Oh man, so get this. I actually do have amnesia! I actually don’t remember a thing about this movie! I wonder … am I a super spy? I don’t know, but do you remember what happened in Argylle?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) At the beginning of the film we see the original ending to the newest book in the Argylle series. What happens (much to Elly’s mother’s chagrin)?
2) Why does Sam Rockwell originally claim that the super secret spy agency wants Elly?
3) Eventually, in London, Elly escapes and meets up with her parents, played by Katherine O’Hara and Bryan Cranston. But they aren’t her parents, are they? Who are they really?
4) Alright, then where do they ultimately find the MacGuffin?
5) I’ve been calling it the MacGuffin the whole time, but what is it actually?
Bonus Question: Right out of the theater my new agent Fred calls me. He needs to talk to me stat. What does he want to talk about?
Jamie and Patrick bust through the doors backstage and immediately stop their fist fight. They shake hands and agree that pretending to be real mad at each other so they could escape the fashion show was a perfect plan. “I just hope Kyle and Samantha are OK,” Jamie says wistfully. Just then Kyle and Samantha bust through the door engaged in what looks like a violent bout of fisticuffs. They also immediately stop and Samantha turns to shake Jamie’s hand. “Great idea pretending to be real mad at each other. Hopefully no one else realizes that you two are clearly great twins that would never fight like that.” Patrick is impressed by Samantha’s quick grasp of their twin dynamics. Generally he’s been skeptical of the many demons that Jamie has been interested in, but Samantha seems different. She seems… “Are you a demon?” he blurts out quickly. “Good question,” Samantha responds cooly, “And no, I’m just a regular old former track star from a small town in Massachusetts. Sure my life has had some ups and downs, but,” she looks over at Jamie, “things are starting to look up.” Awwwww. “That’s cool,” Jamie says, trying to act tough. Patrick, though, wants a little more clarity on these “ups and downs” she’s talking about, but before he can get it they see the Fashion Police hot on their tails. Before they hightail it, Samantha turns to grab something from her bag. It’s a manuscript for her latest novel. “Oh, you’re an author? Uh… so am I, kind of. I’d love to hear about it some time,” Jamie says, stars in his eyes. “Sure,” Samantha responds breathlessly, “How about now?” Patrick wants to tell them that there just isn’t the time, but Kyle stops him. It’s just so romantic. That’s right! Speaking of fake books we’re taking a BMT Live! detour to catch the Taylor Swift film Argylle in theaters… what’s that? Taylor Swift didn’t write Argylle? So why are we watching it? Let’s go!
Argylle (2024) – BMeTric: 27.2; Notability: 40
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 0.8%; Notability: top 0.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 9.5%; Higher BMeT: Night Swim, Lift; Lower RT: The Painter, Wanted Man, Night Swim, Lift, Sunrise, Miller’s Girl; Notes: It does make sense that 40 would be the highest Notability for the year so far. I assume Madam Web is coming and will beat it out. Hopefully it beats it out for everything because that film is going to be hilarious.
RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – “Argylle,” the stumbling, overcooked action flick from director Matthew Vaughn, begins with a kind of joke. … It’s a shame. “Argylle” had the potential to be a whip-smart parody. It unfortunately just seems to get tired of being the butt of the joke before it can deliver the punchline. But in attempting to avoid becoming a gag—laboring to connect this film with the Kingsman franchise—Vaughn imbues his film with anonymity, making it merely forgettable.
(Yeah, that does feel like what happened. Vaughn couldn’t quite decide if he wanted to do comedy-action or action-comedy and got stuck in the dead zone in the middle where the film does neither very well.)
(This is genuinely one of the worst trailers I’ve seen in theaters in a while. I could tell it was all style and no substance right from the garbage needle drop.)
Directors – Matthew Vaughn – ( Known For: X-Men: First Class; Kingsman: The Secret Service; Kick-Ass; Kingsman: The Golden Circle; Stardust; Layer Cake; The King’s Man; BMT: Argylle; Notes: I mostly knew him for Kick-Ass which was quite fun. He’s kind of wrapped himself all up in Kingsman properties (of which this is one?) and has two separate Kingsman things in production, not to mention the teaser after this movie about an Argylle prequel which I feel like now will never happen.)
Writers – Jason Fuchs – ( Known For: Wonder Woman; I Still See You; Future BMT: Ice Age: Continental Drift; Pan; BMT: Argylle; Notes: Was/is an actor primarily and does a lot of voices. Is writing an upcoming television series which serves as a prequel to Stephen King’s IT.)
Actors – Henry Cavill – ( Known For: Man of Steel; Zack Snyder’s Justice League; Mission: Impossible – Fallout; The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; Stardust; Enola Holmes; Immortals; The Count of Monte Cristo; Enola Holmes 2; Whatever Works; Sand Castle; Night Hunter; Blood Creek; I Capture the Castle; Red Riding Hood; The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare; Future BMT: Tristan + Isolde; The Cold Light of Day; BMT: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; Justice League; Black Adam; Argylle; Notes: Surprisingly British, was at points rumored to be up for Bond. Is going to be the main character in a remake of Highlander. I don’t care … right up until his faithful remake of Highlander II.)
Bryce Dallas Howard – ( Known For: A Beautiful Mind; Jurassic World; Spider-Man 3; The Help; 50/50; Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom; How the Grinch Stole Christmas; The Village; The Twilight Saga: Eclipse; Rocketman; Hereafter; Gold; Pete’s Dragon; Manderlay; A Dog’s Way Home; Good Dick; To Each His Own Cinema; As You Like It; The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond; Book of Love; Future BMT: Terminator Salvation; BMT: Jurassic World Dominion; Lady in the Water; Argylle; Notes: Is going to be in some television adaptation of Witch Mountain it looks like. The daughter of Ron Howard obviously.)
Sam Rockwell – ( Known For: The Green Mile; Iron Man 2; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Jojo Rabbit; Moon; Seven Psychopaths; Cowboys & Aliens; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Charlie’s Angels; The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Galaxy Quest; Vice; The Way Way Back; Matchstick Men; Frost/Nixon; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Richard Jewell; Confessions of a Dangerous Mind; Everybody’s Fine; See How They Run; Future BMT: The Sitter; Poltergeist; G-Force; Strictly Business; BMT: Argylle; Notes: Nominated for two Oscars and won for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the other was Vice. Has a few upcoming projects, most significantly probably being IF with Ryan Reynolds.)
