thought to be the bottom of the ocean.  As it turns out, there is more ocean below a layer of hydrogen sulfide that forms a thermocline.  Billionaire Jack Morris (grossly miscast comic actor Rainn Wilson of “Galaxy Quest”) has erected a state-of-the-art underwater research facility code-named Mana One to study those lower depths of the briny blue.  The entire set-up looks like something out of a James Bond movie.  Dr. Minway Zhang (Winston Chao of “The Wedding Banquet”) and his colleagues are studying heretofore unexplored depths of the Marianas Trench.  The lady-in-charge, Lori (Jessica McNamee of “CHIPs”), is piloting a submersible with Zhang’s son, Toshi (Masi Oka of TV’s “Heroes”), and an obese guy called ‘The Wall’ (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson of “Contraband”), when an unknown force smashes into them and disables their craft.  James "Mac" Mackreides (Cliff Curtis of “Training Day”) convinces Dr. Zhang that the only man who can get his son and their colleagues out of the trench is his old friend, Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham), and they recruit the reluctant diver, who had vowed to never descend again.  Although Jonas rescues them, the thermocline dissipates enough for the 75-foot Megalodon to escape and terrorize the world.

Basically, if you’ve read the gruesome novel, as I did recently, you’re going to be appalled that the writers have eliminated the best scenes.  The characters and the cover-up that gave the novel momentum as well as a long-standing feud between the Navy and the protagonist who had been summarily drummed out of the service for panicking during an incident in the Marianas Trench are AWOL.  The filmmakers have altered significantly the Nautilus scene where the Meg pummeled the iconic sub into submission.  Instead, they use a sub earlier in the action than a wrecked submersible for Jason Statham’s opening scene where a doctor accuses Jonas of cowardice.  Not surprisingly, the novel “The Meg” surpasses the “The Meg” movie.  Combine this wannabe “Jaws” with “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” and you’ve got this tolerable nonsense.  Incredibly, the Megalodon shark plays second fiddle to Jason Statham and the diverse cast.  Statham swam with the British National Diving Team and finished 12th in the World Championships in 1992.  At age 51, he looks at home in the drink.  Hard as it is to believe, the scenes between Statham and the members of an ocean-going shark think-tank generate more interest than the scenes with the runaway shark.  Mind you, the CGI is far better than it should be for a B-movie epic, but nothing about the Megalodon is as remotely creepy as the Great White shark in “Jaws” or comparably the revenge-mind killer whale in “Orca.”  If you cannot find “Jaws,” then “Deep Blue Sea,” “The Shallows,” and “47 Meters Down” would make worthy substitutes if you’re disposed to postpone until “The Meg’ swims into home video.  Altogether, “The Meg” is a polished sea monster yarn that lacks bite.

(Author's Note:  Apparently, there is a bloodier version of "The Meg," and I've heard that it may wind up on home video as 'the director's cut.')

FILM REVIEW OF ''47 METERS DOWN" (2017)

Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong in the best horror thrillers.  “Storage 24” director Johannes Roberts’ shark-swarming spectacle “47 Meters Down” (*** OUT OF ****) may not be as entertaining as last summer’s delicious shark derring-do “The Shallows.”  Nevertheless, this hour and a half epic will keep you poised on the edge of your seat as you gnaw your knuckles in dread.  Surprisingly enough, this raw-edged thriller almost went straight-to-video. As deceptively simple and straightforward as they come, “47 Meters Down” doesn’t pull any punches, particularly with its surprise ending.  Indeed, this is not your usual summer movie where everything works out in the surf for the heroines.  Although it doesn’t let anybody off the hook, Roberts’ eighth big-screen directing endeavor holds its characters accountable for their poor choices.  Most summer blockbusters serve up a delightful, guilt-free ending where all narrative threads are neatly knotted and everybody lives happily-ever after. If you think about it, “47 Meters Down” is the kind of movie that should chomp up summer audiences.  Mandy Moore and Claire Holt are cast as older and younger sisters respectively, who decide to swim with sharks to alleviate boredom.  Ultimately, they wind up like earlier western pioneers who tempted hostile Native Americans and had to circle the wagons to fight them off.  Moore and Holt are the two primary characters, with several peripheral characters, such as the crew of the boat they take out to see sharks.  Otherwise, Moore and Holt try to work things out for each other under circumstances that would terrible to endure considering the predicament.

