Bad Movie Club: Tommy and the Cool Mule

2009 talking animal movie

Bad Movie Rating: 2/5 (J.D.: 2.5/5; Fred: 2/5; Josh: fell asleep; Lisa: fell asleep)

Rating: 6/20

Plot: A kid whose dad died in combat finds a talking mule that helps his family through all of their problems.

This should have been called Tommy and the Flatulent Mule. That is one gassy mule!

Tommy and the Cool Mule is almost good enough for the Hallmark Channel. There's real human drama on display in this family movie with dead fathers, teenage girls who really want tattoos, bullying, and financial problems. At the same time, this would be fun for the whole family because they can sit around and laugh at all the farting. Farting can bring the whole family together.

It's never really determined if the cool mule really talks or if it's the result of a few head injuries that Tommy the not-so-cool kid gets in the first quarter of the movie. He falls off a horse and bonks his head on the ground. He's clobbered in the noggin by a board while in a paintball war a few days after that. That's when he sees some dazzling special effects--twinkling colors--and meets his mule, who he later calls his best friend. The mule is naturally voiced by Ice-T who apparently has nothing better to do with his time these days. I expected the cool mule to throw out a "Fuck the police," but I was disappointed.

If you have told me in the early-90s that Ice-T would someday provide the voice of a talking mule in a family movie later in his career, it would have been hard to believe. I'd think, "Shouldn't that be the kind of thing Vanilla Ice is doing with his career? I think you've got the wrong Ice!" Before the movie started, I told my Bad Movie Club friends that I would likely shit my pants if the cool mule started rapping at any point. He sort of rapped at one point, and I sort of shat myself. Anyway, Ice-T's performance can only be described as inspired. As in--inspired to make an easy paycheck with an afternoon of work reading lines that he probably didn't even understand. "Lean into the barrel? What kind of motherfucking movie is this? Fuck the police!"

I have to give the movie credit because I really thought the dad was going to end up coming back to life or something. That didn't happen. A whole bunch of other stupid things happened, but at least that didn't happen.

Kevin Sorbo is also in this. He plays a villain named Dodge Daviss who has too many s's in his name and a wide variety of cowboy shirts. The mom was played by Siri Baruc. I don't know her at all, but I'll tell you one thing--her ass sure was talking to me.

I shouldn't type movie reviews this late at night. I apologize for all of the above.

Monsieur Hire

1989 drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A pervy guy witnesses something criminal when peeping at a girl he's infatuated with and has to make a decision when he becomes a suspect in a murder.

What a horrible realization I had near the beginning of this movie! I'm Monsieur Hire in about 10 or so years, eating hard-boiled eggs while peeping on girls from a lonely apartment.

Boxing/caressing juxtaposition, architecture as foreshadowing, a somber death scene. There are some great quiet moments that add up to create a near masterpiece. It's whispery neo-noir.

Henry V

1989 Shakespeare adaptation

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A guy risks the lives of a small army by taking them to France for a war in order to impress a girl.

I need a Shakespeare aficionado to confirm that somebody says "balls to gallstones" in this.

New York Stories

1989 anthology movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Three New York stories taking place in New York, a place of stories.

Each of these three shorts has a cameo that put a smile on my face. I loved seeing a young Buscemi in the Scorsese short. That is actually more than a cameo though. He gets a nice monologue and everything. Then, Coppola's story has Chris Elliott playing a thief. And then there's none other than Larry David in the Woody Allen short.

Scorsese's chunk of this, a story of an ornery abstract artist played terrifically by a barely-hinged Nick Nolte--the best kind of Nick Nolte--is almost great. The stylish peep-hole shots were cool, reminding me a little of a silent movie move, and I really loved watching all these incomprehensible paint swirl shots. Nolte really is great even if most of his lines in the second half of this are some variation of "I love you" or "I'll do anything for you."