Budget/Gross – $200–250 million / Domestic: $21,431,025 (Worldwide: $38,292,025)
(Absolutely brutal. It’ll make like $50. I suppose there is an argument that as an Apple film it doesn’t matter. But I imagine they thought it was going to be a theatrical release, otherwise why wouldn’t you just Ghosted it?)
Rotten Tomatoes – 33% (82/251): Argylle gets some mileage out of its silly, energetic spin on the spy thriller, but ultimately wears out its welcome with a convoluted plot and overlong runtime.
(IMO the issue with the convoluted plot is that it is only convoluted because they insisted on the twist that leads into the third act which then makes the third act abominable. If they had just stuck to their guns with the fish out of water story and hired a comedian as the lead then I think it could have kind of worked.)
Reviewer Highlight: What you’re left with as the credits roll is just the realization that time keeps marching on — and you’ve just lost 139 minutes of it. – Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times
(That was what I wanted the memification of the film to be. Where we start a trend #Tárgylle and people go to the movie dressed a Lydia Tár. But that seems a little too manufactured. The tweens would see right through that. Patrick nailed it, though, and we’ll save that for the recap. Meanwhile this poster could rub people the wrong way, but just based on its work as a poster I think it’s pretty good. A-.)
Tagline(s) – Once you know the secret don’t let the cat out of the bag. (D)
(Boy, no. Why are they so focused on this cat and the bag? Just because TSwift made it a sensation and made people think she wrote the movie?)
Keyword(s) – Year 2024
Top 10: The Beekeeper (2024), Fighter (2024), Lift (2024), Merry Christmas (2024), Guntur Kaaram (2024), Hanu Man (2024), Argylle (2024), Mean Girls (2024), Night Swim (2024), Badland Hunters (2024)
Future BMT: 53.2 Night Swim (2024)
BMT: Argylle (2024)
Best Options: 53.2 Night Swim (2024), 24.0 Argylle (2024)
(Yeah Night Swim is coming for the final cycle, which is exciting. In a way we probably should have saved Argylle as well … Should BMT Live be canceled? Should we replace it with something else?)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Henry Cavill is No. 5 billed in Argylle and No. 2 billed in Justice League, which also stars Ben Affleck (No. 1 billed) who is in Pearl Harbor (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (5 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (3 + 3) = 15. There is no shorter path at the moment.
Notes – Matthew Vaughn cast Henry Cavill because “he needed someone who was born to play James Bond – which Henry is – and then nick him before Bond’s studio did.” Cavill was in fact a finalist to play Bond in Casino Royale (2006), but was rejected for being too young (he was then 22).
Alfie the Cat is played by Chip, owned by Matthew Vaughn’s wife Claudia Schiffer.
The font seen on the posters was commissioned specifically for the movie. It was created by the Walden Font Company.
Matthew Vaughn secured the rights to The Beatles’ song “Now and Then” a year before it was released. The song was being developed by Giles Martin, the son of longtime Beatles producer Sir George Martin, and Giles also served as music producer on Argylle. Vaughn recalled, “I was with [Giles] and I said, ‘I’m really struggling to find what I call the romantic song of the movie, ’cause I need it to be sad, but hopeful…’ And he said, ‘Do you want to hear a new Beatles song?’ And Giles has got a hell of a sense of humor, so I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah. Whatever.’ And he goes, ‘No, I’m being deadly serious.’ He played it to me, and it was as if Lennon had seen the film… We just slapped it on the movie, and we didn’t have to edit anything – it just fitted the picture.”
Argylle is named after the limo driver from the first Die Hard movie.
Disaster! Now that I have your attention I think this is an appropriate forum to further discuss the steady decline in available BMT films entering our BMT Treasure Chest (BMTTC). From time immemorial we have used a simple calculation to differentiate wheat from chaff. A rottentomatoes score <40% (because let’s face it, 60% is far too high… that’s a crazy number) and the requirement that the film was a “wide release” (typically >600 theaters, although we’ve at times gone with a more qualitative “vibes” based approach). Recent events, however, have conspired against us. This is likely because our vast bad movie funds and legions of fans have put the fear of god into movie studios across the globe and they’ve banded together to foil us. How? By making only good movies? No! By releasing fewer and fewer movies to theaters and then paying reviewers to give good reviews to the crap that do make it that far (the views of the author do not reflect the views of BMTCorp). Fiends! In all seriousness, we actually are heading for a breaking point and I think we really would have had to consider some changes to our rulez if Expend4bles hadn’t qualified. But boy did it ever. It’s still a horrible sign that the BMT Live! films this year consisted of two Jason Statham sequels and a Liam Neeson film (plus the dino flick, 65). Feels like we are playing in an ever shrinking pool. But we persist and we survive and Expend4bles means we can put off such drastic rulez changez for another year. Yay!
To recap! Barney Ross is back, Jack! And so is Lee Christmas. They are getting the “gang” back together, which really means they have two old timers (Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture) plus a bunch of randos like 50 Cent. They are tasked with flying into Libya to prevent a terrorist named Suarto from getting his hands on some nuclear weapons and delivering them to the big bad, Ocelot. They punch and kick and shoot real hard, but it’s not enough. Not only do they lose the warheads, but Barney is shot down and definitely dies for sure. No chance Sly Stallone survived the plane crash. Because if there’s one thing I know about Sly it’s that he loves to pass his franchises onto the next generation. Everyone is sad (because Sly definitely died) and Christmas gets even sadder when he’s informed by their government handler, Marsh, that he’s off the team and his GF, Megan Fox, is taking over. After planting a tracking device on Fox, Christmas tracks them to a tanker in the Pacific Ocean with the help of former Expendable, Decha. When they get onto the tanker, though, it’s a trap! All the Expendables are captured and Marsh is forced to negotiate for the release of a prisoner who can identify Ocelot. When Christmas arrives the Expendables have already escaped so they all team up to take down Suarto. However, when the prisoner arrives it’s revealed that Marsh is Ocelot (what a twist!). All the expendables leave the boat, which is set to explode and spark a war, while Christmas stays behind to try to turn the boat around. Just when it appears all is lost and Marsh’s plan will succeed, Sly Stallone arrives (what a double twist!). Turns out he just faked his death to lure out Ocelot (who could have guessed?). He kills Marsh with a helicopter, scoops up Christmas, and sinks the tanker to reduce the impact of the explosion (all in about 20 seconds). They then celebrate good times. THE END.
