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THE MEG (2018) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

THE MEG (2018) movie

Genre | Horror Thriller

Classification | M

Running time | 113 minutes

Released | 16 August 2018

cast

Jason Statham ... Jonas Taylor
Ruby Rose ... Jaxx Herd
Rainn Wilson ... Jack Morris
Bingbing Li ... Suyin

director

Jon Turtletaub

writer

Dean Georgaris ... (screenplay by) and
Jon Hoeber ... (screenplay by) &
Erich Hoeber ... (screenplay by)

Steve Alten ... (novel)

cinematographer

Tom Stern

music

Harry Gregson-Williams

film editor

Steven Kemper

box office result

Worldwide $? million

Australia $? million

North America $? million

the best dialogue

Jonas Taylor: You're going to tell me your story and I'm going to say no. You're going to offer me money and I'm going to say no. You're going to try to appeal to my better nature and I'm still going to say no because I don't have one.

Meiying: There's a monster outside, and it's watching us

Jack Morris: He looks heroic... but he's kinda got a negative attitude.

THE MEG (2018) MOVIE IMAGES

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THE MEG (2018) STORY SYNOPSIS

A deep-sea submersible—part of an international undersea observation program—has been attacked by a massive creature, previously thought to be extinct, and now lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest trench in the Pacific…with its crew trapped inside. With time running out, expert deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is recruited by a visionary Chinese oceanographer (Winston Chao), against the wishes of his daughter Suyin (Li Bingbing), to save the crew—and the ocean itself—from this unstoppable threat: a pre-historic 75-foot-long shark known as the Megalodon. What no one could have imagined is that, years before, Taylor had encountered this same terrifying creature. Now, teamed with Suyin, he must confront his fears and risk his own life to save everyone trapped below…bringing him face to face once more with the greatest and largest predator of all time.

THE MEG (2018) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date: 13 August 2018
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐

THE MEG is yet another American-Chinese co-production that seeks to capitalize upon the last vestiges of Northern hemisphere Summer movie-going audiences while simultaneously tapping into the world’s second biggest cinema-going culture in an effort to generate enough box office the cover the film’s $130 million production price tag. As a credible piece of film making, THE MEG is an underwhelming experience that teases a great deal, but comes nowhere near the “edge of the seat” experience this type of film should deliver. As an audacious entertainment spectacle, THE MEG delivers exactly what’s needed to wash away the Superhero fatigue of the last three months without viewers needing to engage a shred of critical thought to understand what they’re experiencing.

It’s not a great film, but it doesn’t really pretend to be. THE MEG is, first and foremost, a commercial undertaking designed to manipulate its audience into believing it’s delivered maximum entertainment value, irrespective of how the viewer might feel afterwards. It’s very much a “Watch and Forget” undertaking.

Like Dwayne Johnson’s SKYSCRAPER, released a few weeks ago, THE MEG makes it clear from the beginning that artistic merit is secondary to commercial appeal and, along the way, sheds any semblance of reality, opting to ramp up cliche and contrivance in favour of story.

After the obligatory prologue, setting up the story’s “drama”, THE MEG cuts away to a montage of Shanghai, which has nothing to do with the film other than connect the story to mainland China’s most Westernized city and legitimize the film as Chinese co-production. The action immediately moves 200 miles away from Shanghai, to the offshore marine research facility, Mana One. While it’s important to establish setting, the desperation to connect the film to China is both heavy-handed and clumsy. What’s even sillier is three of Mana One’s main characters are Chinese nationals, providing a natural, story-related connection that helps to sell the film’s potential to that particular market.

Given all the effort to establish this connection to China, it’s surprising that Mana One’s billionaire philanthropist is not Chinese. Well, there’s a reason for this… Rainn Wilson, best known as Dwight from the US version of THE OFFICE, plays Morris, an oddball benefactor who seems like a slightly crazier version of Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond from JURASSIC PARK.

As it turns out, Morris is not just an oddball, he’s a calculating oddball! It’s never quite clear why he’s so interested in funding Mana One’s activity, but Morris seems happy to go along with each new discovery, no matter how terrifying each plot point attempts to further plunge the story into a new level of mayhem. Oddly, the character makes a dramatic U-turn late in the story for the sake of providing the set-up for a sequence that plays out like an all-too-obvious, mean-spirited joke. Given the character’s actions, it’s clear the producers decided it wouldn’t be in their best interests to have a Chinese actor play a role that turned out to be as self-serving and devious as Wilson’s Morris.