Woody Allen's turn comes last, but it's the second best. The idea is solid, the kind you get the sense was bouncing around in various forms for a long time before he finally decided it just wouldn't work as a feature-length film. Mae Questel is great as Woody's mom, and a handful of funny lines--typical Woody Allen 70's stuff, I'd say--and Allen's expressions during a magic trick make this worth watching.

I hated every second of Coppola's story in this, and I think I might hate Coppola. How can somebody related to Nicolas Cage be so devoid of talent? Things start badly with a 12-year-old's voice over where she goes on and on about a flute, and then it somehow gets worse with this gross King Creole song about that 12-year-old, Zoe. The acting, aside from Chris Elliott who is always great, is terrible across the board, and I swear, two actors look directly at the camera at two different points in this thing. It's an embarrassment in the middle of two much-better offerings.

My Left Foot

1989 biopic

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The reminisces of a mental defective.

In putting together a "Best of 1989" list, I figured this was something I needed to rewatch. My noticings:

I had forgotten how great Daniel Day Lewis is. I knew it was a great performance, definitely deserving of the Academy Award. But part of me still thought it was sort of one of those imitation performances that seems a little more special than it is because he's playing a condition (or a larger-than-life character) instead of an actual human being. That's not what this is at all. Daniel Day Lewis becomes Christy Brown. There wasn't a single moment in this when I couldn't believe they hired a guy with cerebral palsy to play the part. This isn't just a deserving-of-the-Oscar performance. This is an all-time great performance. There's the physical stuff (the painful-looking movements, blowing out birthday candles, playing soccer, putting a Mozart record on in the stunning opening sequence), but there's this emotion with the character that you just feel.

Brenda Fricker has no chance to be as good as Daniel Day Lewis, but she very nearly pulls it off as Mrs. Brown. That's another great performance. Additionally, Hugh O'Conor, the kid who plays the younger Christy Brown, is really good. He handles the physical stuff so well. At first, I thought it was Daniel Day Lewis method-acting and somehow transforming himself into a child, but it turns out that it was a different person.

Another observation--Christy Brown's "handwriting" is actually a lot better than mine.

I was surprised at how much of this revolves around Christy Brown wanting to get laid. 

The best scene is a dinner scene where it takes Christy Brown about a half an hour to say the word "congratulations," a swirl around the table, this intense physicality.

Wheels on Meals

1984 action comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A couple of guys who run a food truck help a chubby detective protect a woman who has some stuff going on.

This really takes its time getting to an action sequence. There's a brief, random fight scene where Jackie Chan and Biao Yuen take on a few thugs, and then there's a whole lot of plot and comedy, the former which isn't all that engaging and the latter not all that funny. A car chase--well, a car-and-food-truck chase--works, but car chases isn't exactly the reason I pop a Jackie Chan movie in.

The final twenty minutes or so contain the kinds of stunts and sequences that are exactly the reason I'd pop a Jackie Chan movie in, however. There are acrobatic climbs up castle walls and then a triptych of fighting mayhem with director Samo Hung and a bad guy engaging in sword play while Chan and Yuen show throw their fists and feet and bodies around with this impossible choreography in fights of their own. It's thrilling stuff, and it's easily five times as good as anything else in this movie.

Does Jackie Chan do his own skateboarding in this? I can't remember another movie where he shows off his skateboarding skills, and I couldn't really tell here because there were some shots that made the whole thing look fake.

Speaking of skateboarding, this has a montage with the two fellas and the girl skateboarding around that looks like it's straight out of a Bollywood movie. And I don't mean that in a good way. Or maybe I do mean that in a good way.

If you're overly sensitive to films that find mental illness funny, be aware that this has a scene in a mental institution where a guy laughing at his own jokes, another patient fishing, and a guy who believes he's a clock are, I guess, all supposed to be something to laugh at. It's not a very realistic look at mental illness.

Wheels on Meals is a dumb title.

Minding the Gap

2018 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Three skateboarding friends face the challenge of transitioning from adolescent problems to adult problems.