Wooooooow. And I thought the third film was bad. This is basically not a film. At times gross. At other times super dumb. Always terrible looking. This film really exemplifies what has become a common theme in BMT: Jason Statham is game. Doesn’t matter what the script is or what you have him do. That check clears and he’s ready to sell whatever line you are having him say. The acting in this is terrible and the twists are inane. Never for one moment did I believe Sly Stallone was actually dead. Why? He is famous for forcing people to pry franchises out of his grip. You think he’s giving up Expendables? Get out of here. I just really can’t express my pleasure in watching this terrible, terrible movie. It’s gives me BMT hope for our BMT future. My one concern? This still ended up at 14% on RT. This is a <10% film if I’ve ever seen one.
Hot Take Clam Bake! Sly Stallone actually did die in the film. “Barney” who showed up at the end was actually his twin brother. That’s the mega-twist of the film. That Barney was a secret twin and that secret twin, let’s call him Rarney, is even more badass. You know what? I’m starting to vibe with this super-secret twin film. Expend4bles? More like Twin-pendables. Let’s make them all twins. Technology can do anything! We’re going to live foreeevvveeerrrrrrrr. Hot Take Temperature: Sizzling Megan Fox/Statham sex scene.
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about ancient Methuselah Stallone showing up for, oh say, 15% of a film and then pawning off the rest to BMT Legend Jason Statham? Hell ye4h we 4re! Let’s go!
I will say it again: don’t you dare allow Jason Statham anywhere near his natural habitat of water. He’ll Olympic dive right into your stupid face.
Right off the top, and I don’t know if other people noticed this, but this film basically doesn’t have a soundtrack. It is mostly scored. There are songs on occasion, but they are mostly played for jokes (Some Blue Oyster Cult during the not-funeral which Statham makes light of, and, naturally, some 50 Cent they got for free). I guess my point is, if there was ever a movie which demanded some sick tunes in the action scenes, this one is it, and yet … really nothing. Bizarre. I think my actual point is: is this the cheapest film of all time. What did they spend any money on?
Could anything have been more telegraphed than Stallone not actually dying in the beginning. God forbid they do something daring or interesting in these films like let someone die a plot advancing death.
Megan Fox is awful, but so is everyone else. She did do that flippy thing where she like jumps on a person and spins around them for the take down. It is like an obligation at this point.
This entire film is kind of an obligation now that I think about it.
Half the film takes place, ultimately, on a rather silly tanker set with way too wide of hallways, and it looks dumb (aka like a set).
And then in the end there is a different dumb twist where Andy Garcia was the bad guy all along, who would have thunk it?
Oh and of course Stallone comes back and details how he killed a man in cold blood for funsies, and everyone laughs and laughs and laughs.
This film is aggressively dumb, and the only regret is that it did so poorly it is almost certain that the planned sequels won’t be made or, if they are, they’ll Escape Plan it and they’ll be sold off to VOD. Which is all the worse for the long term BMT health. In reality, to put this in terms we all understand: Meg 2: The Trench is a Happy Statham for BMT because it made a lot of money so they’ll probably make Meg 3 and it’ll probably also be bad. Expend4bles on the other hand is a Sad Statham for BMT because it made no money and so it won’t be fruitful and multiply creating little BMT sequels for us to watch.
I guess for Expendable5 we’ll just have to cross that bridge. Maybe by then we’ll have to unveil our new criteria to allow for 52 films to actually qualify instead of the paltry 22 so far. We had 23 last year. We haven’t had a full 52+ BMT slate since 2017, and I have a feeling we’ll hit 10 years quite easily by that metric.
I do love an odd Product Placement (What?) and this time you can see quite a few advertisements for Helix Vodka sprinkled in the film which is kind of funny. As for Setting as a Character (Where?) why are so many Statham films vaguely set around Thailand, ultimately though this ends up being set around the easternmost tip of Russia. Obviously you need a sweet MacGuffin (Why?) in the form of an actual genuine undisarmable nuke. And a double dose of Worst Twist (How?) for the reveal of Garcia as the big bad, and Stallone as not having died. This film is oh so so so so Bad.
Read about my idea for Expendable5: Esc4ape Plan in the Quiz. Cheerios,
‘Ello everyone! You know what really fucks you up? Like constant successive blasts from being in a warzone for basically decades. I have tinnitus and like a million concussions. I don’t even remember my own name half the time let alone this movie. Do you remember what happened in Expend4bles?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) In the beginning Sly wants Statham to come and help him murder a bunch of people in cold blood. Why?
2) Cool cool cool. Anyways, what precisely are the big bad buys obtaining in … Libya? Somewhere in a desert. It is never very clear.
3) After getting fired for trying to save Sly’s life, Statham gets another job. What is it?
4) How does Statham then try and track the Expendable crew to their mission? After having sex with Megan Fox how does he actually do it?
5) So .. who’s Ocelot and how does Statham stop the boat from blowing up a nuke off the coat of Russia?
Bonus Question: Well the whole crew is back baby! But what is their next mission?
Jamie and Patrick are looking wizard. Hat? Funky. Jeans? Fresh. Riding? Horses. They’re about to turn nine and are deep into the latest horse craze sweeping the nation. Their dad had one word of advice for them as they navigate this crazy thing we call life: “How do you have so much time to watch all this bad stuff while also taking care of that horse?” With that he swept his arm in the general direction of a nearby beautiful meadow and called it ‘nature’s movie.’ Despite this being wrong (Nature’s movie is Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest) they venture forth and find themselves knee deep in grass as Don, their horse, eats his fill. “This is nice, actually,” Jamie begins, running his hands through the tall grass. “It’s not quite as nice as water, but it’s close. Because in water no one can see you nude and in the water…” but before he can finish his thought on why water and the tall grass are similar in one specific way they hear the sound of horses approaching. They hop on Don, but it’s too late, they’re surrounded by a bunch of older kids on their own horses. “What are we going to do?” Don says, which is worrisome, because Don usually knows exactly what to do. “Nice horse,” one of the kids says, but before the compliment can land he pulls out a quick “NOT!” and everyone laughs. As the kids ride away, still laughing, Jamie and Patrick’s eyes narrow. “They are foolz and we are the cure for foolz,” Jamie says, pulling out a very cool phrase he coined. With that their eyes glaze over and they enter a patented Twin Memory in order to remember such a cure for foolz. That’s right! You might remember a similarly cool phrase uttered by Sly Stallone in Cobra. Well we aren’t watching that (unfortunately). Instead we are taking it LIVE and watching Expend4bles. I had been worried that the film might be so stupid that reviewers would be like “If you are real dumb you’ll like this. Who am I to judge? 2.5 stars.” But nope! This got some real real real bad reviews. Hooray! Let’s go!
