“The Meg” is exactly what you think it is. It’s a big, dumb shark movie. The thing is, it’s actually not as bad as I expected either. The plot is a lot less predictable then I assumed and, contrary to what I had heard, the CGI shark isn’t horrible. (At least it’s about what you could expect with a 75-foot shark.)
Based on Steve Alten’s novel “Meg,” the film finds rescue diver Jonas (Jason Statham) called upon to save stranded researches who have descended to the bottom of the Mariana trench. Oddly enough, the main problem I have is the casting of Statham.
“The Meg” (2018)
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Writers: Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber (screenplay); Steve Alten (novel)
Stars: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson
I’m sure the idea sounded good – “Hey, let’s make a movie about a 75-foot prehistoric shark and get Jason Statham in the lead!” The problem is that while Statham shines when there is fighting and martial arts work, he doesn’t have the most charisma. A lot of the work here is sitting in a sub, etc. It didn’t hit the mark for me.
I also was a bit annoyed with the … English? What I mean is, a couple of the main characters are Chinese, yet they speak English throughout the movie.
It doesn’t flow right, and I kept feeling like it was this broken English that felt out of place. I feel like I run the risk of being racist here, but that’s not the direction I’m going. Almost the opposite, as I feel there should have been subtitles.
Aside from those issues, we get a pretty standard giant shark action movie here. The sound is great, the action is good, it isn’t totally predictable, and overall I enjoyed the two hours. Although it’s no “Jaws,” I enjoy shark flicks so it worked for me.