Finally ... a movie with teeth
The Meg brings an oversized shark to the big screen, Chris Lackner writes.
MOVIES
Big releases on Aug. 10: The Meg; Slender Man; Dog Days
Big picture: The Meg is Moby Dick meets Jaws meets Sharknado meets ... Jason Statham punching a prehistoric giant in the face. The film pits the one-trick action hero against a 75-foot long shark — a surviving member of a species called Megalodon thought to have been extinct for more than two million years. Of course, after getting a taste for human blood, Meg heads to the nearest beach. This action flick is self-aware and features all the genre tropes; it just supersizes them.
Meanwhile, Slender Man explores the popular urban legend about a relentless supernatu- ral creature spotted in online photos. As usual, said monster spends the majority of his time hunting high school girls. Just once can’t an otherworldly foe invade an old age home? Hollywood monsters are terrifying, sure — but they’re also terribly ageist.
“Once you see him you can’t unsee him,” one character says of Slender Man.
Finally, Dog Days is an ensemble comedy that implausibly and cloyingly links 12 people with four dogs.
Love is discovered; new friendships are made; presumably, bones and enlightenment are found in equal doses. It sells itself as “a comedy about warm hearts and cold noses.”
Arf. Forecast: The Meg is a popcorn movie with bite.
TV
Big events: Castaways (Aug. 7, ABC)
Big picture: Castaways is Survivor meets Lost. Twelve contestants are stranded on a string of Indonesian islands after a simulated disaster. All they have to work with is their wits and fake “washed-up luggage.” The castaways begin their ordeal without any knowledge of each other — or how many Smoke Monsters and hatches could be out there in the jungle. The show intersperses their struggles with flashbacks to who they were before they signed up to be marooned in front of a global TV audience.
“How far would you go to discover yourself ?” the promo asks. The sane answer: not this far. (I would, however, be willing to sign up for a reality show that abandoned me on a tropical island populated by a five-star resort.)
Forecast: I would have been more excited if Tom Hanks and Wilson were among the Castaways.
MUSIC
Big release on Aug. 10: Jason Mraz (Know)
Big picture: The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Jason Mraz certainly likes to keep things simple. He has followed up his 2014 album Yes! with this summer’s Know. (Can’t wait for 2019’s No! and 2022’s Yes! Please!) Meanwhile, Nicki Minaj’s summer album Queen has been pushed back to Aug. 17. Forecast: If you want sunny, simple pop rock, Mraz knows his stuff. Me? I’ll be listening to an iconic number from The Meg ’s soundtrack — the smooth classic Beyond the Sea by Bobby Darin — while images of Statham wrestling with prehistory dance in my head.