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 4.0%; Notability: top 0.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 0.5%; Higher BMeT: Meg 2: The Trench, The Black Demon, Knights of the Zodiac, 65, The Ritual Killer, The Out-Laws, Insidious: The Red Door, White Men Can’t Jump, Hypnotic, Expend4bles; Higher Notability: Fool’s Paradise, Ghosted; Lower RT: The Ritual Killer; Notes: The BMeT ones are fascinating. The Black Demon? The Ritual Killer? The Out-Laws? Never heard of any of these. The Black Demon is, somehow, a knock off The Meg. The Ritual Killer is a Morgan Freeman film where it seems like a serial killer uses magic to kill people maybe? And now that I look at it I now remember that The Out-Laws is an Adam DeVine comedy about a bank robbery. I guess the point is: at some point we have to expand our horizons to include nonsense like The Out-Laws at least, so how should we do it? BMeT? Hardly. But something we have to think about.
RogerEbert.com – 1.0 stars – “The Expendables” had a simple enough concept—gather a bunch of ’80s-era action cinema icons, including Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, and Mickey Rourke, and bring them together for an old-school-style shoot-em-up in which they, along with such current familiar faces (and pecs) as Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, and Steve Austin, joined forces to blow things up real good. The film was no masterpiece, but the aggressively retro approach—it felt like exactly the kind of thing that the late great Cannon Films might have conjured up if they were still in business—had a certain lunkheaded charm, and it wound up being a surprise hit. Two sequels followed in 2012 and 2014, and while neither one lived up to the exceedingly mild promise of their predecessor, they served their purpose as B-movie fodder and a way for veteran action stars (including Harrison Ford, Chuck Norris, Wesley Snipes, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Antonio Banderas and, inexplicably, Kelsey Grammer) to kill a couple of adequately-paid weeks reliving the good old days—sort of the genre equivalent of a Hall of Fame game.
“Expend4bles” is just an embarrassment from start to finish, and the only positive thing to say about it is that it should pretty much put a nail in the coffin of a series that has clearly overstayed its welcome. At least for another decade.
(Yeah, that sounds about right. And finally. Something like this is bad for what it is, instead of merely good for what it is. Read the review. It put it into lunkheaded context and found it wanting even from the modest premise. More of that please.)
(We heard who? Oh yeah, I forgot the whole advertising campaign revolved around how they were going to make this movie rated-R and that was supposed to make it better somehow.)
Directors – Scott Waugh – ( Known For: Hidden Strike; 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain; Future BMT: Act of Valor; BMT: Expend4bles; Need for Speed; Notes: He is tapped for an upcoming Schwarzenegger film called Breakout (secret sequel to Escape Plan?). Also he is apparently directing a film starring a few wrestlers.)
Writers – Kurt Wimmer – ( Known For: Equilibrium; The Thomas Crown Affair; Salt; Children of the Corn; The Misfits; The Recruit; Spell; Double Trouble; The Neighbor; Relative Fear; Future BMT: Law Abiding Citizen; Total Recall; Street Kings; BMT: Expend4bles; Point Break; Ultraviolet; Notes: Wrote the original book the first film was based on … naw I’m joking. For his film Equilibrium he claims to have invented “Gun Kata” a fictional martial art discipline. He also wrote the upcoming Statham film The Beekeepers.)
Tad Daggerhart – (BMT: Expend4bles; Notes: One of those guys which are so new to the scene they don’t have a TMDB profile yet. He acted a bit, was in script continuity for a bit, but then wrote this and a non-film called Black Lotus this year.)
Max Adams – ( Known For: Heist; Extraction; Precious Cargo; BMT: Expend4bles; Notes: He served in the armed forces, so his writing credits definitely skew that direction.)
Spenser Cohen – ( Known For: Extinction; BMT: Expend4bles; Moonfall; Notes: He has an upcoming film he is writing-directing called Horrorscope in which (can you guess?) a group of teens begin dying based on their horoscope after getting their fortunes told.)
Dave Callaham – ( Known For: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; The Expendables; Mortal Kombat; Wonder Woman 1984; Godzilla; Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings; Zombieland: Double Tap; Horsemen; America: The Motion Picture; Tell Tale; BMT: Expend4bles; The Expendables 3; Doom; Notes: Yeah, a big writer, mostly on big budget films and often comic book oriented. He is writing the new Masters of the Universe film.)
Actors – Jason Statham – ( Known For: Fast X; The Expendables; The Expendables 2; The Meg; Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre; Spy; Snatch; F9: The Fast Saga; Wrath of Man; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Collateral; Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw; Furious 7; The Fate of the Furious; The Italian Job; Furious 6; Homefront; The Transporter; The Mechanic; Parker; Future BMT: The Pink Panther; The One; War; Turn It Up; BMT: Expend4bles; Meg 2: The Trench; The Expendables 3; Crank; Mechanic: Resurrection; Crank: High Voltage; Killer Elite; In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Ghosts of Mars; Notes: Wow, very close to our tenth Statham. He has three Hall of Fame films. I wonder if anyone else beats that (unofficial check: from what I can tell Travolta and Stallone also have three as of this year).)
50 Cent – ( Known For: Spy; Southpaw; Den of Thieves; Escape Plan; Morning Glory; Last Vegas; The Frozen Ground; Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping; Escape Plan: The Extractors; The Prince; Escape Plan 2: Hades; 13; Fire with Fire; Twelve; All Things Fall Apart; Freelancers; Home of the Brave; Setup; Gun; Dead Man Running; Future BMT: Get Rich or Die Tryin’; BMT: Expend4bles; Righteous Kill; Notes: An oddly charmed film career. Although some of the non-BMT films actually are just too small. Escape Plan 2 is absolutely dire, but it wasn’t released to theaters in the end.)
Megan Fox – ( Known For: Jennifer’s Body; This Is 40; Transformers; Till Death; Midnight in the Switchgrass; The Dictator; Night Teeth; Johnny & Clyde; Good Mourning; Above the Shadows; Zeroville; Rogue; Big Gold Brick; Taurus; Friends with Kids; The Battle of Jangsari; Think Like a Dog; Passion Play; Whore; Future BMT: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows; Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen; Bad Boys II; Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; BMT: Expend4bles; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Jonah Hex; Notes: What is the opposite of an oddly charmed film career? Blasted onto the scene when Michael Bay cast her in multiple Transformers films. She’s stuck around though, and even has some cult classics floating around. Was married to Brian Austin Green for 10 years, they have three kids together, but divorced a few years ago.)
