Jon Turteltaub
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Connections, in both directions
The Canadian cold has already inspired 1993's Cool Runnings, the warmly comic tale of the Jamaican bobsled team, and now it's produced Dexter Fletcher's Eddie the Eagle, a less than subtle biopic about the finest – that is, only – British ski jumper of his generation.
Not only did the Calgary Games produce the phenom of the Jamaican bobsled team — immortalized in the cheerful 1993 Disney movie “Cool Runnings” — but a bumbling bundle of fan catnip named Michael “Eddie” Edwards, the first British athlete to compete in the Olympic ski-jump competition, and an instant symbol of innocence, perseverance and irrepressible can-do-ism.
There’s a pat quality to all this that recalls lots of previous movies, including “Cool Runnings,” Jon Turteltaub’s surprise 1993 hit about the unlikely success of the Jamaican bobsled team in the same 1988 games.
The others were 1992’s The Cutting Edge and 1993’s Cool Runnings, both of which are about unlikely competitors achieving greatness (although The Cutting Edge was as much a romance as a sports movie).
Hell, this isn’t even the first movie about a plucky underdog at those Olympics; Calgary ’88 was the year that gave us Cool Runnings’ Jamaican bobsled team (who get a winking in-joke reference in Eddie).
Disney may be king of the underdog sports drama, but actor-turned-director Dexter Fletcher aims to beat the studio at its own game with this inspirational true story that’s equal parts “Rudy” and “Cool Runnings.”
Say what you will about director Renny Harlin, but he at least kept his dopey shark film, Deep Blue Sea, moving at mach speed.
You assume it will either try to replicate the high-seas terror of Jaws, the Grand Guignol gore of the 2010 Piranha remake or the self-aware giddiness of this legendary scene from Deep Blue Sea ; instead, the movie just borrows elements and steals shots from a host of waterlogged horror-adventure flicks without bothering to channel what makes those movies a blast.
Ahí están los guiños al clásico de Steven Spielberg, Tiburón (Jaws, 1975), o a Alerta en lo profundo (Deep Blue Sea, 1999) calcados con poca inspiración, a diferencia de, por ejemplo, lo hecho por Jaume Collet-Serra (El pasajero, Desconocido) en Miedo profundo (The Shallows, 2016) donde, si bien, no se transformaba lo previamente establecido o se habrían nuevas veredas de exploración, sí se presentaba la historia como un gran juego visual de supervivencia, con colores saturados y situaciones ridículas dignas del mejor serie b.
The shark movie to which this owes the biggest debt, right down to certain character types and the odd death scene, is Renny Harlin’s schlockbuster Deep Blue Sea .
Scripts for a film adaptation of Steve Alten’s 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror have been flopping between studios since before the smart-shark hit Deep Blue Sea rose up in 1999 and stole Meg ‘s thunder.
There are plenty of big set pieces, which either rip off or pay homage to everything from Jaws to Piranha 3D to Deep Blue Sea , depending on your view.
The marketing behind The Meg pitches its shark as Jaws times 50, with trailers showcasing CGI eye candy of a massive man-eater swimming just below hundreds of unaware swimmers.
Something of a mix between the obvious Jaws influence and the more abstract Armageddon elements, The Meg delivers as many scares as a PG-13 film can handle these days.
As for Jaume Collet-Serra’s recent shark thriller The Shallows (2016) or the ne plus ultra of the genre, Jaws (1975), considered an overbudget debacle during its shoot, they are but small fry next to The Meg, both in budget and in featured fish—Steven Spielberg’s Great White, at an estimated 25 feet, would be chum for the mighty Meg.
Stripped of the script's distractions and allowed to go at full throttle for at least the last 60 minutes, The Meg – even with all its Jaws, Orca and Jurassic Park steals intact – could still have been a gloriously unhinged good time.
It’s hard to say how much of this comes from the popularity of “Shark Week” or the deliberately absurd “Sharknado” series — of course it all traces back to “Jaws” — but this year’s offering wants to blend the more serious horror vibe of the last two summer films with the campiness of the Sci-Fi Channel schlock-fest.
