THE MEG: A Hefty Splash Of Summer Fun With Jason Statham

What sets Jason Statham apart from the other muscle-bound, gravel-voiced action heroes who typically monopolize the multiplex during the summer months? As a huge Statham fan myself, I would argue it’s the self-aware sense of humor that he brings to every role. Whether it be his debut performance as a fast-talking street salesman in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the deranged adrenaline rush of Crank and its even more absurd sequel, or his hilarious self-parodying performance in Spy, one thing is always certain: Jason Statham is always having a whole lot of fun. And as a result, he’s a whole lot of fun to watch.

The Meg is the latest Jason Statham movie to prove this point. