Giant monster movies. They’re a thing. Every year, without fail, we’re granted with at least a few giant monster movies. This year we have Rampage and The Meg. I’m not counting Jurassic World 2 or Pacific Rim 2 because they at least have something else about them–whether it be directors, franchises, or a semblance of intelligent storytelling. I’m talking about your run-of-the-mill monster mash. There’s nothing wrong with these movies; they come and go, they give us goofy little trailers packed with action movie clichés to poke fun at, and they are generally a good time. When I watched the trailer for Rampage, that’s exactly what I got–I made fun of it with my partner and laughed about some of the cheesier lines later with a friend. Of course, I debated over writing an article about it, but it just seemed easy pickings. There wasn’t anything incredibly wrong with the trailer or incredibly good; it was just fun. So, I decided against bagging out The Rock’s 4,553,498th movie of the year. Today, I watched the trailer for The Meg expecting pretty much the same thing just with the English-Rock-variant, Jason Statham. Instead I received what seemed to be a jumbled mess.
The trailer begins in some sort of high tech underwater base thing, cause it’s the future?? A small girl chases a dropped ball until a gigantic shark appears in the glass behind her, trying to chomp her down. It just dents the glass because…. the glass is futuristic super-strong glass? Our main characters appear and are stunned at the dents (super futuristic glass shouldn’t DENT). Revealing the big bad this early in the trailer can be hit or miss for this flick. It’s a big shark like yeah, it’s really big but still meh…. I mean, Jaws already did it, if we are being honest. After this, we get our logo, then the main characters have an exposition-based conversation. We love that in monster movies. Well, with exposition for a monster movie, all they do is talk about how the shark is REALLY BIG, and this makes it SCARY. This is all intercut with shots of people in pods doing underwater stuff. Of course, who lives underwater? REALLY BIG SHARK. English-Rock says his funny line when he see’s… wait no, he categorises it scientifically by calling it a “Megalodon.” I do love me a good cheesy zinger, and I don’t mind that we get a real word explanation of what the monster is, but it just seems weirdly out of place here. From here, the trailer goes into the montage of shots of main characters doing half-assed bad-ass stuff, BIG SHARK doing computer-generated bad-ass stuff, a tense musical score and … you get the idea. Oh, and English Rock mentions they’re going to try and kill it so…there’s our plot I guess? During this, after building up the music for half the trailer, instead of intensifying the score once the images become faster and more action-packed, we go into ‘Beyond the Sea’ for the rest of the trailer. Normal trailer music then CUT! Smooth jazz. It is incredibly distracting and just plain weird. Even if they were hell-bent on breaking the score with a song…just, why?
This trailer is weird. It’s all out of sync. The odd music shift coupled with a few tonal shifts…not really knowing exactly what the setting IS due to the whole underwater advanced-base-thing and the REALLY BIG shark doesn’t come across all that threatening. The characters in the trailer are presented to look like scientists. Marine biologists, maybe? You know, people who care about animals and stuff? Well, Statham says they’re going to kill the once-thought extinct animal because…danger? What is going on here?! In the end, I was left feeling bemused and confused with no drive to want to go and see this flick.
Watch it here:
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