One of the smarter things The Meg does is rip off Jaws with the exactness of a forger, cribbing a great shot here and there, but also mirroring the entire climax of the 1975 classic in miniature.
Uncharted (2022)
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
influenced by National Treasure (2004), National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)
Themes Plot
Uncharted is at least spiritually faithful to the games and makes for a decent bit of matinee fun in the vein of National Treasure or 1999’s The Mummy , but without the controller in your hand, it lacks the magic ingredient that makes it so special.
“Cherry” and “Chaos Walking” were disasters for Holland and considering “Uncharted” is passively watchable thanks to its gritty “Sahara” meets “National Treasure” vibes, it’s already one of the better video game adaptations by default because it at least tries to have fun even if you’d rather go home and play the games instead.
The action, which recalls the National Treasure films and openly name-checks Indiana Jones, takes place for a while under the streets of Barcelona, where the two keys are needed to access centuries-old locations that then point the way to additional locations.
However, the film struggles to develop meaningful character depth and emotional complexity amid its barrage of elaborate globetrotting set pieces that are its very reason for existence — settling for a standard-issue buddy comedy in the vein of the National Treasure or, um, Tomb Raider franchises.
It’s goofy and completely nonsensical, but it’s also a funny and thrilling adventure akin to The Mummy , the Jumanji films and National Treasure.
It’s a personality-free jumble of Indiana Jones, James Bond, National Treasure , The Da Vinci Code , and the more obnoxious Pirates Of The Caribbean sequels, serving up less inspired variations on fights, stunts, and clues you’ve seen before… minus all the distinct fun of navigating them yourself.
There are less overt but no less redolent inspirations throughout Red Notice — to the Bourne, Bond and Mission: Impossible movies, the National Treasure franchise and the Sean Connery-Catherine Zeta-Jones romp Entrapment .
Borrowing several nods to “Indiana Jones” and “National Treasure,” “Red Notice'' tries to be the Netflix answer to the “Bourne,” James Bond, and “Mission: Impossible” series’ with lackluster results.
Story-wise it is a patchwork pastiche of To Catch A Thief , Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Bond, with a bit of National Treasure and Raiders Of The Lost Ark thrown in for good measure (Ryan Reynolds even whistles the Raiders theme at one point).
Films like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “National Treasure” were clear inspirations on “Red Notice” but to say this movies lacks the identity of great action/adventure movies would be an understatement.
As in, there is a lot of Jackie Chan’s Armour of God and Nicolas Cage’s National Treasure in the fun, loud, but oddly immemorable Red Notice, the second in Netflix’s run of Reynolds' fight-and-flight flicks after the equally forgettable 6 Underground.
There's the mismatched cop-thief pairing from "48 Hrs.," the party sequence from "True Lies," the clue-solving from "National Treasure," and so on.
As for Jaume Collet-Serra’s recent shark thriller The Shallows (2016) or the ne plus ultra of the genre, Jaws (1975), considered an overbudget debacle during its shoot, they are but small fry next to The Meg, both in budget and in featured fish—Steven Spielberg’s Great White, at an estimated 25 feet, would be chum for the mighty Meg.
Nor, in fact, does it even make it to the level of the 2016 Blake Lively effort, The Shallows .
The blandness begins with the film’s washed-out color palette, which denies us the expressionistic beauty that Jaume Collet-Serra cultivated in The Shallows (fuck, sorry, I know that’s another shark movie) and, more generally, the red-blooded pleasure that should go with a story about a monster eating people who are dumb enough to swim or experiment scientifically in its general vicinity.
Director Jon Turteltaub (“National Treasure”) has all the ingredients for a late splash of summer fun, although the film never embraces the wink and nod charm of past shark flicks (Blake Lively faced tougher odds in “The Shallows”) and can't seem to overcome a script that's too dull, even by the low standards this CGI-laden genre tends to bark up.
Ahí están los guiños al clásico de Steven Spielberg, Tiburón (Jaws, 1975), o a Alerta en lo profundo (Deep Blue Sea, 1999) calcados con poca inspiración, a diferencia de, por ejemplo, lo hecho por Jaume Collet-Serra (El pasajero, Desconocido) en Miedo profundo (The Shallows, 2016) donde, si bien, no se transformaba lo previamente establecido o se habrían nuevas veredas de exploración, sí se presentaba la historia como un gran juego visual de supervivencia, con colores saturados y situaciones ridículas dignas del mejor serie b.
