The Meg

Child friendly horror... You have to take in to context the post release statements by director Jon Turteltaub and lead actor Jason Statham. The Meg is not the film they either read on the page or filmed as a course of grisly schlock entertainment. This was meant to be a proper schlocker, a bloodletting monster of the deep on the loose picture, sadly the suits at the helm didn't see that as a viable money making exercise and had this cut to be a "12" friendly bums on theatre seats cash grabber. Shame on them. What we get is a run of the mill creature feature that although once viewed does not leave a lasting impression (was anyone really hoping for that anyway?), but is kind of fun in that time filling sort of way. It runs through the modern day creature feature playbook 101. So off we go with the hero having a troubled backstory, a money made funder out of his depth, ladies with life quandaries, a man who can't swim working in the middle of the ocean! and on we go. Throw in some quite awfully scripted dialogue and it's cheese sarnie time. Statham is nearly always a good watch - in the muscle bound action hero kind of way - though you see the cracks between what the film was meant to be and what it ended up as. For you see that The Stath comes off as taking it all too seriously, which in this released cut is ridiculous. He's surrounded by no mark actors, though no short supply of beauty (Bingbing Li socko gorgeous/Ruby Rose hard sexy) and the narrative feeds us all the pointers of exactly where this will end up. There's a couple of nifty fun homages to Jaws, some decent suspense scenes, and the cinematography (Tom Stern) is pin sharp and pleasurable. Best bet to enjoy this is to know it's a "12" rated friendly piece, to understand it has ultimately ended up as a same old same old monster movie. It's a million miles away from the class of Jaws, and lacks the tongue in cheek knowing of Deep Blue Sea, but it fills a gap in that undemanding time wasting way. 5/10

It's nice to see a Shark-led Creature Feature that's actually got some money behind it, but _The Meg_ is still really nothing special. _Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._

This is one of these international co-productions that has way too many producers and vested interests behind it, so it's no great surprise that what we do end up with is such an hybrid of so many other films, It's actually quite hard to be objective when writing about it. The obvious comparisons are with "Jaws" (1975) and "Deep Blue Sea" (1999) but this is a distinctly poor relation. Even on an IMAX screen, it moves along with all the pace of a milk-float even despite the lively contributions from the enthusiastic Jason Statham as he attacks the leviathan with a glorified Stanley knife. The remainder of the acting and pretty much all of the dialogue is typically banal and but for the very effective use of CGI this would achieve laughs not gasps. Can't wait for the sequel....

<em>'The Meg'</em> almost succeeds in being a fun action blockbuster, though for me it comfortably falls short of doing so. To put it bluntly, I simply got bored whilst watching it. I like the cast, but that's about it in terms of positives. The effects and story just didn't do it for yours truly. <em>'Jaws'</em> (obviously) and even <em>'Piranha'</em> did it better, this one doesn't have anything fresh to add to the subgenre of man-eating fish. It kinda does its own thing for the first half, however by the end it really could just be a flick from either of those two named franchises. As noted, I did like those onscreen. Jason Statham isn't at his best but is nevertheless effortlessly entertaining. He, Li Bingbing and Sophia Cai are a cute trio. Cliff Curtis is pretty solid too. Page Kennedy is OK, I remember him from TV's <em>'Rush Hour'</em> (I'm one of a few that actually saw and enjoyed that show). I can't imagine the sequel turned out any better. I am going to soon find out, here's hoping it does.