Movie Review: The Meg

The Meg

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Starring: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Shuya Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 113 Minutes

About 18 years ago a book named MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror was brought to my attention. I knew what a Megalodon was, but the premise of the book was intriguing to me. I never got around to reading the Steve Alten novel, but ever since that day I always hoped they would make a movie about it. Similar movies popped up on the SyFy channel and direct to video, but I knew they were not what I was looking for. This story was good; it just needed a big budget to get made. Well, the money came in, and we finally got a solid movie about the prehistoric shark.

Jonas Taylor (Statham) specializes in deep sea rescues. After an unfortunate event, he retires until he is called in for another save, this time his ex-wife is stranded on the bottom of an ocean trench deeper than any vessel has been before. A mixed bag of scientists and tech experts are the reason for the research sub to be in the trench. They are all working in the underwater lab known as Mana One. They have just discovered that what scientists always believed was the bottom of the ocean trench is not the actual bottom and there are species of marine life that no one has ever seen before. This is a big find for billionaire Jack Morris (Wilson) who funded the entire project. During this rescue, Jonas might unknowingly have brought a Megalodon shark up from the trench into the waters off the coast of China. This is where the fun starts and where the synopsis will end in this review. You can imagine what that would mean for any human, boat, or sea life in the Pacific Ocean. Did I mention the megalodon shark in question is a 75-foot shark that lived with the dinosaurs? Now can you imagine the chaos?

The Meg is the definition of summertime blockbuster. Not quite the same way that Jaws defined the summer of 1975 with a fun movie that hooked audiences and drove viewers out of the water and into the theaters. The Meg isn’t doing precisely that, but it is doing what it was designed to do. It is summer fun that hits all the notes and gives the audience a fun ride. One of my complaints about the movie is purely based on the “Hollywood” logic of things. The weight and strength of the shark are underplayed at moments, and you get “those cables are stronger than they should be” and “why didn’t THAT hurt the shark” moments. I understand what kind of film I am watching and can forgive those moments. Another minor problem I had was the Chinese and Taiwanese actors who are delivering lines like they are extras that just got dragged onto the set. This is probably a less forgivable issue seeing as there are plenty of capable actors and actresses that could have been cast in these roles. The “mixed bag” of people I referred to earlier is very reminiscent of Hollywood trying to check boxes. The lone African-American of the group, Page Kennedy, is purely for comic relief and nothing more. In the same vein, Ruby Rose’s character Jaxx feels misplaced in a serious research lab. These characters do none of the heavy lifting, but probably look good to producers. Statham is solid here, but he usually is. He plays his role well and was perhaps the best-casted player here.

As someone who has wanted this film for 18 years, I am happy with the result. It was a lot of fun and hope the box office haul is enough to greenlight another installment. They did not try and recreate the book, so all of you MEG and Steve Alten fans need to know that going in. If you go into the theater wanting a 75-foot shark movie with a loose narrative, then you will enjoy The Meg quite a bit.