The Meg (Quick Review)

Shark films are definitely one of my popcorn pleasures.

There’s just something about the deep blue sea and the mysteries underneath—some of which are large, ancient carnivores with rows of sharp teeth—that fills me with fear and awe.  The Meg takes the Jaws formula of a crew hunting down a man-eating shark and adds a few tweaks to it: location change (the western Pacific Ocean, part of which takes place underwater in the Mariana Trench), species change (the shark is a prehistoric megalodon), and having the people equipped with billion-dollar technology.  The Meg has a wide-ranging cast of fun, entertaining actors such as Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, and Cliff Curtis to name a few.

The film has comedy to go alongside these performances.  There’s a scene where the crew comes up with a harebrained scheme to have Statham’s character swim up to the shark and tag it with a tracker.  When Statham questions this very questionable plan, “Are you sure about this?”, Bingbing’s character nods seriously before answering “Not really…”  Statham then swims towards the behemoth, all the while nervously singing Dory’s song from Finding Nemo “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.”  The jokes are effective, but more importantly, they allow the audience to swallow The Meg’s otherwise ridiculous setting much more easily.

The Meg also contains drama, though it’s a bit too focused on pre-established relationships.  In these silly popcorn flicks, it’s best to focus on the relationships formed onscreen and not dwell on preestablished ones viewers couldn’t care less about as it often leads to a tone inconsistency that disrupts the entertainment—something that partially happens here in The Meg.  Fortunately, the inconsistency is not enough to ruin the fun, especially with Rainn Wilson’s character's—who’s all too good at playing the lovable scumbag—humorous indifference towards other characters getting sad over fodder deaths.

Yet what’s an over-the-top shark film without some over-the-top action and deaths?  With futuristic equipment at the crew’s disposal, The Meg is able to get said action scenes in, while the Megalodon makes sure to get plenty of gruesome deaths—including an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord on Sanya Bay.  There’s even a cool, extravagant finale where Statham faces the beast head-on, as well as an awesome fatality I was really hoping for and am very pleased happens.  The Meg is exactly what it’s trying to sell.  It’s an over-the-top popcorn shark flick that will satisfy shark film enthusiasts like me.