Budget/Gross – $100 million / Domestic: $14,336,200 (Worldwide: $26,064,529)
(Yeah it was disastrous. There is almost no way they continue with the series, despite Sly’s contention that there will be more. The last stunk, this stunk, and now it is box office poison. Not a chance.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 13% (15/119): Solid work from Jason Statham and some halfway decent set pieces aren’t enough to make up for Expend4bles’ lackluster action and cheap-looking effects.
(Solid work by Jason Statham sounded unlikely initially … but yeah, I suppose he is always game for a little action smash’em’up so it actually seems quite likely.)
Reviewer Highlight: The film’s last reel is so awful — so sneeringly contemptuous of our good-faith efforts to play along with these shenanigans — that we leave the theater still thinking of that shot of a corpse’s middle finger. It sure seemed pointed at us. – Amy Nicholson, The New York Times
(Nailed it. Big ol’ meh to this guy. Just all the people and then zany colors for… I guess I don’t really know why. C-.)
Tagline(s) – Old blood meets new blood. (D)
(Nope. That ain’t it.)
Keyword(s) – year 2023
Top 10: Oppenheimer (2023), Barbie (2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), The Flash (2023), Pathaan (2023)
Future BMT: 82.1 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 47.0 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 44.0 Hypnotic (2023), 42.6 House Party (2023), 37.8 Fool’s Paradise (2023), 35.5 Mafia Mamma (2023), 30.2 The Machine (2023), 30.1 About My Father (2023), 28.9 My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), 28.6 Love Again (2023), 25.2 Fear (2023), 21.7 Haunted Mansion (2023), 10.3 The Exorcist: Believer (2023), 7.5 Sweetwater (2023)
BMT: Meg 2: The Trench (2023), 65 (2023), Expend4bles (2023), Retribution (2023)
Best Options (Action): 44.0 Hypnotic (2023), 42.0 Expend4bles (2023), 35.5 Mafia Mamma (2023), 30.2 The Machine (2023)
(Hypnotic will almost certainly be the action choice for the end of the year cycle, so we’ll have hit a solid set of bad guys by the end. We are not watching Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey though. I refuse.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 6) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Jason Statham is No. 1 billed in Expend4bles and No. 1 billed in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 6. There is no shorter path at the moment.
Notes – Jason Statham has expressed his love for The Expendables. On co-star Sylvester Stallone, he said “Working with Sylvester Stallone is beyond a pinch yourself moment. I remember growing up watching his films, and to be directed by him, and to be in a movie that he’s produced, and to be shoulder to shoulder with Sly is a privilege any man who loves action movies would never turn their nose up at. I mean, it’s terrific. I’ll do as many as he wants.”
Sylvester Stallone while promoting The Expendables 3 (2014) DVD/Blu-ray release of the movie, Stallone commented that if a fourth film happens, it will definitely be R-rated unlike the PG-13 rated The Expendables 3 (2014) as he states on the matter: “Absolutely unequivocally yes,” he confirmed. “I believe it was a horrible miscalculation on everyone’s part in trying to reach a wider audience, but in doing such, diminish the violence that the audience expects. I’m quite certain it won’t happen again.”
Sylvester Stallone confirmed this is the first of a new trilogy.
Sylvester Stallone’s first choice for the villain was Jack Nicholson.
Jason Statham was the first actor, besides Sylvester Stallone, to say he will be returning for this film.
It’s been a wild ride for BMT Live! this year. Our qualification system is built for yesteryear and there are two compounding things occurring in films right now. One is that the way films are released is rapidly changing. Things go to streaming way quicker now (our last Live, Meg 2, is already there) and so often have very limited releases, which makes it way harder to understand what a “wide release” even is. Additionally (and more insidiously) films are just better reviewed now. There is some recent reporting from Vulture that reveals some of why that is, but the why is less important than the simple fact that we are rapidly approaching a critical point. There might very well be a year where we don’t even get 13 films with reviews poor enough to qualify for BMT (a minimum quota). I’m sure we’ll write a lot more about this in the future as there is only one word that adequately describes this dire situation: tragedy. Fortunately Liam Neeson is working diligently to help our cause. We thank him for his service (and hope that we don’t find out that we’re dealing with a Bruce Willis scenario).
To recap, Liam Neeson is a kind of skeezy hedge fund manager whose wife wants to divorce him and kids think is just a workaholic liar. They are correct as we find that his fund is in deep shit. But he’s about to find himself in even deeper shit when he gets a call and is told that a bomb has been placed under his car seat and will blow up if he tries to leave. Forced to follow the directions of the anonymous voice (and fearing for his kids’ lives, who also happen to be in the car) he drives his way around Berlin witnessing other cars explode from the comfort of his luxury Mercedes. Mercedes… if you can’t leave your car for fear of exploding, you better make it a Mercedes. First it’s a coworker of his and then it’s his partner, Anders. Additionally, he’s forced to have his wife pick up some money during which he finds out about the divorce. During one of the explosions his daughter is seriously injured and he becomes enraged. He turns into The Neeson and Tokyo Drifts his way into a tunnel where the lack of cell phone service allows him some separation from the voice. After allowing for his kids to be rescued, The Neeson Tokyo Drifts his way out of the tunnel and back in pursuit of the baddie. After luring him into the car it’s revealed to be Anders (what a twist!). He faked his death and is doing it for those sweet dollar dollar bills y’all. The Neeson is like “oh yeah?” and crashes his car in the perfect way to allow for him to escape and Anders to explode. Hooray! Although, he probably still gets divorced. THE END.
There are two things amusing about this film. One is just how similar it is to the BMT classic Getaway. Anonymous voice, vast conspiracy, family in trouble. We were both hoping beyond hope that this film would end in a similar way to that one: the voice reveals that it was all a ruse in order to allow Neeson to realize that he can still pursue his auto racing career. But alas, the twist here is much less goofy. The second is obviously the inevitable comparisons to the other recent Neeson action dreck. Interestingly, this came out pretty favorably in that regard. Blacklight is terrible and Memory has some interesting things in it (but is still pretty terrible). This moved everything along quick enough to not feel trapped in the movie theater (high praise, I know). Sure the acting is horrible and it’s dumb as rocks, but it doesn’t upset me like Meg 2: The Trench. If this is the direction (and director) they go with then maybe Neeson still has a few more in him.
