Review: The Meg
One doesn't go in to The Meg, the film adaptation of Steve Alten's 1997 best-selling novel, expecting escapist fare on the level of Steven Spielberg's seminal blockbuster, Jaws. The Meg is unapologetically ridiculous and cartoonish and, on its own terms, it mostly succeeds in what it sets out to be, namely a chance to see the always engaging Jason Statham throw down with a prehistoric giant shark. The problem, though, is that it takes nearly half its running time to get going but, once it does, it's rather satisfying fare.
Five years ago, deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Statham) found himself disgraced when he made the fateful decision to leave a submarine full of sailors to die in order to save himself and the people on board his rescue ship. No one believed his claims that they were attacked by a mysterious creature; everyone believed he was suffering from pressure-induced psychosis. Having exiled himself to Thailand, he reluctantly finds himself potentially about to face the same moral crisis when a submersible piloted by his ex-wife Lori (Jessica McNamee) is trapped at the bottom of the ocean, having been attacked by a mysterious creature.
Why were Lori and her crew, Toshi (Masi Oka) and The Wall (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) there to begin with? They are part of the Mana One, an underwater research facility run by Dr. Zhang (Winston Chao) and financed by snarky billionaire Jack Morris (Rainn Wilson). Other possible shark food, ahem, crew members include Zhang's oceanographer daughter Suyin (Bingbing Li), edgy tech genius Jaxx (Ruby Rose), African-American comic relief DJ (Page Kennedy), and Jonas' close pal Mac (Cliff Curtis). Just in case one remains emotionally neutral to their survival, the film throws in Suyin's precocious eight-year-old daughter Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) and an adorable beribboned dog to shamelessly tug at the heartstrings.
Jonas successfully rescues most of the submersible crew, though it results in the discovery of the identity of the mysterious creature. Turns out it is a 75-foot megalodon long believed to have been extinct for over two million years and powerful enough to bite a whale in half. "Man versus meg isn't a fight, it's a slaughter," Jonas notes as they scramble to figure out a way to destroy it before it destroys them.
Screenwriters Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber could have leaned more into a tongue-in-cheek seriousness, and they certainly could have dispensed with all the expository blah blah blah. At least there are enough "Hell yeah!" moments to distract from the anaemic narrative such as the scene where Jonas and an unconscious Suyin are mere inches from being chomped by the meg and, most of all, the long-awaited showdown between man and meg.
The Meg
Directed by: Jon Turteltaub
Written by: Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber; based on the novel by Steve Alten
Starring: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Shuya Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Jessica McNamee, Masi Oka
