Shark Teeth and Motorcycles

Surprises from The Meg and Lobo

Today I took some time to watch a movie I wasn’t sure I’d like…The Meg. It actually was enjoyable and while it was a typical shark thriller I don’t regret spending my afternoon eating popcorn and watching the show…actually it could have been more fun in 3-D I’m sure but it was good on my home theater.

Sadly, my other diversion today was not as rewarding. I read through the first issue of the 1990 Lobo limited series and was not pleased with it. I suppose I am glad that it was part of the DC Universe subscription so I didn’t have to pay for the comic but it certainly didn’t give me a story about the character I was hoping for.

Gonna Need A Bigger Shark

Ok, The Meg was never touted as an Oscar contender nor was it ever suggested it’d rank up there with a classic like Jaws, but the Jon Turteltaub, Jason Stratham vehicle was a fun movie.

Apparently down in the Mariana Trench there’s a thermocline layer that separates an unknown world of wonder down in the deepest part of the ocean. A world where prehistoric fish freely swim around and attack anything that emits light…that is except for the strand of light beacons the first sub drops when they get into this new world.

Of course any world must have its apex predators and this place has a doozy…a megalodon. And not just any megalodon, but one larger than any fossil discovered…this one is over 90 feet long.

Needless to say, now that the shark has been discovered it finds a way (for the first time in millions of years since we thought it was extinct) to break out of it’s thermocline prison and race to a beach in China.

The character’s justifications, interactions, and backgrounds are beyond the scope of this Ramble but suffice to say that Jonas Taylor (Stratham) goes after this shark to prevent it from hurting any of his buddies and while I’m used to seeing him in a car, the zippy Star Wars inspired corvette submersible was a pretty good substitute.

On the whole the movie was enjoyable and gave me plenty of bang for my suspension of disbelief. The acting wasn’t supposed to impress but I did enjoy the precocious young Meiying played by Shula Sophia Cai. She actually had some of the most memorable lines of the movie. And…the shark was pretty impressive for being so large and of course hungry while still being able to sneak up on fully alerted science stations.

In any other world I would have thought a movie about a bigger, badder shark was gonna fall flat, but The Meg had legs and came out of the blocks at #1 for the weekend of August 10, 2018. It then stuck around in the top 10 for 8 weeks and racked up over $145 million in U.S. sales. World-Wide, things were even better as the total $530 million easily surpassed it’s $130 million budget.

So I guess the bottom line is how I feel, and I’d say The Meg is worth a Watch for some fun and entertaining thrills. Just don’t expect more than a B movie with some decent special effects and you’ll be happy.

Crazy Killer For Hire

Lobo #1 by Keith Griffey, Alan Grant and Simon Bisley. Published by DC Comics, 1990.

Hmm, what to say about this issue? I’m not really sure…Lobo has always been a character I’ve heard about and thought he sounded cool but I had never took the opportunity to read anything he was in. This limited 4 issue series seemed to be a good starting point but I’m not so sure after this first issue. While we get some decent history and origin information I’m not really feeling that it’s for me. And maybe that’s part of the problem – it really seems to be targeted to the fringe, death-metal band, late 80s culture that I was never really a part of. Sure, I love Metalocalypse and their animated antics but I just didn’t click with Lobo #1.

From the start you’ll notice that Lobo is a Kiss inspired anti-hero, but I’m not even sure he really is anything related to hero, he just seems like a villain who is looking out for numero uno and who enjoys killing people when it suits him. I enjoy Kiss and don’t have a problem listening to metal but I guess I’m not really in the mood for this type of character right now. Perhaps I’ll come back to it some day but for now, I’m giving Lobo #1 a Skip rating.

It’s a Wrap

As with a lot of days there are ups and downs…I guess I might have had my expectations high for the comic and not the movie but regardless I think things turned out ok since the comic took me 15 minutes to read while the movie took 2 hours to watch. I’d gladly suffer the comic to be entertained by the movie.

I’m just hoping for more entertainment in my diversions than suffering…with that said, I gotta remember to stay away from League of Legends.

Ramble #7 | Shark Teeth and Motorcycles