When Freeman wins big at blackjack, the hotel comps them the penthouse room promised to the rapper 50 Cent, whose cameo recalls Mike Tyson's in "The Hangover."
There's even a cameo from rapper 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson), perhaps in a fond nod to Mike Tyson's turn in The Hangover.
Marketed as a sort of The Hangover for senior citizens, Last Vegas proves much less audacious and much less funny than its theoretical inspiration, relying on predictable humor and equally predictable sentiment instead of something bold or unexpected.
Frequently referenced as the geriatric The Hangover, the studio played up that angle highlighting the character’s frustration with not being as young as they used to be.
Despite its obvious comparisons to The Hangover, Last Vegas possesses none of that film's distinctive aesthetic or scattered moments of subversion, and the appearance of Jerry Ferrara as the senior wolfpack's hapless fixer only cements the realization that what it resembles more than anything else is late-period Entourage.
This is basically a geriatric version of “The Hangover”—four seventy-somethings go off to Vegas for a bachelor party—but since the target audience is clearly closer in age to the lead actors than to the moviegoers who made Todd Phillips’ slob comedy such a smash, the comedic tone of Jon Turteltaub’s movie is understandably gentler—naughty rather than nasty.
In a perfect world, they should transition nicely to the big screen as breezy popcorn movies akin to the National Treasure flicks but the execution just never seems to be there.
You wish it would combine with the “National Treasure” movies so Nic Cage could appear and at least liven things up a bit.
It’s honestly ridiculous, a Nicolas Cage “National Treasure” puzzle-thriller with a degree in art history.
For my money, 2004’s “National Treasure” remains the only good Robert Langdon adaptation to date, if only in spirit.
Like those ridiculous National Treasure flicks featuring Nicolas Cage as a nerdy Indiana Jones, the three films showcasing Hanks as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon position themselves as brainy action yarns, with the hero pausing during lengthy chases to rattle off historical tidbits regarding Leonardo Da Vinci (2006's The Da Vinci Code) or the Catholic Church (2009's Angels & Demons) or Dante Alighieri (this entry).
Ron Howard’s Inferno is a less-interesting National Treasure that continues a dull parade of 2016 dad-thrillers (The Accountant/Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) that waste bolstered casts (Tom Hanks/Felicity Jones) and/or previous successes.
So many occasions arise for uncommon adventure, but the script continues to return to run-of-the-mill trivialities and encounters, copying notions from other underwater thrillers like “The Abyss” and “Deep Blue Sea.”
Anyone picking apart the questionable science, hammy romantic subplot, or the myriad disaster movie tropes in an attempt to find a film to rival Jaws , or The Abyss, has missed the point.
It begins like James Cameron’s The Abyss but ends in the kind of toothless high campery found in last year’s Baywatch .
Now, I'll admit, everything I know about deep sea exploration I learned from watching The Abyss, so I was under the impression that along with the dangers of underwater aliens, diving at those depths can be treacherous, with the need for slow decompression lest you risk the bends, or worse.
Otherwise, it's Jaws meets The Abyss in this long-awaited (by some) adaptation of Steve Alten's 1997 novel, simply called Meg (there have been six sequels), centered on a rescue attempt on a research submersible stuck at 11,000 meters down, the deepest point in the Pacific.
You can see the heavy influence of other sci-fi aquatic films, specifically James Cameron’s The Abyss; prior to that film, Cameron reportedly had to commission clear full-face diving masks so you could see the actors in the water.
Alexandre Aja’s brilliant B-movie excursion “Piranha 3D” transformed the horror movie premise of the original into a live action comic book that flaunted outrageous genre tropes like a firecracker; Turteltaub never gains such confidence in the material to let it go all-out bonkers.
Essentially a PG-13 version of Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D with fewer jokes and even less of a point, The Meg is a faceless, lifeless, workmanlike, unimaginative, lowest common denominator-courting, movie-like substance.
Imagine a trashy empty-calories combo of Sharknado and the gore-and-nudity-heavy Piranha 3D—two horror movies loaded with lovable dumbness.
