Film
Review
Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham – Fast & Furious 8, Fast & Furious 7) is a tough guy with a sad story. who escaped an attack by a seventy foot shark must now confront any fears he may have, and save a team trapped in a sunken submersible. Of course, all the time, danger looms. Is there indeed a large shark in the water; the Megalodon, or was this a figment of Taylor’s imagination. Lives are at stake.
The Meg starts off with some back story, an incident, and some rather impressive sets (of which we don’t see enough of). Then our hero is on the scene, to put things right.
And so we are thrown head first into an action movie. The Meg is your average action film. Spectacular stunts, tough fights, and close calls. There’s the usual touch of mixed personalities, and arguments in a group. Yet, the film is fun. It’s enjoyable. It’s an afternoon of escape.
The visuals are certainly stunning, and Statham is his usual self. The Meg is one of those film that can distract a viewer from their daily troubles for a few hours, while they watch the hero battle with his (hopefully his troubles are indeed the larger troubles). The plot is straight forward, the story is easy to follow. So have a thrill, and enjoy the ride.
Re-watch Value
With a film that contains more visual and action scenes than actual drama scenes, it can be easy to get into a mood where one is looking for a simple detraction, and to while away a few hours yet again. For this reason, the film would have a level of rewatch value.
Disc
Overall, the disc is of a decent technical standard, albeit with just the one bonus feature. The main feature is enjoyable too.
Video
Video is encoded at a decent average bitrate. This is variable, meaning that compression is more in slower scenes, yet has a higher bitrate during action scenes, where motion on-screen is faster and the need for additional detail is greater.
There are no visible artefacts on-screen, nor any visible colour bleed. Colour are vibrant, and detail in the darker scenes good.
Viewers with the necessary hardware or software could scale up to a larger or higher resolution screen, should they wish.
Audio
Audio is encoded at a high average bitrate, and presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.
Dialogue is clear via the centre speaker, with fair use of the surround channels to expand the on-screen world, and further draw the viewer into the action.
Use of descreet audio panning between the channels is good.
Audio on the menu does appear to be a lot louder than audio in the film and bonus feature, so forewarning should one change the volume a lot for the main feature.
Navigation
Navigation is simple, and easy to follow. The disc launches directly into the main menu. The main menu is static with accompanying background music and text links to play the main feature, scene selections, languages, and special features.
The scene selection sub-menus each contain six and five medium sized, colour, static thumbnails respectively, for a total of eleven chapters. With this small number, and the fact that these are only numbered, and not labelled, nor is there any sort of chapter listing insert in the packaging, this would mean that navigating to a specific place in the film would require an amount of guesswork. Viewers would do better to use their own software or hardware to create bookmarks for places they with to view again.
The languages sub-menu has a text list of audio languages, including English Descriptive Audio, and a text list of available subtitles, including English for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The bonus features sub-menu has a text link for the one extra feature on the disc.
Bonus Features
Chomp on This: The Making of The Meg – A short featurette with some behind the scenes footage, and interviews with cast and crew, starting with director Jon Turteltaub (Last Vegas) and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Maze Runner: The Death Cure, American Assassin) talking about why they hoped to have actor Jason Statham in the film.
Crew interviews also provide an insight to the viewer about how some of the water sequences were filmed, and about filming in the middle of the ocean.
While short, the featurette does shed light on the filmmaking process of The Meg, and would be of interesting to fans and budding filmmakers alike.
Read some more about the megalodon, from the 2 Oceans Aquerium, in Cape Town: www.aquarium.co.za/blog/entry/megalodon-largest-shark-ever-facts-myth-truth-is-it-alive-extinct
Packaging
Packaging is standard, with a poster on the front with title and main cast listing. The back of the case has a short synopsis, bonus feature listing, and the usual technical information and logos.
There are no package inserts, such as chapter listing, including in the case.
1 comment
Comments are closed.