The Meg

THE MEG

Director : Jon Turteltaub

Year : 2018

Genre : Science Fiction

Rating : **

Having fought some of cinemas hardest villains including Alan Ford's murderous gangster Brick-Top in 'Snatch' and even the Rock himself in 'The Fast & Furious' franchise, Jason Statham now faces his biggest and most dangerous enemy yet in 'The Meg', Jon Turteltaub's intermittently entertaining adaptation of Steve Alten's 1997 literary shocker 'Meg : A Novel Of Deep Terror'. Co-starring Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Li Bingbing and Cliff Curtis and distributed by the same Chino-American company who funded both Zhang Zimou's 2016 sci-fi clunker 'The Great Wall' and this years 'The Towering Inferno'/'Die Hard' rip-off 'Skyscraper', 'The Meg' sees Statham taking centre stage as a rescue worker who must lead a group of marine scientists to rid the world of a gigantic prehistoric shark which has laid seige to the Pacific Ocean. 

Stuck in the murky depths of development hell for the best part of 2 decades, 'The Meg', like it's titular shark, has taken a long time to surface. Sadly, the wait has been all but for naught. On the positive side, the Meg herself looks great, with Turteltaub and his team of CG animators sparing no expense in bringing to screen pretty dazzling special effects - a standout scene set amongst an ocean of bioluminescent creatures is a particularly beautiful visual highlight. Statham is also pretty good here too, effortlessly holding his own against the 75 foot monster which has eyes on his muscular torso. However, while the shark looks good and Statham brings his typically charming brand of cockney machismo, 'The Meg' is all but sunk by a toothless 12A certification and an overly serious tone which fails to allow the audience to have fun with the obviously goofy  premise as promised by the films brilliant marketing campaign. It’s certainly not the worst shark film to come out over the past few years but when compared to her superior fishy siblings (specifically ‘Jaws’ from which it shamelessly rips off entire set pieces), ‘The Meg’ lacks much of a bite.