Happily, the premise of “47 Meters Down” is both simple and straightforward.  Lisa (Mandy Moore of “License to Wed”) and Kate (Claire Holt of “The Vampire Diaries”) are on a vacation in Mexico.  Lisa’s boyfriend dumps her because their relationship lacks spontaneity. Kate draws the withdrawn Lisa back out into the open, and they date Louis (Yani Gellman of “Jason X”) and Benjamin (Santiago Segura of “Hand of God”), a couple of local guys.  Yani and Benjamin tell the gals about a guy, Captain Taylor (Matthew Modine of “Full Metal Jacket”), who offers an underwater shark sightseeing excursion. The gals are confined to a shark cage just below the waterline to admire the awesome majesty of the Great Whites.  No sooner have they climbed into the cage than one wants to take a picture of the other.  Lisa takes an underwater snapshot camera from Kate, but she accidentally drops it in the drink.  The second the camera hits the hits the water, a Great White shark appears as if conjured with its jaws agape, and the camera vanishes into the shark’s gullet.  Mind you, British director Johannes Roberts had set up the situation before this ominous accident with Yani and Benjamin hovering five meters below the surface in the cage as Great Whites had circled them.  Nothing happened to the dudes.  Initially, everything goes well after Lisa loses the camera and Captain Taylor submerges them five meters below the surface.  Lisa begins to have second thoughts and the girls have had enough of enough.  Suddenly, something goes haywire and the winch holding them suspended in the water breaks. Trapped in the cage, the two sisters plunge to the bottom of the ocean.  No sooner has the cage slammed into the ocean floor than the whole wench plummets atop the cage.  Lisa and Kate can communicate with each other because their diving masks are equipped with microphones.  Deep down as they are, however, they cannot communicate with Taylor. Naturally, this is the point at which the heroines behave like characters in a scary movie.  Kate swims 40 meters up to communicate with Captain Taylor.  Repeatedly, Taylor warns them to stay in the cage because sharks are swarming all over the place.  Instead, Taylor says that he is sending one of his crewmen, Javier (Chris Johnson of “xXx: State of the Union”), down to give them replacement air tanks.  Nevertheless, Taylor warns that switching air tanks during a dive can induce nitrogen narcosis which produce hallucinations.  During their time on the bottom, Kate proves either her bravery or her stupidity.  A shark almost munches her, and she scrambles to take refuge in a nearby cave.  Eventually, Lisa gets abandons the cage, and she has a close encounter with an open-mouthed shark charging at her.  

During one harrowing scene, Lisa and Kate find themselves in the midst of a flotilla of sharks.  Roberts spends more time on creating suspense in “47 Meters Down” than dwelling on blood and gore.  Roberts is wise enough not to wear out her welcome, and “47 Meters Down” clocks in at a trim 89 minutes with the action set almost entirely at sea.  The first part of the action takes place on land as Roberts and co-scenarist Ernest Riera get the girls to go out on a date with two locals who intrigue them about the shark cage gimmick.  Predictably, Lisa is too far timid to take such a dare.  Kate goads her older sister into doing it so she can prove that she isn’t as dull as her former boyfriend has claimed. The remainder of “47 Meters Down” occurs at sea.  Of course, none of those Great Whites prowling the depths where our damsels-in-distress await them are genuine predators.  The CGI of the Great Whites is flawless, and “Stardust” lenser Mark Silk’s cinematography is appropriately murky given the ocean depths and inspires paranoia.  Just when the gals look like they are alone, the Great Whites materialize with cavernous jaws ajar!  Although several peripheral characters inhabit this PG-13 epic, the action focuses most of its time on the sisters. These sympathetic souls never get a break, and you will fear for them as they deal with one setback after another.  Just remember, no matter what happens during “47 Meters Down,” you must stay in your seat.

(Author’s note: if you enjoyed “47 Meters Down,” you should be the 1971 documentary “Blue Water White Death.”)

