I have a confession. I love shark movies. I view them the same way most people view the Fast and Furious franchise. I know they’re bad, but I can never resist watching them. Sadly, the quality ratio of shark movies is one of the worst you can find in a subgenre. For every Open Water, there’s a Sharknado 5. For every Jaws, there’s a Jaws: The Revenge.
After enjoying recent guilty pleasures like The Shallows, and (to a lesser extent) 47 Meters Down, I got so excited for a shark movie that proved to be bigger than any other.
The Meg, which is somehow actually based on a series of books, stars Jason Statham as Tough McSneerface Jonas Taylor. After dealing with a traumatic rescue, he reluctantly gets pulled back in to save a crew of explorers venturing below Mariana’s Trench. Yes, below the trench.
Enter the Megalodon, which was thought to have been extinct for millions of years. Fortunately for us, it exists and it’s hungry for environmentally-conscious researchers.
Statham is joined by a few pseudo-familiar faces in Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Li Bingbing and Cliff Curtis. However, you just hope and pray that every side character will soon be fodder for the prehistoric great white. The only character that you don’t want to be swallowed up is the adorable Meiying (played by Shuya Sophia Cai).
The only real character you are seeing this movie for is The Meg. Unlike Jaws, where you rarely see the shark, the Meg is ever-present. She is so large, that any time one of the characters even looks at the ocean, you know Meg is there waiting to swallow them up.
As hoped for and expected, I smiled through a great deal of this movie. The premise of The Transporter vs the world’s biggest shark is something I can really get behind if it’s done the right way. There needs to be an actual element of fear mixed with a heavy dose of camp. The Meg swims a little too far into the hokey end, but it is in on the joke. This is far closer to Deep Blue Sea in terms of tone than the more dramatic (but still silly) The Shallows.
The Meg never tries to be the next great shark classic. It fires on many cylinders of the genre (bad acting, writing, implausible situations). However, this movie will never be considered great for what it is because it’s missing one thing – blood.
There are a few deaths to be sure, but with this kind of movie, you’d expect carnage on an incalculable level. You hear about calamity and boats being destroyed, but see very little chomping. This is one example where they should have strayed away from the PG-13 rating. There’s a scene where Meg lurks under swimmers at a densely-populated beach. Little happens and the entire experience feels wasted. Director Jon Turtletaub (National Treasure) is a capable director for this cheese-fest, but I wish original choice Eli Roth had stayed attached and been given carte blanche to make The Meg as it should have been.
The Meg is exactly what you expect. It’s Jason Statham vs a shark and often, it’s as big, dumb and explosive as it should be. The cheese factor will keep you smiling. When you get bored, don’t worry, you’re bound to see the giant fin rise in the water on the horizon and you’ll know things are about to get real. Being neutered with a PG-13 rating, holds the Meg back, but it’s still fun and worth a rental. C
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