"This machine cures hearthache." That's written on one of the boy's skateboards. Skateboarding for these teens who are facing abuse, absent or deceased fathers, and alienation is therapy. There's joy in the scenes showing these kids skateboarding through the streets or on top of a building or in a skate park. Seeing the boys' smiles and watching what has to be the only times they feel completely free is exhilarating.

I'm not sure how people skateboard actually. I can't even stand on top of one. And I'm really not sure how some of these skateboard scenes are filmed. I assume the director--Bing Liu, one of the three kids--is just following along on a skateboard while holding the camera, but that doesn't seem safe. Of course, one of the guys also skateboards while holding a baby which also doesn't feel entirely safe.

This is compiled from what must be thousands of hours of footage taken over what seems to be more than a ten-year period. There's lots of video from before anybody had an idea to turn this into a feature-length documentary, but it's clear later that the young adult versions of these two friends, along with the baby mama of one of them who also becomes a main character, are aware that a documentary is being made. You see the trio grow from adolescence to young adults, most touchingly in a flashing montage at the end.

This isn't a movie about watching three boys age physically, however. This is more about that "gap" between adolescence and adulthood, and as the movie progresses, you see what kinds of adolescent problems these three are using skateboarding as an escape from as well as the kinds of adult problems that are replacing, and in some cases seeming to be the results of, those adolescent problems. The footage works to create a mosaic, the issues these people facing becoming more gradually revealed rather than spelled out right away. And I think that's Liu's greatest feat with Minding the Gap--the way he creates their individual narratives and their shared narrative of friendship in such a lovely way.

Eventually, it's revealed that the process of making a movie has replaced skateboarding as therapy for Liu. One of them--the one dealing with trying to figure out how to be a father and struggling with alcoholism--also comments that being the subject of Liu's camera is like free therapy. The other guy--the one dealing with living life as a young black man with a missing father--doesn't share that sentiment as overtly, but it's clear in touching sequences where he unloads.

This is one of the most honest documentaries that I've seen in a long time. There's subjectivity, of course, but watching these guys struggle with issues was heartbreaking and beautiful. I kind of fell in love with them, warts and all, and I'm really hoping that when a sequel comes out in a few years (like the 7 Up series), they're all doing fine.

I thought that 2018 was the Year of the Horse Movie, but it might actually be the Year of the Skateboard Movie. Jonah Hill's upcoming movie and a movie out now called Skate Kitchen both have lots of skateboarding.

Finding Frances

2017 season-ending episode of a television show

Rating: I can't rate a television episode.

Plot: See below.

Nathan for You is one of the funniest shows I've ever seen, and if you haven't seen it, you should stop what you're doing and watch some immediately. Watch them in order from the first season to the fourth season because you'll see characters recur. The show has Nathan Fielder, whose deadpan expressions would make Buster Keaton envious, helping out struggling businesses with terrible ideas. He's helped a realtor by teaming her up with a ghost whisperer to make her the only realtor in Los Angeles able to guarantee that houses are free from ghosts. He's helped a movie theater fight popcorn sharing and masturbation. And he's rebranded a struggling coffee shop as a "Dumb Starbucks" to compete with big business.

One of those recurring characters is William Heath, a Bill Gates impersonator he used in an effort to help out a souvenir shop in Hollywood. At the beginning of "Finding Frances," a film-length final episode of season four, it's revealed that Heath keeps showing up at Nathan's office to visit or drop off little presents. He mentions a long-lost love named Frances, and Nathan decides to use the show's resources to help the old man find his old flame.

The more brilliant episodes of Nathan for You start with a germ of an idea and evolve or mutate in these unexpected ways. As Nathan and William head to Arkansas to find Frances, it starts a trip down a rabbit hole that is as hilarious as any of the stuff in his shorter normal episodes but also becomes surprisingly touching. William Heath becomes more mysterious and more fascinating as the episode progresses, and it builds to a climax that nearly brought tears to my eyes. At the same time, Nathan reveals things about his character--or at least the character he is playing--which provides some meta commentary on the nature of the show.

The entire season is really good, but there's something extra special about this final episode. It's one of the best things I've seen from television in a long, long time.