Hot Take Clam Bake! Uh, I think you know what happened here. Liam Neeson is a bad dad. He’s a bad dad banking dad. Everyone hates him. He hates himself. He sees on the news in the morning that there was a car bombing. He starts to day dream. It’s a world where his kids are trapped in a car with him and they are threatened. Ultimately he saves the day and they say they love him and he gets to be the big hero that kills that asshole Anders (fucking Anders). As the film ends we zoom into Liam Neeson’s eye to reveal that this was all a dream. His wife is telling him that he better hurry if he wants to get the kids to school on time, which he does… and then he gets back to cheating people out of their money. His retribution was but a dream. Hot Take Temperature: the sizzling remains of a blown up Mercedes.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! I have a new joke for you. You know how old Liam Neeson is? (How old is he?! You all cheer). Oh man, Liam Neeson is so old he now spends 90% of an action film literally sitting down and not being allowed to get up under threat of death! Let’s go!
Boy oh boy. We do sometimes make some odd choices for Lives don’t we?
In our defense this time, this film was inevitable. This wasn’t Keeping up with the Joneses where we had no business watching this and could have just forgot it existed. A new Liam Neeson film? Welp, we have to watch that.
It is a bit perplexing. Other actors, of course, have done this. Done a bunch of schlock at the tail end of their careers for retirement cash. There is nothing wrong with that. The confusing bit is how are they getting wide releases? I really don’t get it. I would have thought Blacklight and this in particular would have gone the Ice Road route and been straight to streaming.
If I had to rank Blacklight, The Ice Road, Memory, Retribution, and The Commuter (to get an even 5) it would be: (1) The Commuter, a real movie and quite fun; (2) The Ice Road, entertaining for what it is with some decent actors; (3) Retribution, sure nothing is super novel here, but it is an entertaining idea at least, good for a stream; (4) Memory, I’ve come around a bit on this, even though I still don’t like the subject matter and I think Neeson’s acting choices are odd, they at least go for something; (5) Blacklight, useless garbage.
So mid-table for recent choices by Liam Neeson (that I’ve seen), which sounds right. The son isn’t a super great actor, and the twist is pretty dumb. But it goes at a good clip, and the underlying story feels a little thought through.
As I said, it was inevitable that we’d see it so it was unavoidable.
Theater review – As usual, quite good. I hear a lot about bad experiences these days, and I’m sure there are for Friday night horror films which would attract a lot of teens, but the days/times we go seem to be pretty light and I haven’t had a bad experience in the theater in quite a while. This was no different, although I was shocked that anyone was in the theater for a 2PM Labor Day showing of Retribution.
Obviously the film was huge on car Product Placement (What?) which included Neeson’s 100 thousand Euro Mercedes, and Modine’s Maserati. Great European Setting as a Character (Where?) for Berlin, which ended up being vital to the plot, what with their famously punctual train system. And a Worst Twist (How?) obviously for the reveal that Modine faked his own death in order to steal the 200 million Euro finance fund and frame Neeson for it. This is a Bad film, just not enough there to sustain any sort of BMT interest.
Read about my prequel to Retribution in the Quiz. Cheerios,
Oh man, so get this. I was in my car when I got a call and the guy was like “hey, don’t get out of your car or else for real.” But I was like don’t believe you, got out, and it exploded in my face. Now I can’t remember a thing (and I have no face, it’s a real Johnny Got His Gun situation up in here). Do you remember what happened in Retribution?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) Well, this should be an easy one. What is Liam Neeson’s job in the film?
2) And then a mad bomber attacks! How many people, ultimately, did the bomber kill with his bombs?
3) Early in the film the car Liam Neeson is driving is behind followed by a motorcycle which he thinks is the bomber. Who was actually on the motorcycle though?
4) What is the bomber after in actuality and why does this look super suspicious to the authorities?
5) In the end there is a big twist. How did the actual bombing culprit almost get away with it?
Bonus Question: Right at the end, yet another mysterious phone appears and Liam Neeson gets a call. Who is it?
As they sit at their parents’ large dining room table in the cavernous guest breakfast nook, Jamie and Patrick reminisce about their youth. We see their eyes glaze over and enter a patented Twin Memory.
September 1, 1999.
Jamie and Patrick are looking fly. Hats? Backwards. Jeans? Baggy. Bubblegum? Poppin’. They’re entering 7th grade and it’s time to run the show. Their dad had one word of advice for them on this last week before the end of summer: “Maybe watch something good for once.” With that he swept his arm in the general direction of the forest and called it ‘nature’s movie.’ Despite that being wrong (nature’s movie is Microcosmos, obviously), they ventured forth and now found themselves breathing fresh air and basking in the sunshine filtering through the trees. “This isn’t nature’s movie, that would be Microcosmos, but it’s still pretty nice,” Jamie says, but before Patrick can agree with him (particularly about how Microcosmos is nature’s movie), they find themselves upside-down. Apparently, while they were busy thinking about nature’s movie, Microcosmos, they inadvertently sprung some sort of trap. Out from the forest rains a volley of pinecones and pebbles. Once the attack is over, the rope holding their legs is cut and they crash to the ground, laughter ringing out from the trees around them. Even in their dazed state, Jamie and Patrick know that this could only be the work of one group… the eighth graders. Their big mistake was leaving time for Jamie and Patrick to get retribution and cement their place atop the social pyramid. “Time to get even and rulez the schoolz,” Jamie says, pulling out a very cool phrase he coined. With that their eyes glaze over and they enter a patented Twin Memory in order to recall the perfect revenge. That’s right! We are getting our own retribution against ourselves by forcing us to watch the new Liam Neeson film, Retribution, in theaters. Take that, us! It was unexpectedly difficult to determine whether this film was a wide release or not, but rest assured, it is. Although not for very long. Let’s go!
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 13.2%; Notability: top 7.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 11.2%; Higher BMeT: Knights of the Zodiac, Meg 2: The Trench, The Black Demon, 65, The Ritual Killer, The Out-Laws, Insidious: The Red Door, White Men Can’t Jump, Hypnotic, House Party, Heart of Stone, Maybe I Do, Your Place or Mine, Ghosted, Beautiful Disaster, Fool’s Paradise, The Tutor, Mafia Mamma, Paint, The Old Way, and 13 more; Higher Notability: Fool’s Paradise, Ghosted, House Party, Heart of Stone, Spinning Gold, Haunted Mansion, The Out-Laws, Meg 2: The Trench, Vacation Friends 2, 65, Your Place or Mine, White Men Can’t Jump, Insidious: The Red Door, About My Father, Love Again, One True Loves, Hypnotic, A Little White Lie, God Is a Bullet; Lower RT: Confidential Informant, Dead Man’s Hand, The Ritual Killer, Assassin Club, On a Wing and a Prayer, The Tutor, Fool’s Paradise, The Out-Laws, Vacation Friends 2, Robots, Fear, Mafia Mamma, Knights of the Zodiac, God Is a Bullet, One True Loves, Love Again, Ambush, Ghosted; Notes: For the BMeT ones we’ve seen two of the top 5, but obviously most of the real bad ones are streaming. The notability is suitably low, but that BMeT is going to rise for sure.
