202 - NORMAL, another shoot em up with more of a sense of humor than usual

Normal is sort of the third part of a Bob Odenkirk action trilogy.  Odenkirk is an unlikely action hero for this stuff.  In a previous incarnation he was a comedian the first part of his career.  He hit his stride as sleazy attorney Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and it's spinoff  Better Call Saul.  Odenkirk pivoted into the action film franchisee with the Nobody series about a retired government hit man.

Normal finds Odenkirk as a a temporary sheriff in a small Minnesota town called Normal.  As it turns out the town of Normal is actually a holding area for gold and money that the Yakuza have been using to launder their ill gotten gains.  To make matters worse the entire town is in on the money laundering scheme and is armed to the teeth to keep their secret safe.  Let the shooting begin and there is a lot of shooting to be sure.

 

Odenkirk takes a producer credit on the film along with a story credit.  The director is Ben Wheatey a Brit who is an expert at staging shoot outs which he twists around with lots of bizarre violent humor.  He's found his perfect partner in Odenkirk who contributes his own brand of unconventional humor.  It's a match made in action movie heaven. 

The film is entertaining it does have a really warped sense of humor between all the gun play and body counts.  Odenkirk's wry sense of humor is definitely and asset.

The screenplay is by Derek Kolstad, the running time is 91 minutes.

2023 - MEG 2: THE TRENCH, stupid but kind of entertaining action film

It's hard to understand how a pretty good director like Ben Wheatley got mixed up in this sequel to The Meg, a film nobody was asking for.  The answer probably is that the first Meg movie made a decent chunk of money and Wheatley probably needed to work.  But for the most part this is a stupid summer action film with just enough violence to entertain the average movie goer.

The main lead Jason Statham is one of those action actors whose persona for the most part makes watching a lot of the poor action films he appears in watchable.  Would all of those Expendables movie be even worth a viewer’s time if Statham wasn't in them giving his usual intense action performance?

 

Anyway, The Meg 2: The Trench is one mixed up mess of an action movie.  The big shark from The Meg is back and just for good luck the film throws in a couple of more big sharks.  A great deal of the film is set at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean which has a secret mining operation going on surrounded by lots of prehistoric creatures with big teeth.  Into this scene comes do-gooder Statham and his team which consists of an adopted teenage girl (she saves the cute puppy), a jive talking black guy and a tough chick who's good with a weapon and kind of hot.  They all end up battling monsters, terrorists and greedy capitalists, it's one jumbled mess of a plot line.

The film's climax is set at a resort where everyone shows up, the heroes, the bad guys and the monsters.  It's only in these final scenes where Wheatley gets to crank up some ridiculously violent encounters that are actually kind of funny at times. Yes this is a stupid movie but kind of an entertaining one with scenes plagiarized from Jurassic Park, Jaws and that other man eating shark classic Deep Blue Sea.  

This film did well at the box office so I guess there will probably be a Meg 3.  Written by by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber and Dean Georgaris.  The running time is 116 minutes.