An ancient megalodon reemerges to attack a submersible, prompting rescuers to enlist the help of a seasoned oceanographer to assist in handling the 75 foot threat.
To me, there’s nothing more frightening in ancient history than the megalodon. It’s everything we’re terrified of in a Great White Shark, amplified to eleven. So when The Meg was announced, I was admittedly excited to see it. A creature that had fascinated me since childhood, coming to the big screen in blockbuster fashion? Sign me up! Unfortunately, what we got was anything but what I wanted. And yes, I’m pouting. With such an interesting and unique subject matter, and being adapted from a book that captured the terror of such a magnificent deep sea beast, it’s disappointing that what we got was essentially a run of the mill action plot with a megalodon sprinkled in. As if we haven’t had enough “Jason Statham is a badass” movies, now we have one of him being a badass with a big shark. Yay.
Jon Turteltaub does his job as director in run of the mill fashion. There’s nothing truly noteworthy here aside from a few well done shots that capture the size of the titular meg, even if it does change in size from scene to scene just to fit whatever the hell they wanted it to be doing. Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber adapted the script from Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror by Steve Alten, and I think they would’ve benefited from sticking a little closer to the source material. Instead, it feels like studio pressures were applied to make the film into a cut and paste summer actioner, trying to mash The Transporter together with Jaws and instead getting whatever this crap wound up being. It’s cliched, boring, and those one longer jokes are just cringe inducing.
But, hey, at least we get a heaping dose of Jason Statham doing what Jason Statham does best. His grizzled demeanor and resistance to assisting is almost as by the books as the plot of the film, and we’re treated to lovely bits of oh so well thought out dialogue like “It’s a megalodon.” and “Chew on this, you ugly bastard.” being sputtered from clenched teeth and just unshaven enough stubble. Joined in his mediocrity is Bingbing Li, the walking stereotype of a smart Asian woman who doesn’t believe the big strong white man, and Rainn Wilson, who bumbles his way along as the village idiot of the plot to the point that it almost ruins any semblance of intelligence he once had. And of course we can’t have a crappy action film without Ruby Rose. They can do so much better than this. The only standout are Cliff Curtis, who is always wonderful, and the well done performance of Shuya Sophia Cai, a child beyond her years who manages to be the only character who’s even halfway believable and realistic.
But what are we coming to see this movie for, anyway? Oh, that’s right, the CGI. There’s plenty of it on display here, and while most of it looks good and I’m sure a bunch of people worked hard on it, it’s still just another CGI shark. The cinematography is overwhelmed by so many special effects, and the score is just kind of… there. It’s all wholly forgettable and feels like you’ve barely even watched a movie after it’s gone off.
Sadly, The Meg is uninspired and does nothing new despite being an entirely different species of shark, and the overwhelming amount of factual errors and ditching of logic necessary for this film to work are just appalling. This Meg is a mega snoozer.