Kuso

2017 something-rather

Rating: 13/20

Plot: I don't really know. There's been an earthquake in Los Angeles, and everybody has boils.

This is the directorial debut of musician Flying Lotus, a guy who is related to Alice and Ravi Coltrane. He's got no shortage of ideas; unfortunately, a lot of them are just bad ones. The visual sense is often there, especially in this gorgeously perverse collage stuff with this dope electronic music accompanying it. I have no idea what story he's trying to tell or what any of this adds up to if it adds up to anything at all. There are five or six characters' stories being told here, and the characters are all linked by boils and this earthquake that is alluded to a few times. Bugs, pus, deterioration, fecal matter, and bodily fluids are all gross-out motifs. At times, it feels like a collaboration between William S. Burroughs and a gas station restroom. It's Adult Swim-style nonsense turned up to 11 and very likely the squelchiest movie I'll ever see. At the very least, I can now say I've seen a Tim Heidecker sex scene.

It's really a unique little movie, unique enough that I'm willing to give it a rating boost just because it's showing me things I'd never seen before. Of course, it's showing things that most normal people would not have any interest in seeing. I believe I read that there were a lot of walk-outs when this was shown at a festival, and I can imagine why. It had to be the bug-emerging-from-a-doctor's-butthole-to-provide-juice scene. The movie that is reminded me the most of is a Japanese movie called Funky Forest: The First Contact. This was a little more blustery than that one though.

A lot of this, I suspect, is supposed to be funnier than I thought it was. I did almost laugh at an abortion scene though. That's got to be worth something.

I believe I heard a Wilhelm Scream at one point in this. And I know I saw Richard Dawson at one point.

Ok, I've said next-to-nothing about Kuso, and I still have nothing else to say.

The Road Movie

2016 documentary

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A compilation of dashboard camera videos from Russia.

Hold on a second. This isn't a movie. This is just some guy compiling Russian dashboard camera footage and calling it a documentary, isn't it?

That's probably true--the closing credits actually confirm it--but that hasn't stopped critics from really liking this one. I'll confess that I enjoyed watching it, too, but I don't really think there's enough done creatively with the assembling of these videos to make this a real documentary. There's no meaning with the progression of the videos. They could have been put in any order at all and had the exact same effect. They don't really paint a comprehensive picture of Russian people or anything like that. It's really just like going to YouTube, setting it so that videos will autoplay, and watching a bunch of Russian dashboard camera videos.

I really did enjoy a lot of it though, and there are a lot of memorable highlights. A monkey-man jumping on a stranger's hood and gesticulating wildly, a woman wandering aimlessly and eventually reaching the hood of another car, a tank being washed at a car wash, the dodging of horses with the driver exclaiming "Fuck a duck, bitch!", seeing that giant meteor thing that was all the rage a few years ago, a guy stealing the camera from a parked car, some sledgehammer road rage, a parachutist. A lot of the videos are accompanied with whatever music the driver and passengers are listening to, and a lot of times the selections bring an irony to the whole thing.

The real highlight is a terrifying, psychedelic forest fire that some people are, for whatever reason, driving through. That was something else!

I'd recommend this even though I'm not sure it's a movie.

Bad Movie Club: Pocket Ninjas

1997 action comedy

Bad Movie Rating: 4/5 (Josh: 4/5; Lisa (who actually bailed midway through to watch meteors instead): 5/5)

Rating: 3/20

Plot: Some pocket ninjas try to stop bad guys from doing something.

This was the 200th Bad Movie Club meeting. There was little fanfare, and only three of us showed up for this one with one leaving early to look for meteors, but I'm still strangely proud that we've done 200 of these now. I mean, why wouldn't I be? That's like 18,000 hours we've spent watching bad movies together, and if my math is right, that's 750 total days.

My math is not right. I'm not sure where I messed up.

