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The Meg
****
Dir: Jon Turtletaub
Starring: Jason ‘The Stath’ Statham, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose
(USA, 12A, 2hrs 10 mins)
A gloriously daft monster movie with a giant prehistoric shark, The Meg (short for megalodon) is as cheesy as you would expect.
An adaptation of Steve Alten’s 1997 novel The Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror this is essentially a big-budget B-movie with groan-inducing dialogue and better CGI than its obvious cousins– those straight-to-DVD ripoffs you see in the bargain bins in Tesco and Asda. Plus it has Jason ‘The Stath’ Statham, so there’s probably a homoerotic punch up with the monster at some point. In the depths of the sea, two hundred miles off the Chinese coast, a new wealth of life has been discovered in the Mariana Trench, a world of creatures unknown or long thought extinct.
A research submersible is attacked by one such creature – the 75-foot megalodon. Diver Jonas Taylor – The Stath- is enlisted to save the crew and stop the monster before it can get closer to the coast. Even though he’s sworn off diving ever again, but hey ho, he needs to face his fears. Among the team that have to track it and kill it are Rainn Wilson’s cocky likely-to-be-eaten billionaire (a touch of serendipity with the Elon Musk submarine debacle perhaps?), Ruby Rose’s tattooed geek, Li Bingbing’s researcher and Cliff Curtis’ old hand.
There’s also giant squids to contend with, and perhaps a sharkageddon as more creatures are released from the depth. A proper silly season blockbuster with the budget to match, this is not The Shallows, or 47 Metres Down, but more Jurassic Shark, and its tooth is very much in cheek. Not since Deep Blue Sea has a shark film been so gleefully embraced, Jon Turtletaub director of the hum-drum National Treasure films knows that this is a silly film and treats it accordingly. Statham growls his way through the risible dialogue and Wilson chews the scenery as the human baddie. There are plenty of soggy set pieces, displaying Statham’s prowess in the water, he was a champion diver, and the Chinese backdrop powered by international movie markets provides a welcome change to the usual locations. Never more than a bit of chompy fun, The Meg really requires a bigger boat.
words Keiron Self