David Pierdomenico
In some ways, The Meg feels like fan fiction. As if some fan wondered what it would be like if Frank Martin (The Transporter series) and Dwight (The Office) squared off against Jaws. The result is this odd film that, if not for its big budget, would surely be a SyFy channel original. It’s cheesy, over the top, and not sure what it wants to be. That said, it’s anything but boring.
Based on a Book?
Perhaps the most surprising thing to learn about The Meg is that it’s based on the 1997 novel by Steve Alten, “Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror”. The title alone has all the camp that one would expect from an old fashioned paperback pulp novel. The fact that it’s been in “development hell” for roughly two decades does explain why the film seems like a relic from the late 90’s or early 2000’s. It opens with our hero Jonas (Jason Statham) on a rescue mission where something goes wrong. Fast forward several years and he’s called back into action, which he swore he’d never do, to save a submarine crew underneath a trench.
However, they inadvertently release a prehistoric beast known as the megalodon. From there they hunt the shark across the ocean, along with a selfish and sarcastic billionaire (Rainn Wilson), a love interest for the main character (Bingbing Li), and just about every other cliché in the book. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s roughly the same setup as last month’s Skyscraper, as well as the plot of every disaster/monster movie of the 90’s.
Surprisingly Diverse
As previously mentioned in the Skyscraper review, this film goes out of its way to placate the Chinese box office. Half the characters are of Asian descent (including Masi Oka from Heroes) and most of it takes place off of the Chinese coast. Parts of it even seem like a Chinese remake of Jaws. We see a young boy at the beach beg his mother to go in the water, only for him to be confronted by the massive shark. The film also manages to utilize its disaster trope by having an adorable Yorkshire Terrier put in harm’s way as it swims behind a yacht at its owner’s wedding party.
Cheesy Good or Cheesy Bad?
There’s almost an art to the idea of making a film so cheesy/bad that it’s good/funny. The Room and Plan 9 From Outer Space fit the bill, because in both cases the director truly believed in what he was making. There was passion, and while these films were failures they were spectacular failures. However, films like Snakes on a Plane and the Sharknado series, were intentionally trying to be cheesy, which sort of ruins the whole thing. It is with this in mind that The Meg is rather difficult to place on the scale. It’s either stupidly awesome or awesomely stupid.
The first half of the film seems like it’s genuinely trying to be suspenseful and self-important. Jonas’ character is given what the writer at least thought was witty dialogue, but it feels very amateur. Like someone who’s desperately trying to act cool without being so. There’s also an ethical debate brought up, albeit briefly, when the crew members discuss whether killing the megalodon is justified. The head scientist, Zhang (Winston Chao) even argues that man is only good for discovering things and then killing them. It’s only one line, but it feels very out of place, especially given how over the top and ridiculous the rest of the film is.
The final act is nothing short of insanity. It contains everything from sharks leaping out of the water, to helicopters randomly crashing, even though they had nothing to do with the film previously. This all explains why The Meg is difficult to rate. On the one hand, its last twenty minutes get so farfetched, it becomes hilarious. But at the same time, the film is clearly in on the joke which takes away all the charm. If you’re a fan of Jaws, but wanted to see a spiritual reboot where the shark is on steroids, then this is the film for you!