I know where the makers of Pocket Ninjas messed up though. It's where they tried to make a movie--even an 80-minute one, without having a real story. Seriously, I would say somewhere around 65% of this movie consists of training montages. I didn't think anything could compete with the montage/non-montage ratio in Kindergarten Ninja, but this one very well might beat it. I'd have to be better at math and willing to watch both of these again to figure all that out.

About 1/10th of the movie was also the opening credits, by the way. I'm telling you, there was barely any movie here.

This tries to combine slapstick comedy and action, but it does it about as ineptly as I've seen anything done lately. And I see myself attempt to educate the youth of America every single day, so that's saying something. Even some of the training montages have the bad guys hamming it up, complete with some slide-whistle and cartoonish percussion sound effects. The most comical scene takes place in some sort of funhouse/warehouse hybrid with all these balloons. Robert Z'Dar, criminally underutilized in this, and a foe are bouncing up and down on balloons as they battle, and effects to speed up Z'Dar as he throws out these one-man Stooge moves make the whole thing baffling. The titular ninjas aren't particularly skilled (not enough to be showcased in countless montages anyway), but they do have roller blades on during them. That's something. All of the fight scenes are very slow. I doubt there was any fight choreography actually, probably just instructions to "not hurt each other" or something. The sound effects make the whole thing even more ridiculous with a sound guy utilizing a library of over three impact sounds to accompany the punching and kicking.

Did I mention that Robert Z'Dar and his mighty chin are in this movie? It's only in a pair of scenes though--both completely inconsequential. The first is a fantasy sequence (the infamous balloon scene I mentioned up there) that comes from a comic book the Pocket Ninjas are enjoying while spending quality time together in their treehouse. The second is a ludicrous virtual reality sequence that is tacked after the movie has already ended when the director realized he didn't have enough montages to make a feature-length film and needed some filler. 

This was directed by Dave Eddy, and it's his only movie unless you count a TV movie documentary he made after somebody decided that the guy who made Pocket Ninjas is the best choice to make a documentary about 9/11.

Steppenwolf

1974 novel adaptation

Rating: 12/20

Plot: The exact same as the Hermann Hesse novel!

It's been a very long time since I read the Hermann Hesse novel, but from what I can tell, this is a very faithful adaptation of that. This movie, the only one Fred Haines ever made, has a lot of great moments, but you have to wade through a lot of talky scenes to get to them. There's an animated biographical glimpse of Harry Haller, played by the always-solid Max von Sydow, that is really great. It's got that Monty Python cut-out look that you know can only be created by Czech animators. The whole thing climaxes with Haller finally venturing into the Magic Theater, a trippy tripy through surrealist paintings. A lot of the effects are dated, but the visuals still bring a kind of hallucinogenic punch that makes this whole thing worth seeing even if the rest of it is very sleepy.

This has a great performance by a little person named Alfred Baillou. He plays a little Goethe. He's got a great voice, performs an awesome little dance, and keeps calling the main character "honey" for some reason. The best scene with him is, like the rest of the movie, a little talky and way too dense, but there are these ever-shifting painted walls in the background the keep things visually interesting.

I had been wanting to see this one for a while. It was disappointing as a whole, but it does have some moments that I've never really seen before which made it worth seeing.

The Baby of Macon

1993 comedy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A miracle baby is exploited, first by a sister and then by a church.

"Be grateful of the music. Most of us die in silence."

This Peter Greenaway movie begs a question: Would you want to be the 208th guy in [redacted]?"

I'm not sure why this movie wasn't a huge box office hit. I mean, there's [redacted], [more redacted], and the whole thing climaxes with a crowd of people [redacted]. If that's not enough to put asses in the seats, I don't know what is!

What Greenaway and his usual cinematographer, the great Sacha Vierny, do with this space is amazing. Essentially, it's a filmed version of a play though the camera is frequently turned on the audience who gleefully become participants in a lot of these shenanigans, including a [redacted]. I was pleasantly surprised when the camera moved underneath the stage to show action down there, but when it eventually moves through the back of the stage or sides to show the immensity of the space in which they're all working, I became pleasantly stunned. A lot of that is shown in these exquisite extended shots, some which I'm not sure how are pulled off. I mean, I was hooked with the opener--a shot of a naked guy with this big hat who kind of ushers in everything with a speech-impeded soliloquy--but after that, I almost anticipated getting a little bored. Greenaway and Vierny consistently sucked me into what was going on in this play-within-a-movie though. I'm a sucker for extended shots, and there are some great ones here, especially the scene where [redacted].