RogerEbert.com – 1.0 stars – “Retribution” is a dud destined to be erased from our cultural memory once it presumably departs theaters in a couple of weeks. According to the press release, the film promises “an immersive ticking clock thriller that straps audiences in for a high-octane ride of redemption and revenge.” It pretty much fails to deliver on all counts.
(Awesome. I’m so excited to watch this in a presumably empty theater. Sure to be pure and utter trash considering Blacklight and Memory from last year.)
(Looks like garbage. But at least they don’t make Liam Neeson run in this one (presumably). I’m sure it is very tense and not awful at all though, but I guess I’ll just have to see.)
Directors – Nimród Antal – ( Known For: Predators; Vacancy; Metallica Through the Never; Control; Armored; The Whiskey Bandit; BMT: Retribution; Notes: Very much a sci-fi guy I feel like, so this seems … like an odd choice. But I assume it is a pure money / work thing prior to a sci-fi film he’s currently working on.)
Writers – Alberto Marini – ( Known For: The Communion Girl; Fatum; Sleep Tight; Retribution; Extinction; Hard Hit; Your Son; Romasanta; El Lobo; Second Name; BMT: Retribution; Notes: Italian and it looks like he wrote the original film.)
Christopher Salmanpour – (BMT: Retribution; Notes: Basically no credits because it looks like he worked on the FBI series, so he’s not in TMDb yet.)
Actors – Liam Neeson – ( Known For: The Dark Knight Rises; Schindler’s List; Batman Begins; Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace; Taken; Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Ballad of Buster Scruggs; Love Actually; Non-Stop; Gangs of New York; Excalibur; The Lego Movie; The A-Team; Ted 2; Silence; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian; Breakfast on Pluto; Widows; Future BMT: Kingdom of Heaven; The Huntsman: Winter’s War; Marlowe; Men in Black: International; A Million Ways to Die in the West; Entourage; Taken 2; Krull; Taken 3; The Marksman; Daddy’s Home 2; Before and After; High Spirits; The Nut Job; BMT: Retribution; Battleship; Memory; Clash of the Titans; Blacklight; The Haunting; Wrath of the Titans; Notes: Y’all know Liam. The seventh film, but amazingly we’ve watched five of those in the last year. Plenty to go including the one that started them all (for the back half of his career), the Taken sequels. Krull is fun though.)
Noma Dumezweni – ( Known For: The Little Mermaid; Mary Poppins Returns; The Kid Who Would Be King; The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind; Dirty Pretty Things; BMT: Retribution; Notes: I was going to say, I just saw her in Only Murders in the Building season 3. She was actually quite good in a very small (so far) part, so that’s fun.)
Lilly Aspell – ( Known For: Wonder Woman; Wonder Woman 1984; Extinction; BMT: Retribution; Holmes & Watson; Notes: Oh wow, she was Diana age 8 in the film. For a kid actor quite a good performance if I’m remembering right. I like the cast of this film.)
Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $4,567,118 (Worldwide: $6,754,216)
(Yeah, it’ll maybe hit $20 million, although probably a bit of a stretch. But given the bona fides as a genuine dad film I’m sure it’ll make a mint on streaming.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 26% (18/69): Retribution may prove mildly diverting for hardcore fans of films depicting Liam Neeson as a parent in peril, but in most respects, this thriller is strictly standard stuff.
(Yeah, that sounds right. I mean, the trailer looks like trash pure and simple.)
NY Times Review: When will this genre escape its own tropes of sepia-tinted skies, italicized poster fonts and titles seemingly chosen by plopping a finger onto a page of the Old Testament?
(“This time he’s sitting” would be the tagline I put on this poster. After mercilessly making fun of the movie magic required to make it look like Neeson is running in his last couple BMT films, he really got us good by being like “oh yeah, this time I only sit.” I’m glad this is reflected in the poster. It’s actually better than I thought it would be. A little plain on the color and font side of things, but more interesting than I expected. C+.)
Tagline(s) – None
(F. You gotta have a tagline. If only to differentiate it from the 4 or 5 other Liam Neeson revenge films coming out this year.)
Keyword(s) – Year 2023
Top 10: Oppenheimer (2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Barbie (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), The Flash (2023), Pathaan (2023)
Future BMT: 81.3 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 42.9 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 42.4 Hypnotic (2023), 42.1 House Party (2023), 36.3 Fool’s Paradise (2023), 34.0 Mafia Mamma (2023), 28.7 About My Father (2023), 28.5 The Machine (2023), 28.1 Love Again (2023), 23.0 Fear (2023), 20.3 Haunted Mansion (2023), 7.9 Sweetwater (2023), 0.6 The Hill (2023)
BMT: 65 (2023), Meg 2: The Trench (2023), Retribution (2023)
Best Options (Liam Neeson): 11.4 Retribution (2023)
(Bah, so Marlowe is actually a 2023 film, but it is listed as 2022 for IMDb so it doesn’t show up. But I thought it would be funny to be like I’m going to go with the year 2023 and it must be a Neeson film … we have two options! Anyways, the future BMT options look rough. Not looking forward to any of those.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 16) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Liam Neeson is No. 1 billed in Retribution and No. 1 billed in Memory, which also stars Guy Pearce (No. 2 billed) who is in Justice (No. 3 billed) which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 6 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 1) + (2 + 3) + (1 + 1) + (6 + 1) = 16. If we were to watch Marlowe we can get the HoE Number down to 12.
Notes – The third remake of Spain’s Retribution (2015) after Germany’s Don’t. Get. Out! (2018) and South Korea’s Hard Hit (2021) but the first to use the original’s English title.
Liam Neeson and Embeth Davidtz had worked thirty years before in Schindler’s List, which came out in 1993.
Meg Meg Meg Meg! We did it. Just when it seemed like no movie could qualify for BMT without hitting 39.9% on RT, we get a film that even dips below 30%. That’s like getting a 5% back in 2005. Take our recent fare, Serving Sara. That goes absolutely roasted by critics. It’s at 4% on RT. Abominable. You’d think the reviews would be like “this film ran over my dog” or something. But nah. They are mostly like “not funny and a waste of my valuable time”… 4%! For wasting the precious time of the reviewer who was warning you not to waste your valuable time on it. Thanks, reviewer. Nowadays reviewers don’t even have the common decency to warn you against mere wastes of time. They are like “maybe you like to waste your time” or “who am I to tell you how valuable your time is” or “time is a mere social construct and in fact cannot be wasted.” Case in point: Meg 2.
