After Blake Lively took on a shark last year, Warner Brothers decided it was time to up the ante. Get Jason Statham. Up the shark size to a Megalodon. And have the National Treasure guy direct a PG-13 verison of the movie so everyone can see it. The Meg gives you what you want to see: Jason Statham taking on a Megalodon while everyone wisecracks until they can face off again. Great, sign me up.
The Meg panders its way to a research facility near Shanghai, where billionaire Morris (Rainn Wilson) arrives to see how his investment is progressing. While exploring the area under the Mariana Trench, one of the submarines unexpectedly goes down. Suyin (Bingbing Li) goes down to attempt a rescue, and Mac (Cliff Curtis) and Suyin’s dad Zhang (Winston Chao) go get Jonas (Statham), the only man alive to attempt a deep sea rescue, to help her. I’ll let you guess what caused the sub to sink…
Jon Turtletaub, the director, takes The Meg and gives the people what they want. No need to get complicated here. Jason Statham is in subs, rescuing swimmers from a cage, swimming in the open, being pulled through water on wires, pretty much whatever you want. Conversley, we get shots of the Meg via wideshot, or from below, or staring at hundreds of swimmers, or still in the water (pretty sure that’s not possible, but why the hell not, it looks cool), staring at Suyin’s cute daughter (Shuya Sophia Cai). Statham gets a few hero moments along with Suyin, the best of which involves a prong and jump out of the water, which was awesome. Though The Meg could have been as fun as Piranha 3D, the PG-13 rating keeps what could have been legendary scenes from going too gory and the movie plays it safe. The special effects do just enough to make the shark big enough and scary enough. The non shark scenes are meh enough, usually winking at the audience, sometimes literally with all the shipping they do for Statham and Li. Sure there’s a half assed story about tortured pasts and some horrific stereotyping when it comes to DJ, the token black character (Page Kennedy: at least he’s funny). But those scenes are like 5 minutes of screen time and then we’re back in the water fighting a Megalodon with Jason Statham.
Jason Statham vs. a giant shark. Not every movie needs to be transcendent: sometimes you just need a great hook and to not screw it up. The Meg takes its great hook, and sticks it into the megalodon…from Jason Statham’s bulging biceps of brute force.