Review of The Meg (2018) by Alan W — 23 Sep 2018

I'll admit sometimes it is good to check your brain in and enjoy something spectacularly dumb after seeing too many serious and worthy films. Call it a palette cleanser, and if done well, a stupid movie can be deliciously fun.

So with extremely managed expectations and brain on low power mode, I went for the latest Jason Statham vs. Mega Shark film... and I quite enjoyed it. Without spoiling anything (but this film is so generic and by the book, it's actually quite hard to spoil) let's just say this mish-mash homage to shark and disaster films (Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, even Armageddon) does the job in a perfectly predictable but acceptable way.

Ticking every box along the way, we have a setup that involves an obvious love interest (that she is Chinese has more to do with the film's Asian financing than a desire for multi-racial representation), a cute precocious child, a hero haunted by a past mission and a racially diverse group of team-members/shark bait and when said hero is played by Statham, he'll of course go for a shower at some point.

.. Yes, the story is preposterous, but not entirely unconvincing. Characterisations are paper-thin but characters' reactions at least are not annoying or so plot driven as to induce uncontrollable anger or severe eye rolling.

The action sequences are decently mounted and the film strikes a nice balance between silly fun and scary thrills, even throwing in a bit of survivor's guilt for good measure (at the beginning and soon clean forgotten once the film is in shark mode).

In short, coasting on Stratham's cheeky charm, this Asian Jaws remake does exactly what it says on the tin. No more, no less.