** outta *****

2 outta 5

For the last two decades, there has been a film adaptation of The Meg in development as various teams kept trying to make it happen. Now the movie has finally arrived in 2018 and it doesn’t seem like the waiting was worth it as The Meg is fairly unremarkable. The inherently silly premise of a 75 foot shark is taken maybe a wee bit too seriously when it should go full corny B-movie. Also for a giant shark movie, it’s oddly rather bloodless. Still, it’s hard to make a completely terrible movie that involves a 75 foot shark attacking various suckers. It’s just kind of a lame one.

Billionaire Morris (Rainn Wilson) spends a lot of time and money funding a very expensive deep sea diving project led by Suyin (Bingbing Li). One day three scientists get trapped at the bottom of they ocean so they turn to the best deep sea rescue diver, Jonas (Jason Statham). What they discovered at the bottom was a prehistoric gigantic 75 foot shark, the Megalodon aka the Meg. Having not been seen on the Earth for millions of years, it’s so darn big it can swallow people whole. Now it has set it sights on the tasty humans and the group of plucky scientists are the only ones who can stop it.

This is not exactly an acting showcase, although nobody is particular bad. Giant shark movies can have great dialogue and characterization, see Jaws as proof of that, but this just seems rote, with some small exceptions. Probably the most entertaining is Wilson as the temperamental, demanding billionaire. He’s sending people out to take down the giant shark but also completely cowardly and utterly craven in his determination to make a profit. Wilson has a bunch of fantastic random asides, like when he’s the one who simply suggests tagging the giant beast saying “Don’t you people watch Shark Week?” There are several other actors of note in here who play the scientists such as Cliff Curtis as a team leader and Ruby Rose in a tech support role. Curtis and Rose have put in great performances elsewhere but here they’re mostly just rattling off information, although Rose does get in a few decent bits of snark.

Statham’s Jonas has a tragic backstory of having been a survivor of a Meg attack years ago. It’s always really weird and awkward when a man versus beast movie tries to entangle their backstory like something out of a superhero movie. Overall, it’s a lot of Statham growling although he has a funny, bitter reaction to being put so close to certain death repeatedly. His ex-wife is one of the scientists but, thankfully, the movie restrains from doing a guy reconnects with his ex storyline. Instead the rote cliché story is a budding potential romance between Jonas and Suyin. Bingbing is mostly there to talk about the shark, be worried about her daughter and smirk cutely at Statham. There is one amusing bit where he says if he dies she’ll feel guilty and she simply shows a small amount of space with her fingers. The bit is reprised later on after he escapes the Meg and it’s kind of hilarious. But frankly, there is a bit too much people stuff in the movie, it needed to be more prehistoric shark centric.

When it comes to the victims of the shark, the movie tries to have it both ways with some comedy deaths and ones that are supposedly emotionally devastating. One guy gets eaten and it’s funny but another person gets eaten and it’s sad. There are some decent shark deaths; a character screaming in a sub is great and another unlucky one who gets randomly chomped when he thinks he’s safe. Annoyingly this movie is really low on the blood splatter which this definitely needed to be messier to be funnier.

Most of the time the Meg strikes so fast it’s hard to appreciate it and the movie settles mostly on loudness than actually building suspense. There are a few good shark attack scenes in here, like Jonas’ first close encounter with the Meg when he has to tag it is quite well done. Also the Meg’s attack on a crowded beach may be a direct lift from Jaws but it’s good for the chaos that ensues. There’s even a very tiny dog in peril helplessly paddling away from the giant shark. The movie is in 3D and one of the best 3D moments is during this attack where something pops and literally flies through the screen which may cause audiences to duck. The music by Harry Gregson-Williams is okay but using an orchestral score to a giant shark movie is a losing battle as, once again, it is impossible to top freakin’ Jaws.

The Meg is a workmanlike giant monster movie although there are much bigger and better giant shark movies out there. Heck, even the few scenes of the prehistoric shark in Jurassic World have more entertainment than this. The worst thing about The Meg is that it’s kind of unmemorable which is really annoying since there’s a giant freakin’ prehistoric shark in it.