Emily
The Meg “opened wide” this weekend, perfect timing for all those who are looking for a reason to skip the beach this summer. The story centers around a deep-sea program that finds itself attacked by a pre-historic threat known as the Megalodon, a 75-foot shark. The research team calls upon disgraced expert rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Statham) to save them from the jaws of this ferocious beast. On the surface, the flick gives you what every shark movie-fanatic is looking for a badass action star, heart pumping attack scenes and enough cheesy one liners to help release pressure, but at the end of the day what hurts the movie the most is the unimportant and slow paced backstory that ends up taking away from all the fun.
The movie opens five years prior to the main story, where we meet Jonas as he attempts to rescue the crew of a sunken nuclear submarine. Jonas is convinced that the sub was attacked by a giant sea creature that no one believes still exists. This opening is supposed to set up that Jonas has already encountered the same creature that is now attacking the sea lab and give him a reason to return to the sea to prove that he is the best in the world at what he does. Instead, the opening ends up wasting screen time and providing us with an entirely unnecessary backstory and fails to hook us into our shark-wrangling adventure.
Another problem with the movie’s opening is the research station itself. Viewers are supposed to believe that Jack Morris (Wilson) has sunk over a billion dollars to finance an operation that’s set on proving that the ocean is actually deeper that we thought it was. This sounds like an interesting exploration mission and is supposedly one that will make Morris a lot of money, but there’s nothing given to explain how his investment is going to pay off. Speaking of money, it will be very obvious to those that know anything about film financing that this flick was pandering to China in order to gain access to Chinese financing, distribution and ultimately box office. This sometimes causes tonal issues as it’s obvious that the filmmakers were pulled between Western and Chinese audiences in an effort to maximize global appeal.
In spite of these issues, the pace of the film fortunately starts to pick up around the midpoint and we’re given the movie that the marketing campaign promised us. Statham, in his usual fashion, keeps the audience rooting for his success. His character is very down-to-earth and likable and even his romance with the scientist Suyin (Li) is sweet and believable. There are some fun action set pieces throughout the film, including the beach sequence which featured heavily in the advertising. Even with the PG-13 rating, moments like this have enough fun and surprises that even the biggest fans of the shark film genre will enjoy themselves.
Overall, if viewers can survive the first half of the film, the second half is meaty enough to satisfy those action cravings. This movie certainly won’t go down in the history books, but if you’re looking a fun way to beat the heat this summer, this film will offer you a good alternative to a trip to the beach.
