I hadn’t seen The Meg before but when I got it as part of a multi movie bundle I figured it would be the right time to finally see it. This is also my second movie in the planned run of three movies I’m doing for Shark Week. I went into The Meg with my expectations low but it’s a much better movie than I was expecting. I remembered seeing some negative reviews when it came out, but I don’t understand why expect because a lot of critics enjoy shitting on genre movies. I think I might have even enjoyed this movie more than the previous one.
The Meg was directed by Jon Turteltaub. It was adapted by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber from Steve Alten’s novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror. I don’t know how much was changed from the novel, but I feel like there were several things changed. I think that mostly because it being a co-production with China. Aside from that obvious change, I don’t know how many characters were changed or added. That being said I enjoyed the interplay between the characters.
A lot of the reason I liked the characters was because of how they were played. I was incredibly surprised by Jason Statham’s performance. He wasn’t his usual stoic badass; his character was open and warm. That’s especially true when he acts with Sophia Cai. She is a delight whenever she’s on screen. Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, Cliff Curtis, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Jessica NcNamee, Masi Oka, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson all have such fun chemistry with each other that you feel like they have some amount of history with each other.
The effects in The Meg look fantastic. All of the different companies did a great job of creating a giant shark. That isn’t the only thing that they created though. All of the underwater stuff was created and looks absolutely amazing. There were some shots that looked less than great but that’s only when it had to do with the actors being surrounded by the CG environments. That can always be a tricky thing to do. The music from Harry Gregson-Williams is great. The score adds a sense of adventure to the movie that lets it feel more like an adventure movie at times more than a sci-fi horror movie.
The Meg is fun monster movie that is a fun time if you allow yourself to have fun. While this isn’t the most original movie, if you just want to see a fun popcorn movie this will be something you’ll enjoy. There’s a sequel that’s coming out next year that’s also based on another novel by Steve Alten, which I’m sure will be changed to fit in with this movie’s changes. I give The Meg 8 polycarbonate shark cages out of 10.
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