Review of The Meg (2018) by Tryasummersault — 09 Aug 2018

6.6/10 A cheesy RIDICULOUS somewhat self aware fun shark film. The Meg was very self-aware with it's ridiculous cliché characters and absolutely insanely stupid moments throughout but remained a visual feast for the eyes when we were witness to such a lush and wondrous underwater atmosphere with a behemoth prehistoric shark stalking its prey.

The characters were constantly annoying and somewhat abhorrent especially the token black guy which was especially bad. A lot of the humor fell pretty flat most of the time but Statham remained a constant decent protagonist.

When the shark is sparingly shown the CGI was very well done and it looks fantastic, but for once again being the main spectacle we barely get to see him it seems like. Instead we see many different useless scenes and attempts at tone shifts into more emotional aspects of the ridiculous characters .

Also the violence and brutality was definitely toned down for this PG-13 cut and I think this movie would've benefited vastly from the original R-rated cut that was turned down by the studios. The finale worked solidly and was decently satisfying but overall this was at best a good yet utterly ridiculous short film that doesn't really separate itself from anything That's come before.

The production value was very solid but for 150 million I would hope it would be. I definitely enjoyed the mana one underwater station lighting and design as well as some vast colorful underwater set pieces.

I still think as far as new age shark films go that The Shallows and 47 meters down were slightly better. If you're a fan of sharks and just plain ridiculous spectacles, see this, just know what you're getting into and don't expect Jaws.