Movie Review - Meg 2: The Trench

Director: Ben Wheatly
Genre: Adventure/ Action/ Horror
Runtime: 116 minutes
Year: 2023
Starring: Jason Statham, Cliff Curtis, Jing Wu, Page Kennedy, Sophia Cai
 
Description: A research team encounters multiple threats while exploring the depths of the ocean including a malevolent mining operation.

Review: In “The Meg”, Jason Statham’s Jonah and a research team discovers a hidden underwater cave full of prehistoric sea creatures, including the colossal megalodon shark. And like a good popcorn action movie should do, Jonah killed the megalodon. In “Meg 2: The Trench”, three more megalodons escape and that’s not all.

“Meg 2: The Trench” can best be described as a B-movie with the budget of a big Hollywood movie. Where the first film was not good, it was entertaining, fun and very sefl-aware. I highly enjoyed it. “Meg 2: The Trench” is none of that. Okay, it’s still entertaining. But it has a more serious tone, is way too over the top for my liking and the story is messy. With that, the shark-action is not the main focus. At least not for two-thirds of the film. This starts in the last part of the movie. And I know this is not a movie you watch for the characters, but you’re supposed to care a little bit about them or at least remember their names.

“Meg 2: The Trench” is a bad shark movie. And not the good kind of bad, because that would make it more fun. It’s just one messy, chaotic pile of crap.  Mainly because the sharks are not the focus and there are too many things going in this movie that aren’t about sharks. Well, sharks are kind of essential in a shark movie.

Rating: 2/ 5

Book Review - How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Title: How to Sell a Haunted House
Series: -
Author: Grady Hendrix
 
Description: When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best.
 
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market. But some houses don’t want to be sold, home has other plans for both of them…
 
Review: I got to know Grady Hendrix’ books this year and this is his newest release. Hendrix is known for his quirky, strange horror stories and “How to Sell a Haunted House” is not any different. It’s not your typical haunted house story, it involves puppets and dolls. And it’s super creepy.
 
The book is, besides having regular chapters, divided in sections. Each represents one of the stages of grief. Because that is its main theme. This doesn’t fully come into its own, but I really love this idea. What I loved most about this book was the brother and sister relationship. I haven’t read books often where this was such a big part of the story. I’ve read many stories about sister bonds and brotherly relationships, but not the brother-sister sibling relationship. And the characters are well fleshed out, we get to know them very well. At first you like Louise and hate Mark, you switch sides at one point. And there is also a moment where you hate them both. But eventually, because you know them and their history better, you get to understand them more.
 
The one problem I had was the pace. It took a long time to really get into it, before it got interesting and something started happening. I understand if people would DNF it because of it. I don’t do that very often, so I’m glad I continued reading. Because once the spooky bit starts, you can’t stop reading.
 
I’ve never given Grady Hendrix a 5-star rating, but always a high score. He’s a very solid writer who became an auto-buy author for me.
 
Rating: 4/ 5

Movie Review - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Director: Joaquim dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
Genre: Adventure/ Action/ Animation
Runtime: 140 minutes
Year: 2023
Starring: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Laura Velez, Jake Johnson, Oscar Isaac, Mahershala Ali, Jason Schwartzman, Issa Rae, Daniel Kaluuya, Karan Soni, Andy Samberg, Rachel Dratch, Jack Quaid, Jharrel Jerome
 
I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2023 MOVIE CHALLENGE
WEEK 39: A ANIMATED MOVIE THAT IS NOT DISNEY
 
Description: Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) catapults across the Multiverse, where he encounter a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. When the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles must redefine what it means to be a hero.

Review: It’s hard to top predecessor “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”, but the sequel is another innovative experience that I loved just a much.

I guess people are still not sick of Spider-Man stories. And I’m so glad they aren’t, because then this amazing animation would maybe not even exist. Every superhero movie is directly or remotely based on a comic book. The makers of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” don’t just sprinkle in source references, they go further. The film’s eclectic look is a downright homage to Marvel Comics’ comic book artists, each of whom have their own style, with their own choice of mediums to work with. Some work with old-fashioned pencils or pen, others create airbrush art or use digital programs. And this is exactly what makes this film so unique and fresh. The clever thins is that the film brings all these styles together into a whole, completely original yet recognizable. And following such a great first film with an equally amazing sequel is very rare.

I loved everything about “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”: its unique mix of styles, the voice acting, the soundtrack, the whole experience was fantastic!

Rating: 5/ 5

Book Review - Death on Windmill Way by Carrie Doyle

Title: Death on Windmill Way
Series: Hampton Murder Mysteries # 1
Author: Carrie Doyle
 
Description: The Hamptons may be a summer playground for the rich and famous, but for the other nine months of the year they are a collection of small towns with small town problems. This scenic stretch of Long Island’s East End is renowened for beautiful beaches, quaint villages, spectacular houses… and murder? Gourmet chef and innkeeper Antonia Bingham is running the Windmill In and tries to find out more about the suspicious death of the previous owner.
 
Review: Death on Windmill Way” is a fun, cozy murder mystery, with a small, coastal setting. The Hamptons are know for the beaches, luxurious houses and now… murder. Antonia Bingham is the owner of the Windmill Inn, she fled to the Hamptons to leave her past behind her. But when Antonia finds out that the previous owner of the inn has died under mysterious circumstances, she feels the need to investigate it.
 
I always enjoy a good cozy mystery. They are hardly very good, but they are always highly enjoyable. And so is this one. I love the setting of the small town where everyone knows each other and the newbie sticking their nose into other people’s business, to investigate a murder.
 
