By Brett Blake Ever since JAWS, the shark movie has been an on again, off again staple at the multiplex, and THE MEG now arrives in an attempt to deliver the biggest - literally - shark flick to date. The result? Though far from a great movie, and far from among the best offerings of this summer, THE MEG is an inoffensive and occasionally entertaining popcorn blockbuster. THE MEG primarily concerns Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) and a team of aquatic researchers who - at the deepest point in the ocean - come in contact with a creature long thought to be extinct: the megalodon, a 70+ foot shark that was one of the largest predators to ever live. Having accidentally lured it up to near-surface waters, Taylor and the scientists must find a way to kill the massive creature before innocent lives are put at risk. Suffice to say, many people are eaten. The specter of JAWS casts a long shadow over all the shark movies that have come in its wake, and rightfully so, because JAWS is not only the best shark movie ever made, it’s also one of the best films ever made, period. So the shark-infested thrillers that have arrived after it often have a choice to make: play things straight (and risk being compared too closely to that masterpiece) or play things broader and goofier (and risk descending into outright nonsense). Recent years have seen examples of both of these approaches: THE SHALLOWS was an admirably restrained - though surprisingly stylish - attempt at a serious shark tale, while the likes of the abominable SHARKNADO TV movies have embraced silliness and high camp. THE MEG seems to try to split the difference, taking itself just seriously enough so that it never comes close to parody territory, while also cheerfully acknowledging the ludicrous nature of its premise. It leans hard into a sense of fun, tonally, which works (up to a point). It knows what it’s doing, but it’s not being obnoxiously self-aware about it. Fans of Steve Alten’s source novel, however, may be a bit disappointed to see that hardly any of the genuine fear that Alten’s prose was able to conjure up on the page has been translated over onto the screen. Part of that is unavoidable - reading the book, you can imagine the shark and its behavior in whatever way is most frightening to you, while actually depicting a 75-foot shark in a film leaves much less room for your imagination and suspension of disbelief - but there were ways in which the movie could have attempted to bring in that sense of “eerie mysteries of the deep” that Alten’s book, despite being a breezy, disposable beach or airport read, does manage to convey. Any stabs in that direction that the movie makes seem to be purely unintentional, because outside of very few, fleeting moments, the film isn’t interested in being eerie, unsettling, or mysterious. It’s interested in being a popcorn creature feature, and on that level, there’s some fun to be had. There’s a particular 20+ minute section in the second act, involving the various characters on the high seas attempting to track and kill the shark, that is legitimately terrific. Tense and fun, this is the place where the film really comes alive and delivers very solid and respectable entertainment value. The eventual climax that follows is a bit less interesting, but there is still some effective energy propelling it. And the titular shark itself - though sometimes a bit too animation-y - is presented about as well as I think would be humanly possible. Character work is of the most surface and obvious variety, with most of the supporting players inhabiting very standard blockbuster movie character tropes and types, but Jason Statham is good enough here that he’s able to paper over the other characters’ deficiencies. Implementing something of a softer, more cuddly version of his usual persona, Statham is incredibly watchable here and has a pretty appealing interplay with several of the other (less interesting) characters. He’s also completely convincing in the action sequences, but that was never really in doubt given his filmography. At the end of the day, THE MEG is what it is. Some people will dig it, others will laugh at it (rather than with it), but if shark movies are something you tend to enjoy, there’s enough in here to make the film worth a look.
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