The new movie “Mile 22” is easily one of the worst of 2018. There is no story line or recognizable screenplay here, just a series of disconnected scenes that are never explained or transition, and are nothing more than excuses for action or explosions or both. A movie is never an excuse for only action scenes and Mile 22 is so bad that even Michael Bay, who invented this type of rapid fire film would say Mile 22 makes absolutely no sense. The only bright spot within this very bad 2 hours is the presence of probably the best movie Martial Arts expert in movie history Iko Uwais – who has some scenes of realistic fighting that are extremely impressive. The best examples of this type of realistic Karate that I have ever seen are within the 2 movies “Raid: Redemption 2011” and “The Raid 2 – 2014”.

Other than Iko, this entire movie is a total mess and should be thrown out of all theaters – hopefully by this Monday. To make this movie even worse – the end of the film uses the “explain what happened cleanup scenes” at the end that attempts to make up for the fact that no measurable story was told for 2 hours. The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this bad movie is 20% – and I would have given it a 5% rating. Run from Mile 22, because it is a screenplay disaster.

It is no accident that the new Spike Lee movie “BlacKkKlansman” is now released almost a year to the day of the White Nationalist Rally in Charlottesville Virginia. There are references to President Trump in this movie as well as several disturbing videos at the end about the racial incident in Charlottesville, where one woman died after being hit by a car that was driven by a White Nationalist. Much of the dialogue is highly disturbing with the frequent use of the N word and other horrendous racial language. The depiction of the members of the Klu Klux Klan is highly accurate with their pathetic lack of intelligence and overwhelming all consuming hatred of every other human being who is not white and Christian. Fundamentally this level of life-long hatred is derived from an extreme lack of intelligence and an ongoing generational passing down of idiocy that seems to have no end – as we were all reminded of last August in Charlottesville.

Surprisingly, despite the disturbing images of hatred, this movie has its share of humorous moments as well, in an attempt by Spike Lee to try and diffuse the non stop bigotry and hate, which over a long two hours can become overwhelming. This movie stars the son of actor Denzel Washington, John David Washington, who has some huge shoes to fill as a film actor, but in this movie does an outstanding job playing the lead character. Washington plays police officer Ron Stallworth who in 1972 was able to fool representatives of the Klu Klux Klan and was signed on as a member. Another white police officer, played by Adam Driver shared the undercover responsibilities and they both walked a precarious line within a very dangerous organization and ultimately were able to prevent the bombing of local black neighborhood.

I thought Lee did his best work both in directing and casting many of the pathetic idiots who make up the group of Klan members who sit around all day, drink beer and use foul racial language attempting to make themselves feel better about being a bunch of incredible losers. The level of hate and stupidity depicted in this movie is difficult to sit through, and it will be always impossible to believe that lowlife morons like this exist in this or any other country.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for BlacKkKlansman are an extremely high 98% and while I do not agree with a rating this high, I do strongly recommend this movie.

The title of the new movie “The Meg” is short for Megalodon, which is a the largest shark that has ever existed and lived millions of years ago and is thought to be extinct.

The way this story brings back this huge shark I thought was well done, but after the shark comes back to terrorize and kill almost everybody in this movie – some of the logistics due to the decisions the characters make to try and kill or escape this shark are some of the stupidest I have ever seen. What makes making a new shark movie so difficult is that it has to be something we have not seen before – and this idea is new. Then the story has to make sense, but for this movie any level of plausibility is thrown out the window within the first 30 minutes. One scene that stood out for me as one of the dumbest ever was when one professional diver played by Jason Statham makes an idiotic decision to go into the water with a 70 foot shark – in an attempt to spear him with a tracking dart. He decides to do this after a scientist says to him, “sharks are not threatened by one person in the water”. The problem here is a total lack of common sense in an attempt to create a dramatic moment. Nobody would ever do something this stupid, no way, never. There are so many idiotic decisions like this from too many characters to make this film enjoyable enough to recommend. If a movie makes no sense because the decisions of the characters are so absurd – then the whole story dies.

This movie probably marks the first time that Jason Statham has ever been in a role where he did not use his impressive Karate skills. Statham is also the only named star in this movie and the only other standout actress, who I thought was the best part of this entire movie is actress Shuya Sophia Cai – who is just about the cutest child I have ever seen in any movie. Her presence just about steals the entire story about a prehistoric shark that comes back to life. Anyone who has seen the 1975 first summer blockbuster will recognize about 3 references to Jaws – including a dog named Pippin.

The ending of this story has the usual expected attempt at a twist that really did not work and surprisingly I thought the special effects were probably the result of a budget that was not high enough for impressive special effects.

The Rotten Tomatoes review of this movie is an anemic 50%. For me, mostly because of the idiotic decisions of the characters in this movie – to create drama, I cannot recommend The Meg.