There are plenty of big set pieces, which either rip off or pay homage to everything from Jaws to Piranha 3D to Deep Blue Sea , depending on your view.
I don’t need Piranha 3D -type levels of brutality (though, let’s be honest, that would’ve been welcome) but when you come to see a giant shark make lunch out of a slew of cardboard cut-out characters, I don’t want to have their supposed personalities “explored” instead.
The answer arrived in the film’s final act, a portion of which is set on a crowded beach in China’s Sanya Bay that instantly nods to both the fictional Jaws town of Amity, MA and Lake Victoria, home of Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D.
Stripped of the script's distractions and allowed to go at full throttle for at least the last 60 minutes, The Meg – even with all its Jaws, Orca and Jurassic Park steals intact – could still have been a gloriously unhinged good time.
There are moments where The Meg knowingly winks to Jaws – hell, it even tries to be a bit Jurassic Park, too.
The new Jason Statham water adventure "The Meg" is a cross between "Jaws," "Jurassic Park" and "Sharknado."
“ The Meg ” had a simple but kind of brilliant concept: mix “Jaws” with “Jurassic Park” and throw in hunky Jason Statham.
As marketed, The Meg looks like a breezy, campy monster movie that supersizes Jaws with an infusion of Jurassic Park .
Based on the book Meg: A Novel Of Deep Terror by Steve Alten which came out in 1997, just four years after Jurassic Park redefined the blockbuster movie, The Meg similarly imagines what would happen if a prehistoric creature thought to be extinct, resurfaced because of mankind’s meddling and posed a serious threat to the modern world.
And let’s not even bother comparing it to Jaws (1975), although serious shark movie aficionados will recognize a major plot point that has been lifted from Jaws 3-D (1983).
It’s not as howlingly awful as Jaws 3-D or Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! but for the $150 million USD and however many millions of yuan Warner Brothers’ Chinese cohorts-cum-financiers Gravity Pictures threw into this summer action flick, it should by all rights be more flat-out fun.
While those at least had a B-movie sheen and owned their campiness, the new effort is too earnest, too belabored and too predictable: It steals liberally from Raiders of the Lost Ark and National Treasure without ever having a vision of its own.
This Tomb Raider not only recalls the Jolie films—with a bland Vikander lacking the preternatural, larger-than-life confidence projected by Jolie—but the legacy of other large-scale globetrotting archaeological adventure pictures, like the Indiana Jones and National Treasure films.
A little “Indiana Jones,” a little “National Treasure,” a little “Bourne Identity” — not to mention its similarities to those two previous “Tomb Raider” films — its script feels like the same sort of ancient relic those on the island are trying to excavate.
While there, she solves puzzles, fights bad guys, digs up relics, gathers clues and all the other stuff you’ve undoubtedly seen before in “Indiana Jones,” “The Mummy,” “National Treasure,” et.al.
You’ll get Finding Nemo and Shark Tale references, DJ’s (Page Kennedy) “Maybe let’s not hunt the massive Megalodon?”
Taken purely for what it is, there’s plenty to enjoy about The Meg , from the sight of Statham in the aforementioned straw hat, to some well-judged jump scares based off humans being flung into the water, a sweet Finding Nemo reference, and the fact it does take quite a bit of effort to actually kill the blasted thing.
Did I mention that the other two films were Finding Nemo and Shark Tale?
Save for a genuinely amusing send off to Finding Nemo, a tiny dog named Pippin that miraculously survives (surely honoring the memory of Jaws’ fetch-loving pooch Pippet), and Suyin’s adorable young daughter Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai, the reason you won’t walk out of the The Meg halfway through), there isn’t much here that dares to be memorable.
It's neat to see him in the water, winking (intentionally or not) at his history as a diver, and it's downright delightful to hear him quoting Finding Nemo .
Not so derivative of “Jaws” as of its increasingly disappointing sequels, “The Meg” denies its titular beast much of the perspective and the audience much of the suspense of the unseen that made Bruce the shark so terrifying in the summer of 1975, instead relying on quick initial glimpses of what would turn out to be terrible CGI of a shark that was scarier and more sinister in “Finding Nemo.”
