The Meg is a new giant shark movie and one that was mismarketed. The trailers suggested a goofy, self-aware, more SyFy channel-like-but-with-a-big-budget movie… instead its a more serious (to the extent a giant shark movie can be) movie with a scattering of almost afterthought jovial humor. It’s mismatched… but none of this makes it a BAD movie per-say, I suppose.
The Meg is about a megalodon alive in the modern world… a giant shark thought extinct but found at the bottom of the Marianis trench. The shark proceeds to eat whales, capsize ships, and dine on a Chinese resort while our heroes do everything they can to NOT warn the authorities as they hunt it. I dunno about you, a sixty foot shark on an eating binge might be cause to call the coast guard… or the navy… or the air force.
Anyhow, the flick is probably not as dumb and probably not as silly or as gory as it needs to be. It picked a more serious tone with some obviously-peppered-in humor (like playing the Chinese version Mickey by Toni Basil for no particular reason on that to be funny). Not that the movie SERIOUS in a stern, judgmental way… it’s still a giant shark flick… but most of the characters are taking it seriously and the tone is usually less self-aware than maybe it should have been.
And I guess the good news is, most of those shark chasing, shark hunting, shark fighting scenes are pretty good. Not fantastic but good enough. But also very predictable… you’ve seen most of these beats before, going back to Jaws and forward to Deep Blue Sea and even more modern ones. But at least they are done well enough.
Less interesting might be the humans when there isn’t a giant shark on the loose. But that’s kind of par for the course for any creature feature or giant shark flick.
I dunno… this is a decent movie if you want a creature feature or a giant shark movie. It’s a lot better, if a lot less hoot-at-the-tv fun, than your average SyFy Channel shark movie. But that means it has to stand on its terror or thrills and it’s not scary and only fairly exciting. It could have been and should have been more fun or, if not that, smarter or even more serious-minded. As-is, it just kind of bobs there at the surface, waiting for better (or worse) shark movies to come along and snack on it.
Score: 76