‘Meg versus man isn’t a fight… it’s a slaughter…’
There is definitely such a thing as a film that is so-bad-it’s-good. The Room, Troll 2, Showgirls etc etc. We’ve all known films such as these in our lives. The key to the enjoyment of all of those movies is that someone involved in them must believe that what they are making is good. It is the sincerity that makes them so fun. Therefore, if someone sets out to make a film that fits into this sub-genre, the results can only be so effective. If everyone on set is in on the joke, then the whole thing is pointless. This is why I’ve never got on with Sharknado or the like – everyone knows they are a piece of shit, and so, there is no enjoyment to be had from them. And so, to The Meg…
When a group of interchangeable scientists stumble upon a Megalodon – the largest creature to ever exist – they must recruit *checks notes* Jason Statham in order to… capture it? Kill it? It doesn’t matter. None of this matters.
The Meg knows what it is. A brain dead action comedy that exists solely to aid the creation of a huge CGI shark that can do battle with Jason Statham. Everything about this thing is contrived and lazy. Quick. Think of the most obvious action movie character names that pop apologetically into your head. If you said Jaxx (Ruby Rose), Mac (Cliff Curtis) and DJ (Page Kennedy) then congratulations, you’re already smarter than anything in this movie. And these characters aren’t just mind-numbingly generic, they’re also annoying. Statham, an actor I’ve never warmed to, saunters around the place speaking in a thousand accents but sporting only one facial expression, the CGI is terrible, the dialogue hackneyed and cliché. This is a shame because director Jon Turteltaub actually has decent pedigree in this area (Cool Runnings, While You We’re Sleeping, National Treasure), but everything in front of the camera here is tired and uninspired.
This is a film that is never intentionally funny, a film that never approaches being compelling, and yet, it is also a film that is unthinkably almost two hours long. Unforgivable. An actual megalodon could probably make a better film than this despite the fact that it is both extinct and a shark. Skip this movie.