The movie seems to be about regular old human beings' responses to the miraculous. Some try to explain it away, picking it apart by explaining how it's got toes and a penis. Some engage in jealous bickering. Some use it as a moneymaker. Some consider it balm or medicine. Some are inspired to contemplate ambitions. The church's response is the one Greenaway seems most critical of. With the response to "It was a virgin birth" being a hypocritical "Ha! Impossible!", it's clear that Greenaway sees the church as only being happy with the miraculous when it's able to get something from it. You know, like when it can make a buck or two auctioning off vials of the miracle baby's urine or something.

[Redacted paragraph]

Anyway, this is definitely for the more adventurous cinephiles out there. But if you don't mind a little [redacted] or [redacted] in your dark dramatic comedies, this visual feast is probably the film for you. It could make an interesting double feature with mother!.

[Redacted]

BlacKkKlansman

2018 Spike Lee joint

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 19/20)

Plot: Denzel Washington's son and Kylo Ren buddy-cop up and infiltrate the KKK.

I know making movies--from the writing to the casting and the shooting and the editing--is very difficult, but Spike Lee has made something that seems effortlessly brilliant here. I remember somebody saying after Trump's inauguration about how at least it will be fuel for artistic minds. I'm not sure if that's the case or not with Blackkklansman or however I'm supposed to type that title, but the troubling times we live in at the very least squeeze out more meaning from this story than would have been squeezed out if it had been made ten years ago.

First, I want to say that aside from the political relevance and timely messages here, Lee has made one hell of an entertaining movie. The movie is often really funny, it has dialogue that sizzles, and it builds dramatic tension naturally and effectively. The director isn't making a movie just to entertain, but it definitely does just that. One could ignore the didacticism and just watch a lively crime drama with some comedic elements if one wanted to do that.

But Lee almost makes that impossible. Always the provocateur, he relentlessly pokes at issues to bring them to the surface, and he does it in a myriad of ways. He does it with his images. The camera shows these characters--both the white and black characters--in ways that they wouldn't traditionally be seen. He does it in the writing, subverting the lingo of white supremacy and black power or sometimes juxtaposing them to give them entirely new meanings. And he does it with allusions, bringing in images of blaxploitation flicks from the 70s, shots from classic movies like Gone with the Wind and Birth of a Nation, and news footage where rhetoric makes intentions crystal clear. It's honestly a whole lot that we're asked to digest, and that's why I think this will be a movie that is going to be analyzed and discussed for a long time, even after our current political nightmare has ended.

Sure Lee is dealing with racism, both in a traditional and obvious sense with the old-school Klan and the more subtle ways that people who aren't the victims of the racism wouldn't even perceive. But I think he's also saying a lot about the language and images of popular culture, especially movies, and how their power has been used for nefarious purposes. And he's saying a lot about the power of language itself. There's loads to unpack here, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

I have some blindspots with Spike Lee that I probably need to take care of first though. I'm not sure I've seen any other movie he's directed in the 21st Century actually. [Note: I'm wrong about that. I just looked it up and have seen The 25th Hour and Inside Man.]

I didn't realize that John David Washington was Denzel Washington's kid, but maybe that's because I just don't pay that much attention. I'm really impressed with what he did here. There's a real wisdom exhibited with these subtle things he does with this performance. I always like Driver when I see him although I have trouble articulating why because I don't think the guy has much range. Alec Baldwin is frightening and hilarious and terrific in a brief cameo right at the very beginning of this movie. And I kept thinking that a guy playing another cop looked a lot like Steve Buscemi. Turns out it's his brother, Michael Buscemi! I didn't even know he had a brother. Topher Grace brings the right amount of ridiculousness and scary hatred to David Duke, and some guy named Jasper Paakkonen is great as the scariest of the KKK guys. The most overtly scary anyway.

