The Meg review – Jason Statham versus prehistoric megashark
In the Last week, the Academy invited Twitter followers to boil down the plot of their favourite film for five words . Here’s a plot that needs no boiling: Jason Statham versus prehistoric megashark. That formula might merely have generated a boneheaded Jaws reboat [sic], or a flimsy disappointment along the lines of 2006’s snaks on a plane, where movie wound up secondary to pitch. The face-off we actually get is on an acceptable par with 1999’s enjoyably lively Deep Blue See, where LL Cool J had his parrot chomped by an angry Frankenshark: its wittily handled pulp will do you just fine on a Friday or Saturday night, given the right expectations.
Once more, nonsense science (“Are you saying we’ve opened up a superhighway for giant sharks?”) lashes together a string of monster-movie cliches, some more knowingly deployed than others. Statham’s rogue diver Jonas Turner has sunk into boozing to drown memories of a professional low; the research crew that he’s called to rescue inevitably includes his ex-wife. One new ingredient is Chinese investment capital, which provides fancy production design – light-up shark cages! – and a prominent role for local luminary Li Bingbing, but also limits what these sea dogs can say and do. Given the threat level, it seems a pity to deprive the star of his Olympian cursing gifts: two discreetly muffled, ratings-conscious s-bombs are as close as Jase gets to going full Stath.
He mixes well, but with what proves a characterful crew to splash around with (moneyman Rainn Wilson, tech whizz Ruby Rose , Bingbing’s adorable daughter Shuya Cai), and it’s clearly a better-directed shark movie than any of those snickering Syfy channel bombs featuring Debbie Gibson. 90s throwback Jon Turteltaub (Cool Runnings) directs the set pieces with enough B-movie nous to elicit regular jumps, deftly pulls off a mid-film twist, and keeps everything moving, often in equally surprising directions: if the shark-versus-Statham bout doesn’t tickle you, the shark-versus-Pekinese sidebar might. Not quite killer, but it’s rare to see a 21st-century blockbuster having this much fun – right through to its sign-off – with its premise.
