MOVIE REVIEW: The Meg with Jason Statham brings the Shark and the Action

There are 4 kinds of shark movies: Fun, Terrifying, Action, or Environmental.

The MEG is a fun, action-packed shark movie, with just a sprinkle of pro-environmental, “Don’t take science lightly”, messaging. Plus, Jason Statham gets to punch a giant shark.

Beautifully filmed above and below water, the basic premise is that there is a new aquatic research platform funded by a wealthy billionaire, and staffed by dedicated scientist and technicians. The billionaire believes in science, and he believes in the mission, and he wants to see the entire project succeed, for many reasons (subtext). In its maiden voyage to the bottom of the sea they prove that there is another layer in the ocean that has yet to be discovered. This is where the trouble starts.

The film is based on a book called The MEG, about a giant prehistoric shark known as the Megalodon. The MEG, written by international best-selling author Steve Alten tells the story of navy deep-sea pilot Jonas Taylor, who years earlier found himself on a top-secret dive in the Mariana Trench seven miles down in the western Pacific Ocean. Life exists in this 1,500 mile long gorge thanks to hydrothermal vents which create a warm layer along the bottom. Taylor comes face-to-face with the species occupying the top of this abyssal food-chain — Carcharodon Megalodon — the 70 to 90-foot, 70,000-pound prehistoric cousin of the great white shark.

You can imagine the pitch in Hollywood for this movie. Someone probably said, “We need a shark movie, it’s been a while.” Someone else said, “What about smart sharks?” “No, that’s already been done, have you seen Deep Blue Sea? They ate Samuel Jackson.” Then someone else said, “How about a Lot of sharks?” Everyone answers, “No, haven’t you seen Sharknado!” Then finally someone quips, “What about a monster shark?” The studio head jumps ups and yells, “That’s a great idea, where do we find one?” Just then, a person in the room who read the original Steve Alten book stands, places their laptop on the desk, and whispers, “I have just the thing.”

To be truthful, now we want to go back and read the book. This is because The MEG is a very entertaining movie adaptation of Steve Alten’s international best-seller, starring Jason Statham and Ruby Rose (of Orange is the New Black), plus a few other very recognizable actors such as Cliff Curtis, Masi Oka, and Rainn Wilson. Li Bingbing also brings some superstar power from Chinese cinema, as well a needed amount of charm, determination and intellect to her character. She once told the Hollywood Reporter that she initially wasn’t interested in doing the film: “The Chinese, you know, we believe the cold is bad for health — we always drink hot water and prefer to eat hot things. So I said no, I didn’t want to spend so much time in the tank or in the cold ocean. But then they kept contacting me and later asked me to reconsider.”

Still, if you’re going to make a summer blockbuster, sometimes you need to have people in the cast who know the material because they’ve done something similar in the past. Fortunately, they have popular New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis. Cliff was in PUSH with Chris Evans, Djimon Hounsou, Dakota Fanning and Ming-Na When, and DEEP RISING with Treat Williams and Famke Janssen, so apparently he has a thing for science fiction and strange creatures in the water movies. We look forward to seeing him again in AVATAR 2 in 2020.

Of course it goes without saying that in The MEG people do get eaten, and some key characters do die, and most of the time we cannot even guess who it will be or when. Also, there is a beach full of thousands of potential mega-shark snack bites, so there’s that. The question isn’t IF, it’s How Many.

We actually Enjoyed this movie quite a bit. Directed by Jon Turteltaub, there were a lot of plot items happening at the same time, and yet you could easily follow the general direction of the film. You were invested in the characters, as well as in a possible love interest. There was no way to be certain exactly how the movie was going to end, but one thing we knew was that it was going to be unexpected. And we also knew that Jason Statham’s action hero star power was going to carry this movie all the way.

One plus is that you can see in the film that when someone told Statham he was going to be the lead and have to take his shirt off a lot, he spent months working out in the gym. We can just imagine the meme where they said, “Jason, do you think you could be as buff as Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther?”, to which Statham replied, “Hold my coffee.”

In the end, The MEG is actually an entertaining shark action movie. We expect that unless there is a meteor strike, this film will do well in the United States, and will make a ton of money in China and in South Korea. We also assume that there will be a MEG 2. Because, you know, it’s about monster sharks and stars Jason Statham.

WATCH THE TRAILER