Review: ‘The Meg’ Takes Itself Too Seriously to be the Smackdown it Deserves

It’s Man Movie May, and “The Meg” is a story of a Carcharocles megalodon that escapes from the deep abyss of Marianas Trench, threatens a couple of scientists and researchers, and is ultimately confronted by an ex-deep sea diver played by manly man Jason Statham—so of course it’s a man movie. It’s like “Piranha,” “Sharknado,” or any other of this ilk: You know, the type of movie with zero script, an existential threat in the form of a fabled or hyper-engineered monster(s), and the capacity for bad acting and over-the-top scenes of carnage. “The Meg” has a lot of scenes of a ginormous shark snapping its jaws on submarine windows, beachgoers, research vessels, etc., and features a lot of plans to attack the shark that are shameless ripoffs of the “Jaws” franchise. It’s a Syfy Channel-type movie that somehow found studio production. If that’s all you want to know, you can probably stop reading. But if you’re curious as to why you should or shouldn’t see this, feel free to read on.

First the good. It features a couple of fan favorite actors that are sure to please fans of the sci-fi genre; and I, for one, am thankful the film had the common decency to not rehash the tired ‘genetic engineering’ movie trope that’s been overdone for the last decade or so. A prehistoric Megaladon is alive, no explanation given as to why, and it attacks. Period. Surely a messier film would have been easier to make, and I thank director Jon Turtletaub from the bottom of my heart for keeping it simple.

Second, the aforementioned actors. Statham is cool; we know this. Anyone who is a fan of his early work, such as “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” or his later productions such as last year’s side-splittingly funny “Hobbs & Shaw” will appreciate the machismo the man brings to the table. Yes, he talks gruff. Yes, ladies (and gents?) there’s a shirtless scene. And his name’s Jonas—anybody even remotely familiar with the biblical tale will gasp in awe at the hopeful promise that Statham will enter the shark’s belly end eviscerate it with a stick of dynamite or maybe just one of his famed and tactical roundhouse kicks.

In addition to Statham, we also have Rainn Wilson from the American version of “The Office;” he’s a billionaire funding a poorly described mission to discover the depths of Marianas Trench and is mostly lost amidst the noise. Ruby Rose and Cliff Curtis also make an appearance, and the comedy and everyman brought to the table by Page Kennedy’s “DJ” makes some of the film’s more head-scratching scenes palatable.

The bad: okay…I’m sure it would be easy to criticize the script (which is non-existent), or the action sequences (which are painstakingly bad), but why bother? You know what kind of movie you’re going into. It garnered a ‘rotten’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 46% and an audience score of 42%—hey, at least it’s consistent. It was awarded 3 stars on RoberEbert.com by Peter Sobczynski, which I can’t begin to comprehend, but I digress. There’s simply no point in shredding the filmmaking, the style, or the fact that Jon Turtletaub directed the heartbreaking “Phenomenon” and scratch one’s head and wonder why he decided to make this movie. No, what I’m going to do instead is obsessively nitpick some of the film’s shortcomings that just irk me as someone wanting to see badass mega-carnage.

Here’s just a quick list—(note, spoilers are definitely ahead). 

First, there’s just the complete lack of explanation as to why or what the researchers are doing, as well as a complete lack of character development. Second, the film takes its few likable character arcs and completely abandons them. The worse offender of this is a love interest given to Jonas, a beautiful researcher played by Suyin (as Li Bingbing), which the movie teases, and teases, and teases for its run-time, and then just pretends it never happened. Jonas saves the day (is this really a spoiler?) and doesn’t even get the girl? What school of action movies did “The Meg” graduate from, really?

Third, and possibly most egregious, is the simple fact the death scenes are lame and watered down (the film is rated PG-13). The meg eats a couple of people, there’s little to no carnage, none of the hated characters get that well-deserved, grossed out death, and the climax is an uber-letdown filled with lots of underwater piloting and little comeuppance for the meg, which is what we wanted all along. To make matters worse, a scene where the meg swims through a crowded beach packed with clueless partiers is about as bloody and rewarding as the two single people Jason kills in New York City in “Jason Takes Manhattan,” which, of course, is not rewarding at all.

“The Meg” is just a letdown that takes itself too seriously. My advice? Watch it, don’t watch it, do as your heart desires. It’s outlandish and predictable and poorly written, but is likely to please its intended audience, so you can’t fault it for trying. Me? I’ll repress the film’s lesser points, and wistfully imagine an ending where Jason Statham sweeps Suyin up in one arm for a kiss whilst bashing the meg to death, back and forth on the beach with his other arm after injecting himself with the serum from the “Crank” series like a cartoon character until the shark expires by simply getting ‘Xs’ in its eyes.