After watching "Enthusiasm" last week, the author described it as a "normal" movie. Because it meets the qualified standards of commercial films in all aspects, but it does not have too bright ideas or very deep themes. But now, the author has to admit that compared with "Megalodon 2: Abyss", "Hot" is like a masterpiece.
One of the outstanding problems of "Hot" is that the characters are too "flat", and the main characters basically exist to advance the plot. But compared to "The Meg 2", boy, that's simply too deep. Not to mention anything else, Ding Lei, played by Huang Bo, still has a difficult choice between ideals and reality, loyalty and philistines. What is the difference between Jason Statham and Wu Jing in this film?
The former relied on boxing skills to fight from the beginning to the end, and the latter was the same thing, the only difference was probably a few more jokes. All the characters in this film can be divided into justice and evil in a very simple and crude way, and the label is almost written directly on the face. If the characters in "Enthusiasm" are somewhat conceptual, then the characters in "Megalodon 2" are not even "tool men", and they are more like robots than the Terminator played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"Megalodon 2: The Abyss" poster
This probably cannot be entirely blamed on "Guo Da" and Wu Jing, because the two dudes worked tirelessly from the deep sea all the way to the island, and they didn't know what they were busy with. It's like we stayed in the movie theater for 2 hours (never felt such a long time), and after the subtitles appeared, we didn't understand what it wanted to express.
The original setting of the movie was probably "environmental protection", but what does the megalodon have to do with environmental protection? It's not explained in the movie from the first minute to the last anyway. The biggest dramatic conflict in this film is that someone in the protagonist's team rebelled, but who can tell me why they rebelled? The movie only explained one sentence, they want to "make money", yes, it's that simple, there is not even one more explanation. The righteous protagonist defeats the evil villain and monster, and that is enough to fully summarize the film, and nothing is missing.
Indeed, simple, too simple. From the plot of the whole movie to the settings of all the characters to the motives of all actions, it seems to be written in ChatGpt. You can guess the next sentence by saying the last sentence, and you can guess what they will encounter when you go to any place. Condition.
How to put it, a monster movie should also spend a little bit of ink to describe the fear of people in the face of disasters, right? If there are some human choices, it can directly improve the quality of the movie. But guess what? The little girl in this film did not forget to save the puppy in times of crisis, and succeeded easily. Do you want the audience to watch this film as a comedy? The author highly suspects that the script writing time of this film is only about half an hour, and it is impossible to do any more.
"Megalodon 2: The Abyss" stills
Some people will say again, although the plot is not outstanding, but at least there are special effects in this film. If the opening two minutes of the Megalodon vs. Dinosaurs can still arouse the audience's expectations, then the visual effect experience that follows is a disaster. The chase at the deep-sea base lasted at least half an hour. Can anyone see the details? Although the deafening sound has been trying to create a terrifying atmosphere, the author has been in a state of black eyes, and I don't know what they are doing.
There are quite a few monsters that appear on the stage, but the reason for their appearance is also "simple". Although the giant tooth shark is powerful, after all, it can't get to the shore or go to the sky. So what to fill the rest of the length of the film? The director slapped his head, a big octopus, a big lizard, and it's over. But the author wants to ask another question. Has anyone seen the big octopus from its appearance to receiving its lunch box? It is true that many scenes in the movie are in the deep sea, but this also gives the film an excuse to be "lazy"-we all know that the more invisible the picture is, the simpler the special effects production is, and the more it can fool people.
So to sum up, everything in the movie is so "simple", which shows that the entire creative team is completely focused. No wonder, the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes of this film is a shocking 0%. By the way, the last one still has 46%. I really can't blame people for their harsh ratings. This film is not like a movie released in 2023 at all, but more like a movie of the same type in the 1980s and 1990s. But the problem is that Chinese audiences were stunned by disaster movies and monster movies back then because we hadn’t seen them before, but what about now? My lord, times have indeed changed.
From this, it is not difficult for us to understand why the film still hopes to make a lot of money in the Chinese film market, knowing that it has a lot of problems. Some people always think that those old-fashioned routines can still trap Chinese audiences; With celebrity faces such as "Guo Da" and Wu Jing, audiences will buy it; some people always think that as long as they put on the name of a blockbuster co-produced by China and the United States, audiences will obediently come to buy tickets. In the final analysis, if the film can still make a lot of money today, that would be the tragedy of the Chinese film market.
"Megalodon 2: The Abyss" stills
The most interesting thing is that before the release of this film, Wu Jing revealed that he and Director Guo Fan have already found the direction of Chinese monster film creation, and hope that through the study during the filming of "Megalodon 2", they can contribute to the film in the near future. A monster movie created by a Chinese director. God, Wu Jing, what can you learn from this film? Is it a perfunctory creative attitude, rough special effects production, or those embarrassing jokes? Let's take a good shot of "The Wandering Earth".
Having said that, it is meaningless to pursue the details of many movies-why such a dangerous megalodon escaped after biting through the railing easily, and why "Guo Da" can operate in the 7,000-meter deep sea Freedom, why he can withstand the amazing megalodon with one foot, why Wu Jing can still use love to influence the ferocious megalodon... From the beginning to the end, the "Megalodon 2: Abyss" " Puxin" has reached an unbelievable level. It is never the heroic protagonists who fall into the abyss, but the innocent audience who are sitting on pins and needles in the theater. Anyway, please don't make a third part, please.
