August 18, 2018 3 min to read

The Meg

Monster movie diehards have been chomping at the bit for The Meg because of it’s 20 year journey to the big-screen, but somehow bigger sharks yielded less suspense.

by Zach Saul

There are some movies that are so world-bending…so industry-altering, that 40 years later casual homages to them rule the box office and generate buzz. Jaws is that film, and The Meg is the 2018 resurrection of the shark-pocalypse phenomenon. The Meg introduces us to the Megalodon, a giant species of shark thought to be extinct, but returns to consume several of the characters, their ships, and fellow sharks. Billionaire Jack Morris (Rainn Wilson), funds a series of expeditions at the Mana One facility to discover what’s below the surface of a cloudlike ocean-floor layer, only to discover (gasp) that there are temperamental Megalodon sharks down there. After three of their researchers get trapped below the ocean’s floor the team is forced to recruit the loose-cannon Jason Taylor (Jason Statham) to rescue the researchers, and eventually kill the giant Megalodon. The movie mostly follows the Mana One crew, and their ill-fated attempts to kill and capture the giant shark. In one scene, when the team kills what they think is the main culprit, the actual beast leaps up and consumes the first Megalodon, and destroys the ship the crew was stationed on. That sequence sums up what The Meg is all about: a pulpy monster movie without any pretentious character-driven aspirations.

Aside from the fact Jaws and The Meg contain shark attacks, these two movies don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence. What differentiates Jaws from outlandish animal attack films is that it’s grounded in a tourist-dependent beach community, and the socio-political factors that created anxiety, fear, and questionable decision-making. The Meg is sorely lacking in this regard, and isn’t whacky enough to sustain itself based on explosions and hijinks alone. Without any real suspense, the CGI and action stunts aren’t close to good enough to make The Meg worth the price of admission. Monster movie fans will probably find something to like while watching The Meg, but general audiences will be checking their watches a lot.

Apparently the original rights to The Meg were purchased by Disney in the 90s and it took a laborious twenty year campaign by author Steve Alten to resurrect this movie and eventually get it made by Warner Bros. Budget, script, and timing were significant obstacles to the original planned release, and 1999’s Deep Blue Sea release was what killed the first iteration for good. The plot certainly has the feel of a script that’s been overworked, and perhaps a heftier serving of jokes would have served The Meg well given it’s premise.

The Good: Like any good piece of fanfiction, The Meg gives diehard monster movie fans what they wanted: bigger sharks, bigger ships, and greater stakes, without any pretentiousness. The marketing campaign for The Meg was brilliant, and used silly puns like “nice to eat you” to promote the movie. Jason Statham is a consistent source of energy throughout, and does his best to carry the audience for two hours.

The Bad: I understand that The Meg isn’t interested in narrative, characters, or cinematography - but the whole movie just felt lazy to me. The CGI sharks that were surely prohibitively expensive to create didn’t look particularly good, and the research facility resembled the set of Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century.