Most people know Steven Spielberg’s Jaws invented the summer blockbuster, a super-genre which, we are reminded every other year, is slowly dying. Although it is unlikely to happen, it would be a poetic kind of justice if The Meg were to strike the deathblow, so desperately does it try to recreate its predecessors’ mix of B-movie tropes and stylistic sophistication with none of their wit or craft.
Sold by the trailers as a tongue-in-cheek Piranha-style festival of sea chases,
one-liners and screaming vacationers, The
Meg actually spends its first two acts as a slow-burning suspense thriller,
as burnt-out deep-sea rescuer Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) rescues a science
team from a giant prehistoric Megalodon shark then tries to stop the beast from
destroying the base and eating everybody. As far as monster movie go, it’s not
a bad premise; but one whose innate silliness needs to be either fully embraced
or countered with a smart exploration of its thematic implications – neither of
which happens here.
Instead, the entire film plays out with
deliberately-paced po-faced seriousness often reminiscent of James Cameron, with
loving pans of underwater fauna, relaxing string music and close-ups of Statham
staring off-screen while uttering “Oh my God” under his breath. There’s a
distinctly old-fashioned vibe to the writing and style, owed perhaps to the
sensitivities of producer Gerald R.
Molen (Days Of Thunder, Jurassic Park, Twister), that might have added charm were director Jon Turteltaub
(National Treasure) not sorely
lacking in self-awareness or imagination.
This is most abundantly demonstrated by the film’s
stubborn insistence on keeping the titular monster off-screen for most of the
first act and favouring brief, close shots whenever it does appear during that
time. No doubt Turteltaub meant to take cues from Jaws but in doing so, he forgot that that film’s strategy was born
from the necessity of hiding as much of the unconvincing fake shark as
possible. No such needs exist here, where the shark is entirely CG and thus
lacks the physical presence that would make its sporadic appearances feel
genuinely visceral.
Worse than reminding audiences of superior movies, this
approach also disrupts the film’s pacing with false build-up that treats each
of the shark’s appearances as if it were the first. Not only does this rob the
action beats of their potential scare factor, it highlights how lifeless
Turteltaub’s direction is, particularly during the many, many dialogue scenes where actors spout flat, technobabble-laden
dialogue at each other like digital avatars of characters from previous movies.
To complain that the story and characters are clichéd
would be breaking down an open door: familiarity and repetition are part of
B-grade blockbusters’ appeal. Cliché becomes a problem in these films when it’s
deployed haphazardly without understanding how or why it works, such as it is
here: The science team leader being Statham’s ex-wife is used as a primary
motivator only for their past relationship to play no subsequent role in the
story beyond encouraging him to pursue Chinese oceanographer Suyin Zhang (Li
Bingbing). The opening sequence establishes tension between two characters only
for it to be completely defused before the first act is even over. Everything
about Rainn Wilson’s tech-bro billionaire screams Greedy Capitalist™
but his actions never gel harmoniously with the plot the way similar characters
did in Aliens or King Kong. It’s as if the screenwriters (working very loosely from
a novel by Steve Alten) didn’t trust in the basics of their premise and felt
the need to over-furnish it with superfluous B-plots and character details
without thinking of how they tie into each other.
The Meg is
guilty of many offenses, from its lazy plotting down to the way it treats its
female characters as damsels in distress, but most unforgivable of all is just
how boring it is. You’d think a film about Jason Statham fighting a giant
prehistoric shark would be at least mildly entertaining but even the Transporter star’s cocky charms are
wasted in vain efforts to make these proceedings dramatic. For all its vaunted
bite, this clay-finned giant is a woefully toothless one.
