Early in The Meg, crewmembers from an underwater research facility descend into the ocean’s depths via submarine, all in the name of scientific discovery. Their mission: to not only ascertain what really lies beneath the Mariana Trench, but to see how deep whatever that may be just happens to reside. When trouble unsurprisingly greets them, marine biologist Suyin (Li Bingbing, Guardians of the Tomb) and rescue diver Jonas (Jason Statham, The Fate of the Furious) take separate small crafts as part of a recovery mission, and come face-to-face with the movie’s hulking titular shark. Later, after several life-or-death encounters and the expected hand-wringing about the next course of action, the remaining team alights from the station they’ve been calling home to the ship they assume will take them to safety — and, after disaster then strikes yet again, they seek out another vessel.
If there’s a thread connecting these narrative developments, other than humans trying to best a super-sized ancient sea creature, it’s this: at every turn, The Meg’s characters are in search of a different boat. Usually it’s bigger, in a nod to the shark blockbuster that inspired all shark blockbusters that followed. Indeed, dipping a toe into heavily infested waters, the film adaptation of Steve Alten’s 1997 noel Meg fancies itself as a Jaws successor of sorts, albeit 43 years later and with somewhat of a sense of humour. Directed by Jon Turteltaub (Last Vegas) and scripted for the screen by Dean Georgaris (TV’s The Brave) with Jon Koeber and Erich Koeber (Red 2), it’s happy to wink — and with its story revolving around hopping onto larger ships while battling a prehistoric megalodon, how could it not? — but it’s also eager to takes its cues from Spielberg more than Sharknado.
The details fall firmly into the former camp (and lack the latter’s overt campiness) from the outset. A dismissed but lingering tale about a menacing beast, a crew forced to react when the myth proves true, and a man doing what’s necessary for emotive motivations as much as necessity all feature, as does a shoreline filled with blissfully unaware holidaymakers. In stepping between all of the above, The Meg quickly establishes its central threat, while remaining happy to hang most of its drama on hearing about the shark and the bloodshed it causes rather than seeing it. That’s true when Jonas first encounters the mammoth predator in a career-ending incident five years prior to the movie’s current-day events, where he’s subsequently deemed crazy. It’s true again when he faces off against the creature once more — initially because his ex-wife (Jessica McNamee, Battle of the Sexes) is part of the stranded deep-sea crew, and later due to his growing ties with the rest of the international team.
Accordingly, as Jonas finds his credibility restored, forms a bond with single mother Suyin and leads this man-versus-meg tussle all the way to a Chinese beach resort, an awkward blend occurs. When The Meg is fun, self-aware and proud to be both, it has an engaging comic spark. When it’s serious, it’s also bland and dully formulaic. Turteltaub and company seesaw in the middle, bobbing from one extreme to the other as though they’re going wherever the waves take them — and never displaying the prowess that real-life former Commonwealth Games diver Statham shows in the water.
One scene has The Meg’s star standing around naked from the waist up and only wearing a towel otherwise. Another sees his cohorts grimly debating the ethics of killing versus studying their giant foe. In others still, lines such as “there’s something out there” are uttered with the straightest of faces. And, in an ever-predictable fashion, the research group’s members — including Rainn Wilson (Shimmer Lake) as the billionaire funding it all, Ruby Rose (Pitch Perfect 3) as the main engineer, Cliff Curtis (Fear of the Walking Dead) as Jonas’ old pal, Robert Taylor (Don’t Tell) as his old adversary and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (The Spy Who Dumped Me) as one of the station’s workers — all cycle through their perfunctory moments in the spotlight.
The ebbs, flows, crests and troughs keep coming elsewhere: in jump-scares that hit the mark but offer too little of the shark in question, in CGI that barely improves on mechanical beasts from four decades ago, and in a padded-out effort that kicks furiously and then wades patiently in its pacing. Still, like much that features the distinctive Statham and much of the shark thriller genre as well, audiences can expect to get out of The Meg exactly what they’re willing to take. With the film almost evenly split between amusingly entertaining and dourly formulaic, either can prevail depending on the viewer’s mood. That’s hardly the sign of a successful feature; however it’s indicative of a movie with both charms and flaws. Grasp onto the ridiculousness and it acts as a life raft; turn away from it and the flick sinks — no matter what size boat the film’s characters happen to be on at any given moment.
2 ½ stars: ★★☆
The Meg
Director: Jon Turteltaub
USA/China, 2018, 113 mins
Release date: August 16
Distributor: Roadshow
Rated: M
Actors:
Director:
Format:
Country:
Release:
