Review of The Meg (2018) by Thequietgamer — 27 Dec 2018

I've really been loving this resurgence of shark flicks. Unlike The Shallows or 47 Meters Down this is your fairly standard post-Jaws affair only with a really massive shark. This means it's very predictable, but still worth watching if you enjoy seeing people get munched by the ocean's most notorious predators.

It's biggest selling points are impressive visuals (sans the animal CGI) and getting to spend time with one of the most likable deep sea science teams ever to grace the screen. The supporting cast is filled with a lot of memorable faces who you may know from various TV shows such as Fear the Walking Dead and The Office. This makes it so your kind of rooting for everyone to make it out alive. Then of course there's Jason Statham being just as charismatic and heroic as ever. Not counting the F&F films his most recent roles have been duds and I was beginning to write him off. This is easily his best non-Shaw movie in some time.

The tone is pretty great too. Allowing for plenty of fun and humor without diving too far into potentially campy territory or MCU levels of comedy. For a PG-13 movie there's also more gore than you would expect. It won't blow you away as it delivers everything you would expect from modern shark blockbuster, but still provides some nice spectacle and set-pieces. Plenty of people get eaten and this is the first non-Asylum (therefore not intentionally bad) shark flick in some time that can be labeled as "fun" what with other recent efforts in the genre going for legitimate tension over cheap thrills.

7.