To recap, Jason Statham is back, Jack! And boy does he have a kid he’s trying to protect while they live on a research vessel studying The Trench and Megalodons. Seems like a primo place for your kid to be in danger, but you do you Statham. On just another routine mission the research subs are attacked by a Megalodon and they have to dive into The Trench. Things are getting hairy and only get hairier when it’s revealed that Statham’s daughter has stowed away. Entirely unpredictable event! Having veered into unexplored territory they are shocked to find a whole mining operation going on beneath their noses. The eeeevil miners blow up the trench and nearly destroy Statham and the gang. With time running out they make a break for the mining facility and get there just in time (for our main characters at least). They soon discover that this is all a plot by their eeeevil investor and their eeeevil coworker. Despite sabotage and fisticuffs, the gang is able to escape and make it back to the surface. They gather up the rest of the good guys and head to Fun Island, where a few Megs that escaped The Trench via the blast are heading. A big climactic scene occurs where the bad guys try to kill the good guys, the good guys try to kill the Megs, and the Megs try to kill everyone. Eventually Statham wins the day and everyone laughs and laughs and laughs. Oh and his kid is fine, but we all knew that, right? THE END.
The experience of watching this in the theater involved me and Patrick looking at each other over and over as the film devolved into an incoherent mess. At one point I mouthed, “This might be the worst thing I have ever seen” and I wasn’t wrong. When they find a secret laboratory on the bottom of the trench and dinos are attacking them and everything looks like total shit I wondered how in the world this wasn’t a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Fortunately it started to take itself slightly less seriously as the film progressed and so wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. But it was close. I did not like the trash first film and this one is double trash and the sequel will probably be triple tr… oh, wait, sorry. I forgot my long running character, Franchise Man. Ahem. Here it goes… I loved this film. Feed me more Megs, please, I’ll gobble them up like a good piggy. Oink oink. Franchise Man!
Hot Take Clam Bake! A hot take that was already in play from the first film is even more in play for this film. It’s not even a hot take. It’s an ice cold take. Why in the world is the minor that Jason Statham is the guardian of spending her days in a highly dangerous research lab? I don’t know what the laws are around the world, and if I learned one thing from Armaggeddon it’s that growing up on a highly dangerous ocean rig is pretty great, but still. The girl was nearly killed by a Megalodon already… now she’s just hanging out at the only Megalodon research facility in the world? Someone needs to do something. Get that girl out of there before… damn it, too late, she’s already stowed away on your doomed adventure. Now she’s destined to marry whatever Ben Affleck stand-in you find for Meg 3: Ocean Hole. Congrats. Hot Take Temperature: the ice cold waters of the Marianas Trench.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about the worst trailer I’ve ever seen about three giant sharks trying to chow down on Olympic-caliber diver Jason Statham? Good luck, sharks, he’s smooth like a seal and has shark-like speed in the water. Let’s go!
I’m not joking. When the trailer dropped for this guy I gasped at how bad it looked. Walking on the bottom of the Marianas Trench? Giant CGI sharks attacking Fun Island? Shooting guns and battling dinosaurs in the ocean? It looked aggressively dumb and not in the usual way. I shouted (my wife can testify) “If this isn’t BMT there is no God!” Well, we did it boys, God lives (for now …).
The young lady sitting next to me in the theater was on her phone 100% of the time during this film. One might ask why? Why pay for a movie and then not watch it? Only she knows.
We also watched it in 3D. Bar none, this was the worst 3D film I’ve ever seen. There are two pretty major action scenes which are normal action scenes and in 3D they are 100% incoherent. Completely nonsensical.
So what did we learn? We learned that you can swim around on the bottom of the ocean as long as you fill your sinuses with water because water is incompressible. Makes sense … (ignore the air in your GI tract, and I’m going to assume that it would do something to your eyes / brain, but the internet is somewhat inconclusive on this matter).
We learned that after swimming around on the bottom of the ocean you can wake up with no ill-effects and get into a fist fight with a martial artist and be pretty okay. Hot take: I think that maybe in reality filling your entire head with water and passing out might not be something you can wake up and recover from in a hot second.
We learned that dinosaurs live on the bottom of the ocean, but also those same dinosaurs can pop up on the surface and walk around … like that’s totally normal right? Just breathing underwater and then popping out and running around and eating people. That’s how things work in real life right?
We learned that you should definitely have a group of effectively faceless “friends” who can die in various ways. And also that that one person who you declare you’ve been friends with for “four years” but wasn’t in the first film is probably the bad guy.
Speaking of which, one of the good guys was like “we can all trust each other in this room, we need to find the mole” and I practically shouted “blonde-haired lady is the bad guy!” in the theater. So dumb.
A funny Product Placement (What?) for Page Kennedy’s MCM Worldwide survival backpack, probably the only genuinely funny moment in the film. Setting as a Character (Where?) for the Marianas Trench. And Worst Twist (How?) for the “reveal” that the head of the company (and one of the engineers) are in cahoots to mine the bottom of the ocean (!) for some rare material (!) worth billions (!). This film is BMT nonsense and it isn’t boring, which feels abnormal for the big bad BMT blockbusters we usually watch for Live.
Oh man, get this. I was walking around in the Marianas Trench, as usual, when all of a sudden a bunch of small dinos attacked. Long story short I filled my head with water and swam around shooting them with my underwater gun. The only problem is I now have severe brain damage and can’t remember a thing. Do you remember what happened in Meg 2: The Trench?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) Uh oh, Statham is doing push ups in a cargo container during his time off from The Trench™ Inc. What is Statham’s side job at the opening of the film?
2) But what is Statham’s real job as well? What are they doing with The Trench™?
3) But uh oh!!!!!! What is the super secret bad guys doing in The Trench™?!?!?
4) And now the Megs are on the loose and they are attacking Fun Island (real storyline). There are two other weirdo deep sea creatures up from The Trench™ though. What are they?
5) Phew, they defeated all the monsters. Or wait a tick … did they? How did they stop the good Megalogon which went from above The Trench™ to below The Trench™ and now I guess lives in the real world?
Bonus Question: Well they’ve now fought three Megs, which probably is about the worst it could be, right? WRONG. Three years later Statham is doing pull ups on the bottom of the Marianas Trench, when the next big baddie shows up. What is it?
Bad Movie Twins 