Antonia is a likeable character, but she’s not very layered for a main character. We don’t get to know her that well. She is pretty standard. Antonia also has the habit to describe each character in detail, focusing on how they look and what they are wearing. I don’t really care about that. One character, Larry, was just too annoying. He is sexist, intrusive and he feels more like a caricature then an actual person. I hated him.  
 
Even though the murder mystery was fun to solve and I loved the setting, the characters were very one-dimensional and I didn’t feel invested in them. It’s not a very surprising story, yet easy to read and fun to pick up when you need something light.
 
Rating: 2,5/ 5

Movi Review - To Catch a Killer

Director: Damian Szifron
Genre: Thriller/ Crime/ Drama/ Action
Runtime: 119 minutes
Year: 2023
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn, Jovan Adepo, Ralph Ineson
 
Description: Baltimore. New Year’s Eve. A talented but troubled police officer (Shailene Woodley) is recruited by the FBI’s chief investigator (Ben Mendelsohn) to help profile and track down a disturbed individual terrorizing the city.

Review: A good cop thriller needs an interesting detective duo with chemistry. A recognizable and atmospherically portrayed setting, be it a small town or the big city. And, of course, an enigmatic killer whose motive and identity are unraveled in the course of the film through good detective work. Precisely on this last point, notwithstanding the title, things go wrong in “To Catch a Killer”.

While this atmospherically shot film does begin promising. On New Year’s Eve, twenty-nine people are shot dead in Baltimore by a sniper. There seems to be no connection between the victims. The FBI is flown in an the case comes under the direction of agent Geoffrey Lammark, exactly the kind of hardboiled detective we know from this type of movie. During the investigation, he scouts local police office Eleanor Falco as his assistant.

Even though Ben Mendelsohn and Shailene Woodley are both amazing performers, together they do not work. They have no chemistry whatsoever and for some reason I never buy Woodley as a cop. At least not the chosen cop to be assisting the FBI on such a huge case.

The film has some boring moments. If the characters were more interesting, the more quiet scenes would have been much more engaging.  The plot suffers from too much randomness and implausible twists and turns. This becomes especially evident in the finale where we learn who the killer is and what motivates him. It turns out to be downright disappointing. I understand why this film never reached Dutch cinemas.

Rating: 2/ 5

Book Review - Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Title: Daisy Jones & the Six
Series: -
Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
 
Description: Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whiskey a Go GO. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ‘n roll she loves the most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting notices, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.
 
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.
 
Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realized that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next is the stuff of legend.
 
Review: Late 1960s. Los Angeles. Daisy Jones, a gorgeous woman, dreams of becoming a famous singer. She meets Billy Dunne, the front man of the up-and-coming rock band The Six. Sparks fly and their first song together becomes a big hit. In “Daisy Jones & the Six”, Taylor Jenkins Reid provides a behind-the-scenes look at the rise and fall of a band. Not only drugs, alcohol and rock ‘n roll play an important role in this story. “Daisy Jones & the Six” is all the more about heroic women in the music industry, holding their own in a man’s world.
 
“Daisy Jones & the Six” features three strong female characters: Daisy, Karen and Camila. How do they hold their own in the music industry, a real man’s world? All three of them were great characters. Camila loves Billy wholeheartedly and is willing to forgive him his imperfections and his mistakes. Karen, on the other hand, chooses herself. Playing the keyboard in the band is her joy and her life. And finally, of course, Daisy. She apologizes for nothing or no one. No man is her boss. She is no one’s muse, but her own person.
 
Daisy and Billy are the main characters and they steal the show. But for me Karen and Graham were the ones that stole my heart. Daisy was sometimes insufferable, but she and Billy are both very interesting and complex characters. Great characters to read about.
 
Taylor Jenkins Reid chose to write the book in the form of an interview. All the band members (and other people involved with them) give their side of the story. I constantly felt like I was reading a biography of a band. This particular method of narration gives the book a completely unique atmosphere. More than once it felt like the band had really existed.
 
I loved the theme of the book, it’s incredibly interesting. An inside look in the creation of a band, as well as their shows, recording an album and life in the spotlight. And eventually their downfall. But there is more. In addition to music, drugs, sex, love, cheating, addiction and death take center stage.
 
I loved “Daisy Jones & the Six” from start to finish. An interesting theme, great characters and a unique narration all turn this story into a must-read for fans of historical fiction. Cannot fault it, I found a new forever favorite.
 
Rating: 5/ 5

Movie Review - The Little Mermaid

Director: Rob Marshall
Genre: Adventure/ Family/ Musical/ Fantasy
Runtime: 135 minutes
Year: 2023
Starring: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, Noma Dumezwemi, Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina, Daveed Diggs
 
Description: A young mermaid (Halle Bailey) makes a deal with a sea witch (Melissa McCarthy) to trade her beautiful voice for human legs so she can discover the world above water and impress a prince (Jonah Hauer-King)

Review: Disney know how to create a successful animation. Turning these same animated movies into live-action flicks has not been as successful. There have been a few hits, but I can say that “The Little Mermaid” is not really one of them.

Even though the choice of Halle Bailey as Ariel was unacceptable according to many fans, she does a good job. She has a beautiful singing voice and manages to give Ariel more character than the animated version. Melissa McCarthy as Ursula the sea witch also deserves some kudos, she was chosen perfectly. Javier Bardem on the other hand, playing Ariel’s father, really has no idea what to do with his character.
It's a live-action film, with of course use of a lot of CGI, but it still feels too animated for my liking. And it’s the underwater scenes. They could have made it more realistic.

I really do like the fact that they gave Prince Eric more substance and a background. But the fact that Ariel is in love with him after only seeing him once is still strange.

I do think there are worse Disney live-action films, but “The Little Mermaid” is just okay for me.

Rating: 3/ 5