FILM REVIEW OF ''GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES" (ITALIAN-1961)

Italian composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino furnished "Hercules Against the Moon Men" director Giacomo Gentilomo with a flavorful, atmospheric score for his above-average but formulaic spear and sandal saga "Goliath and the Vampires," starring muscle-bound Gordon Scott as the legendary champion. Like the Reg Park outing "Hercules in the Haunted World," Goliath clashes with a supernatural adversary named Kobrak. “Goliath and the Vampires" doesn't take itself seriously so it is a lot of fun with the usual damsels-in-distress, palace intrigue, and a heroic protagonist whose triumph occurs only in a matter of time. Gentilomo and scenarists Sergio Corbucci of "The Mercenary" and Duccio Tessari of "Duck You Sucker" have contrived one of the more imaginative peplums, with several elaborately staged combat scenes. Indeed, a couple of counterfeit looking little monsters cheese up a scene or two, but the filmmakers dispense with these goofy bugs quickly enough after exploiting their shock value. Meantime, our brawny hero has his hands full most of his time struggling with overwhelming numbers of opponents. Bare-chested Gordon Scott is appropriately stalwart and purpose-driven as the male lead. Goliath’s first fight in the market place is a spectacle itself with him wielding whatever is at hand to subjugate the soldiers. When he isn’t pummeling his opponents with his fists, Goliath swings huge beams, hurls carts, and tears up a torture device. Later, he is subjected to the torture himself of being imprisoned within a giant bell while slaves hit the bell with rods.  The ultimate shown occurs when Goliath has to fight himself. Kobrak has taken on his appearance. Violence proliferates in this fantasy peplum entry. The villain tears out a defenseless woman’s throat, even a child dies!   The beautiful, hour-glass shaped women wear big hair. Gianna Maria Canale looks as gorgeous as she is treacherous, and producer Dino De Laurentiis seems to have spared no expense with some spacious sets.  

Pirates from another kingdom attack a defenseless village without mercy. They raze the village, slaughter the men, abduct the nubile young women and transport them across the sea into slavery. So wicked are these heartless sea raiders that they feed the older women to the sharks. The eponymous strongman travels to the faraway island to rescue the women. Outnumbered as always, Goliath tangles with scores of soldiers, but he exploits his spectacular strength to compensate for their greater numbers. No, Kobrak doesn't qualify as the standard vampire with fangs, a regal wardrobe, and beguiling eyes. He materializes like an apparition from nowhere, kills with his clawed fists, and reduces his victims to lifeless mummies. Moreover, the treacherous Kobrak shows no qualms about dispatching his own subordinates. 

The opening scene solidly establishes the protagonist's character. Goliath (Gordon Scott of "Tarzan's Greatest Adventure") trudges behind two oxen and plows an inhospitable field. Typically, the peplum hero is an outsider. Sometimes, he is an iterant adventurer. He enters a society and delivers it from tyranny, but Goliath is not an outsider here. Later, when he enters Salminak, he is an outsider. Gentilomo depicts Goliath as a peaceful farmer, using his incredible strength to uproot and remove a stump from the field. Clearly, though the most convincing but mundane scene, this modest display of brute force illustrates Goliath's determination to let nothing stand in his way. He uses his brawn to solve his problems. 

No sooner has Goliath gotten rid of stump than he hears cries of alarm. The young boy, Ciro (Rocco Vitolazzi), that Goliath brought with him, is drowning. Plunging from a high mountain cliff, Goliath saves the lad from a watery grave. Some kind of sea monster may have figured in Ciro's near drowning, but the fight has been mysteriously edited so we cannot see what is happening. As he takes Ciro back to their village on his white horse, Goliath reminds the youth that his sister would never have forgiven him if Goliath had let Ciro die. Ciro chastises Goliath because the strongman has kept putting his impending marriage to sister, Guja (Leonora Ruffo of "Goliath and the Dragon"), on hold. Gentilomo and his scenarists sketch more depth into Goliath's character than the typical peplum. As they approach the village, they see clouds of dark smoke gathering. They arrive too late to thwart the pirates. Ciro's mother and father lay dead, while Goliath's mother (Emma Baron of "Aphrodite, Goddess of Love") dies in his brawny arms.

"I shall avenge them," Goliath vows. "I shall free Guja and the others and those responsible will pay for their crimes." Moreover, Goliath is puzzled by the raiders. "Their ferocity and cruelty make no sense. Why do they murder like this without plundering. Why take nothing from the houses? Only the women are kidnapped and the men are thrown in the fire." An elderly man who survived the carnage informs Goliath that the raiders hail from the faraway island Salminak. Meanwhile, aboard their ship, the pirates slash the women, drawing plasma from all them but Guja, to fill a goblet for Kobrak to quench his thirst for blood. Kobrak's initial appearance aboard the ship is rather sinister. The African-American leader of the raiders, Amahil (Van Aikens of “Rage of the Buccaneers”), enters a chamber with a goblet and a hideous hand wreathed in smoke emerges from behind a curtain to grasp it. Gentilomo heightens the tension as the interior turns blood red and the curtain billow after Kobrak has drunk the blood. Amahil scrambles out of the room, happy to be alive. Later, we learn Kobrak is assembling an army of faceless zombies to conquer the world. By this time, Goliath has come to the attention of Kobrak. Against the advice of Astra, Kobrak wants Goliath alive. During Astra’s first conversation with Kobrak, the villain declares: “I want him alive. His magnificent body can serve as a model for the army of slaves with which I shall conqueror the Earth, the army of indomitable giants subservient to my will.”