Fortunately, the film’s anchor is Jason Statham.

Statham is not the best actor, but audience familiarity with his screen persona (“Action Hero”) helps lift THE MEG from tedious to mediocre.

Statham’s early scenes are a little odd… Despite being British, he plays central protagonist Jonas Taylor like some kind of “Wiseguy” who’s lived his life hanging around New York mobsters. His line delivery is so “put on” that it becomes a distraction, but it does give pause for consideration about the vagaries of contemporary feature film production…

It’s always hard to pick at what point a particular scene is filmed, as, these days, the concept of principal photography on a movie can only be described as “fluid”. Major productions expect to have reshoots and actors performances don’t always edit together in a fashion that provides any great coherence. Scenes in modern action movies are becoming shorter and shorter to the point where an actor’s performance is simply a montage of exposition and reaction shots. Robert Downey Jr’s recent outings as Tony Stark/Iron Man are a high-profile example of this trend. The character spends most of his time in the Iron Man suit and comprises a series of close-up shots of the actor spouting technical and/or tactical information with a post-production CGI overlay of information to help support his efforts. While Statham’s THE MEG performance is not quite at that level of disconnect, it’s easy to imagine the gap between Statham’s early scenes (set in Thailand) and the rest of the film, shot in New Zealand (but doubling for China) created some continuity issues and explain why these scenes seem wildly at odds with the rest of his performance.

In spite of the wacky gangster accent early on, fortunately, as the film progresses, Statham slips back into a performance tempo that is much more in keeping with what his fans have come to expect. The longer the film goes the better he gets. Much of his appeal stems from the audience being aware that Statham’s Taylor has a much greater level of awareness of the absurdity going on around him. It’s not quite at the same level as Ryan Reynolds’ “Deadpool” shattering of the Fourth Wall, but, when Statham smiles or winks or smirks at one of his co-stars, his reaction is intended as much for the audience as it is his co-star. By the end of THE MEG, there’s not much doubt that Statham playing it up as much as he can…

Why wouldn’t he?

Unlike the last “Shark stalks Human” movie, THE SHALLOWS with Blake Lively, THE MEG, ultimately, decides to take every trope and cliche the audience could imagine and throw it up on the screen for everyone to revel in and celebrate in a finale that takes outrageousness to a level that beggars belief. For goodness sakes, there’s even a scene where the world’s biggest shark chases the world’s smallest dog through the water!

Is there anything to recommend this film?

THE MEG is an interesting study into how a film can undergo a metamorphosis as its story unfolds. Early on, the characters seem to be taking events relatively seriously. Slowly but surely, as each minute passes, the performances become looser, narrative is supplanted by action sequences and the movie becomes an exercise in stuffing what’s left of the story full of all-too-obvious genre tropes that have been done many times before and a whole lot better…

Other than Jason Statham, the only thing that stands out about THE MEG is the array of cool underwater toys the Mana One station has at its disposal. It’s kind of sad that the props are among the film’s highlights, but, for fans of the old JOHNNY QUEST and MARINE BOY animated shows, there’s a certain throwback quality to THE MEG’s production design that is easy to imagine as a big screen, live action version of either of those cartoons. The film’s finale is staged between the Megalodon and two really nifty, fast-moving crafts that look like a cross between a fighter jet and a Stingray!

The Verdict...

The best thing to say about THE MEG is that it’s not the worst movie being released this week.

Viewers considering a trip to the cinema because they want a JAWS-like tension-filled experience should stop, turn around and watch the film on disc or digital download. THE MEG is not that kind of film. There’s no real sense of dread, just an impending sense of “which trick will they pull out of the bag next”. By the end of it, not even the leading man can keep a straight face. Despite everything that goes down, the wrap-up is corny, cliched and designed to make viewers feel like they got their money’s worth (even though they don’t).

Just when it seemed safe to go back into the cinema, THE MEG does just about everything in its power to convince otherwize...