Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre - Guy Ritchie - 2023

★★★★-Went in expecting a fun, humorous action movie featuring beautiful people in beautiful clothes having a great time. That was exactly what I got. Loved it.

Gist is Jason Statham plays a mercenary named Orson Fortune who is hired to stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology. The broker of the deal is billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds played by Hugh Grant. To help, Fortune assembles a reluctant team of the world’s greatest and most beautiful operatives including Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride), Bugzy Malone (the rapper), and Aubrey Plaza. They end up recruiting Hollywood's biggest movie star, one Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) to go undercover and save the world.

Gets a little convoluted, but I honestly didn't really care. All of Guy Ritchie garbage crime movies are fun as fuck and this is no exception. Also, love how he plugs the wood-burning grill/table he invented in all of his movies now. 

Grant and Hartnett are so fun. Both of them yuck it up and steal every scene they are in. Plaza was a little much at first with her weak sarcasm, but comes around and is pretty great. 

Overall, nothing new and isn't going to win any awards. One review said “It’s like someone doing Guy Ritchie doing Guy Ritchie.” Fair, but still loved it. Sort of reminds me of a movie like Beat the Devil when John Huston made a movie starring Humphrey Bogart that gently spoofed the other movies they made together just so they could go and do cool shit in cool places and get paid for it. Having a great time shows on camera in projects like this. 

So, yeah, humor, action, movie stars being movie stars, Guy Ritchie, Aubrey Plaza looking fine. I'm buying. 

The Meg is the worst movie of all time

The Meg. "Meg versus man isn't a fight... it's a slaughter." Directed by Jon Turteltaub in 2018. It was sort of fun but bad. 

The film stars Jason Statham as the megaladon expert whom everyone thinks is crazy but then saves the day. Also in the flick are Li Bingbing who is big in China, Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office), Ruby Rose (the Bieber-looking chick in Orange Is the New Black), Winston Chao (also big in China), and Cliff Curtis from Training Day and Doctor Sleep, among other things. Gist is a group of scientists find a 75-foot-long megalodon shark while on a rescue mission on the floor of the ocean. The shark then does what sharks in movies do.

Some things... The CGI is terrible. Lot of minor characters sacrificing themselves. So much I’ll-advised jumping in the water. 

At one point they make it seem like a dog dies, but that dog is way too adorable, so they make a point to show she survived. Fuck yeah. I mean, all kinds people and prob kids died. But you better not kill the fucking dog. Def bumped it up a couple of stars for me. Like the extended scene of regular shark revenge at the end.