MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY (1987)

"Time dragged by like a gut-shot parakeet."

Borrowing heavily from the basic idea of IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD, MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY tells the story of a bunch of obnoxious assholes who just happen to be at a roadside diner when a guy who stole $4 million from the government wanders in and dies.  He uses his dying breaths to give these ungrateful assholes clues to where he's hidden the $4 million in four different locations.  A million in each location.  After he dies, they leave his body to the buzzards and drive like absolute maniacs from location to location looking for the money.  For the entire movie, they're all completely incapable of driving in a straight line or at the speed limit.  It's like they're purposely trying to call attention to themselves.  And attention they get, cause before long there's so many assholes crowding in trying to fuck one another over for the money that they can't even fit in the screen.  Not that that's a bad thing.  I like movies with a large cast of characters, it's just that all of the characters in this film are unlikable and too dumb to live.

Lazy jokes galore, dull writing, zero nudity, zero violence, the promise of a "Toxic Werewolf" listed in the credits but it ended up just being a guy making crazy faces, a truck bed filled with loose soccer balls, crappy looking cars, lots of yelling, maybe two jokes in the entire film that I actually smiled, overacting overdose, Eddie Deezen's talents wasted.

After watching the film, I was doing some research and discovered that MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY was actually part of a contest put on by a trash bag company!  That probably explains why the script was such rubbish.  The good news is I found another newspaper article that stated the film company had a $15.5 million dollar loss on the movie.  I got a bigger chuckle out of that than anything in the movie itself.

THE MEG (2018)

Scientist discover that the ocean has a basement.  While exploring this newfound area, they (being idiots) accidentally release two megalodon sharks.  One is big as fuck and the other one is really big as fuck.  Unfortunately, these two sharks don't bring along any good writers, because THE MEG, while it sounds exciting, is completely soulless.  After the sharks escape, instead of just wandering off into the ocean to never be seen again, they attack the underwater research facility where the scientist hang out.  That's not as exciting as it sounds, but it does give the scientists and friends reason to chase the sharks around for the rest of the movie.

I love killer animal movies.  Successful ones have strong character development capped off by an awesome second half full of the monster(s) wrecking shit non-stop.  (Or...the movie is just so bad and/or insane that you can't help but enjoy it.)  None of that happens in THE MEG.  Right from the start, the characters are all very bland and forgettable.  The shark itself looks cool, but it never goes crazy and starts ripping people apart.  The majority of the action is simply the sharks eating other animals with only the occasional human getting nibbled offscreen.  It's weak as hell.

That said, I was mildly entertained.  The movie itself looks nice and the pace moves along quickly enough to keep you from getting too bored, but with zero point zero percent chance of something wild or unexpecting happening, my mind did start to drift.  Like...I still don't understand why there hasn't been a killer animal movie where the critters attack a nudist colony!  Preferably it will be set in the 1980's and the critters main attack happens during the final round of an all-nude breakdancing contest.

Low body count, zero nudity, zero tension, boring action scenes, unrealistic dialogue, an annoying little kid that knows everything (vomit!), Jason Statham as "Jason Statham versus a giant shark", Rainn Wilson being 100% forgettable, Robert Taylor's acting talent wasted, absolutely zero concern for decompression, disappointing ending.

Not the worst giant killer animal movie ever (and I'm 100% positive that I'll end up watching the sequels), but for a sanitized, inoffensive time-waster it's not too bad.

[Update 08/25/2023: Saw Meg 2 or whatever it's called in the theater and it was fun. I'll post a new review for it once I get a blu-ray to take screenshots from.]