Both my wife and I cried at one point. I shared that information with the guy I was telling you about in my Blindspotting write-up, the black guy who works across the hall from me who I desperately want to trick into thinking I'm cool. He told me to "rub some dirt on it," and now I'm afraid I've ruined my chances of getting him to think I'm cool. It was probably a lost cause anyway.

I can forgive a director for making me type a title that way as long as the movie is this good.

The Meg

2018 shark movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: While poking around on what they think might not actually be the bottom of the ocean, scientists unleash a megalodon and have to call on Jason Statham to help get rid of it.

I may have bothered other people in the theater when one of the characters said "Hatch to hatch" and I started laughing because I thought of the "Ass to Ass" scene in Requiem for a Dream and then, to help them understand why I was laughing, explained it by saying, "Ass to ass." I'm giving the movie bonus points for that.

I'm not sure if it's false advertising or if it's just false expectations that I created all by myself, but I am disappointed this wasn't a movie about Jason Statham kicking a 70-foot shark to death. Instead, it's a whole lot of scientific gobbledygook in the almost-cool-looking sealab funded by Dwight Schrute from The Office. Here, Schrute is playing a character who could only be described as a jerk-off. He's probably one of Trump's friends actually.

And before I continue, I do want you to realize that I know the actor who played Dwight Schrute has a real name. But come on--the guy has George-Constanza'd himself because of that sitcom, right? He can't escape that character easily, and roles like this where he's not really very good won't help him shake off the Schrute stink.

But I've digressed. This is a shark movie, not an Office spin-off. I have doubts the world needed another shark movie because Jaws 3-D pretty much perfected the genre, but I guess if you're going to make a shark action adventure, you might as well juice things up by making the shark super big.

Studio Executive: Ok, what do you guys have for me?
Person Trying to Convince the Studio to Make Another Shark Movie: Well, there's this shark. . .
Studio Executive: Wait a second. We've had an oversaturation of shark movies in the last decade or so. No pun intended.
Person Trying to Convince the Studio to Make Another Shark Movie: I'm not sure that's even a pun. But look, this isn't just a shark movie. This shark movie has a fish that is way bigger than the other movies!
Studio Executive: Sold! Here's 150 million dollars to make this thing right. I don't think sharks are fish though.
Person Who Has Convinced the Studio to Make Another Shark Movie: Yeah, who knows?
Studio Executive: See if you can get Jason Statham in the movie. He can, you know, kick the shark.

But Statham doesn't even kick a fucking shark in this! He's a ludicrous action movie hero in this and all, but why would you even bring Statham on board (no pun intended) if you're not going to have the guy kick and punch things?

In a movie that doesn't seem to have a single original idea, Statham punching and kicking a megalodon would have been welcomed. Instead, we get a pastiche of all these other shark movies--from Jaws 3-D to the Sharknado movies with everything in between. But since it's not as well crafted as Jaws 3-D or as dopey as the Sci-Fi Channel offerings, it doesn't deliver any artistic thrills or really any fun. It tries very hard to be a very serious science fiction movie while at the same time existing as this ridiculous spectacle of sharkish slaughter but succeeds in doing neither very well. If you give your audience close call after close call, they're going to get boring after a while.

The special effects are very good with the exception of a scene in the waters of a crowded beach where CGI people are being tossed around. The action Spielbergianly reveals the prehistoric antagonist little by little, first by just sound and a cool visual of its destructive force and then some glimpses of parts of him and finally the whole darn thing. But in building up the tension and anticipation to see the megalodon, it really doesn't do anything interesting with these human characters or the conflict. All it does is make a movie that isn't much fun way longer than it needs to be and give the audience some time to think about how everything seen in this movie is something that's already been seen before.

The words "Wait, what?" have become a major pet peeve for me, by the way. I think they're written into this script about ten times.