Two Times Tuesday: The Meg and BlackKKlansman

The Meg (2018)

The Meg was certainly no Jaws, but it also wasn’t Jaws: The Revenge. It was an entertaining action movie about a megalodon being discovered deep in the ocean off the coast of China and then it finds its way to the surface and wreaks havoc. It was as simple and straightforward as a movie can be. Each character was one-dimensional with superfluous and forced motivations beyond just survival. Jason Statham was the same character he plays in every other movie, a gruff, reluctant participant who is an expert in every potential field needed. Rainn Wilson was the best actor, bringing personality and actually emoting. Ruby Rose was the worst actor. There was a scene where someone sacrifices themself for her and the shot of her crying after is laughable. It seemed like she had never been sad before, and the camera just hung on her face. The acting was the biggest flaw, but the CGI was also a problem. The visuals were very inconsistent, ranging from photorealistic to PS3 quality. The Meg was basically a Syfy original movie with a massive budget, so it is watchable, even if just for the flaws. Overall, I give The Meg 42 feet out of 82 feet of megalodon.

BlackKKlansman (2018)

After watching a throwaway popcorn movie, I saw BlackKKlansman, a sharp, timely telling of a ridiculous but true story. It was one of the best movies I have seen in a while. Spike Lee brings his usual style behind the camera to construct immersive and well-designed scenes that are beautifully shot and use audio to enhance the story. I didn’t expect anything different with respect to the cinematography, but I thought that the movie was going to be more of a comedy. It was not. Even when you want to laugh at the stupidity of the racist losers, they say something that alludes to events of the past few years. The characters seem so extreme that I would not have believed they were real 15 years ago. Now I see them on the news and Twitter spewing their garbage in 2018. Lee did an excellent job of using phrasing consistent with the era and infusing current racist vernacular to remind the viewer that this is still an ongoing issue. I really enjoyed this movie, but my only problem is that it was made with a tone of changing peoples’ minds. The people whose minds need to be changed will never see a movie with Denzel Washington’s son on the poster. If you do see it, you will feel uncomfortable, but in the best way. It was one of the best made movies of the summer and earns 12 of the 13 stars on that loser rag of a Confederate flag.