Instead, The Meg trails lazily in its wake, constantly reminding you — just as Skyscraper did with The Towering Inferno and Die Hard — that there are better films of its ilk that you could be watching instead.
On the subject of John McClane, after the screening someone mentioned to me that The Meg “is like Die Hard in the water.”
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Directed by Nora Ephron
influenced While You Were Sleeping (1995)
Themes
"While You Were Sleeping" is a sentimental successor to "Sleepless In Seattle," and so much like the popular Nora Ephron picture that a more suitable title would have been "Comatose in Chicago."
Pullman, who in film after film (from “Sleepless in Seattle” to “Sommersby”) has played the guy who loses the girl, finally emerges as a full-fledged leading man here.
When -- and for that matter, why -- did Sleepless in Seattle become the sine qua non for any critical blurb for a romantic comedy?
While You Were Sleeping movie likely to appeal to the Sleepless in Seattle crowd, is a perfect example of this unoriginal-but-enjoyable type of film making.
If Sleepless in Seattle was designer romance, While You Were Sleeping is comfortable fit: loose-knit sweaters, lumberjack shirts, blue jeans and Timberland boots.
And these days they are inevitably compared to "Sleepless in Seattle," "When Harry Met Sally . . .
The Goonies (1985)
Directed by Richard Donner
influenced National Treasure (2004)
Plot Themes Visuals
"Treasure" has a good idea for a roaring adventure, mixing "The Goonies" with some 9th grade history class lessons for thrills and chills.
It's the grown-up version of The Goonies , and by "grown-up" I mean the 18-34 year-old demographic that studios target when they produce loud and shiny entertainments featuring a blonde in a black dress running down a street.
Rather, “National Treasure” is more like a grown up version of “The Goonies.”
"National Treasure" does lose its way toward the end, where the climax seems to take place in either the leftover set from "The Goonies" or "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."
Heck, even Jon Turteltaub's 2004 bauble-hunting flick "National Treasure" tried to tie an element of hefty, history-forward American patriotism into its caper sequences.
National Treasure, which starred Nicolas Cage, is perhaps the more apposite comparison in terms of style, and given both are modern day as opposed to the period trappings of Indiana Jones. But even National Treasure was derivative. Fountain Of Youth arrives decades later with a wealth of similar pictures in the slipstream and can’t do enough to distinguish itself among them.
He had better hurry up and stop talking, though; time is running out.Barely more than a subpar rehash of " The Da Vinci Code ," "Angels & Demons," this time, also reminds of the silly " National Treasure " series.
What remains is a far-fetched but watchable thriller mixed with a enough history to make it interesting but not compelling (you know, like National Treasure , but without Nicolas Cage).
“Angels & Demons,” in its relentless drive to occupy middlebrow, mainstream “National Treasure” territory, is more concerned with generating busy, frenetic activity without considering its cost.
Think “National Treasure” without the snarky comedy asides and a richer locale but equally artificial in its attempts at suspense and surprise.
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Directed by Ron Howard
influenced by National Treasure (2004), National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007), The Meg (2018)
Plot Themes Characters
If you have read "The Da Vinci Code," you already know the basic plot of "National Treasure."
Although the filmmakers want it made clear that National Treasure was already in the works before Dan Brown�s bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code was released, readers and viewers of both will delight in the similarities: Secret societies revealed, a quest for the truth and treasure, a hateful bad guy, and a good guy and good girl who share some romance along the way.
It hints at the kind of delicious brain candy that made "The Da Vinci Code" a blockbuster best seller.
Blandly mixing Indiana Jones‘s spelunking with The Da Vinci Code‘s historical mystery, National Treasure undertakes the onerous task of generating excitement and tension from the sight of characters deciphering centuries-old parchments.
A leaden adventure yarn that pauses between plodding setpieces to admire the courage and ingenuity of the founding fathers or dispense tiny nuggets of historical trivia, it plays like a dumbed-down version of bestsellers like The Da Vinci Code, which embed shards of mildly interesting information inside conspiracy-mongering thriller plots.
For those not in the know, Gage is something of a chummy synthesis of Indiana Jones and Tom Hanks’s cryptographer from The Da Vinci Code.