After creating a huge disturbance in the market place, Goliath and Ciro flee and take refuge with the mysterious Kurtik (Jacques Sernas of “For a Few Extra Dollars”) and his friends. Kurtik rescued Magda (Annabella Incontrera of “1969 The Assassination Bureau”) from the market place and saw Goliath repulse the soldiers.  He wants Goliath to join forces with him. “I only trust my shadow,” he tells Kurtik. Kurtik assures Goliath they share the same enemy. Goliath is so sure, “I don’t know your enemy. I do know that mine is a murderer who lurks and hides in the darkness.” Kurtik vows to flush their mutual adversary out of hiding. Back at Kurtik’s refuge, Magda roams around a laboratory. She reads an ancient scroll. “And from the serpent born in the depths of the kingdom of evil sprang the monster that nourishes itself on human blood to generate an army of automatons. Only one proud and noble people, the race of the Blue Men, will have the courage to combat the monster and restore face to each of those he has deprived.” No sooner does she learn about this than Kobrak materializes and rips her throat open. 

Meantime, unrest smolders in the palace. The Sultan Abdul (Mario Feliciani of “Last of the Vikings”) who rules Salminak fears Kobrak. When a minister urges Abdul to take advantage of Goliath’s presence to stage a rebellion against Kobrak, Astra disposes of the minister. As the minister leaves the Sultan from another door, Astra trips a switch that triggers a trap door to the dungeon below and certain death. Ironically, Astra serves as Kobrak’s chief enforcer. This is a bit unusual for something like this in a peplum. Usually, the chief villain is another man, not a woman. Mind you, Astra gets what she wants until she tangles directly with Goliath. Astra carries out Kobrak’s orders. She finds Amahil with Goliath’s wife and kills the naval chieftain with a knife in the chest. Kurtik had scheduled a rendezvous with Amahil, but Astra kills him and he staggers from his room to topple from the balcony. Our heroes knelt at his body, and a soldier of the Sultan Abdul arrives and arrests Goliath. A brief fight ensues, but the soldiers subdue Goliath with a net. In prison, the jailor challenges Goliath to provide him with a display of his strength. "I hear you're the man who created more damage in a single day than a battalion." Goliath tears off his chains, strides to the center of the room, seizes a pillar, and brings the roof down. He escapes and finds Guja in the Sultan’s palace where Astra has delivered her. Goliath overpowers the guards, but Abdul orders them out. As a consequence of talking with Goliath, the Sultan suffers the wrath of Kobrak. Goliath and Guja flee from the city, get waylaid in a sand storm, and wind up in a cave with an army of blue men with spears. Goliath learns that Kurtik is the leader of the Blue Men.

 "Ulysses against the Son of Hercules" lenser Alvaro Mancori captures the larger-than-life splendor and savagery of "Goliath and the Vampires" (*** out of ****) with his widescreen cinematography. The violence is somewhat abrasive, but it remains primarily bloodless during the commission of the act with blood visible afterward. One scene shows a marauder firing an arrow into a man's face, while other shows a spear hurled into the villainess' stomach. The Corbucci and Tessari screenplay boasts a surprise or two, especially during the finale when Goliath confronts a foe that matches his strength. The filmmakers put our hero in several tight spots. One fantastic scene has Goliath with his wrists shackled to a huge wooden yoke behind his neck and across his shoulders. Goliath's captor challenges him to escape. Exerting his superhuman strength, Goliath snaps the yoke in half, removes the shackles, and then dislodges a pillar that brings part of the dungeon crashing down on his captors. An earlier scene in the town square has our hero dismantles a torture device with giant spikes in it and wields it as a weapon against armed horsemen. According to the Wild East blurbs, Corbucci helped out Gentilomo helming a scene or two, but Gentilomo directed the lion's share of the action. He keeps the action moving briskly along in this trim 91-minute opus.

"Goliath and the Vampires" ranks as a better-than-average peplum.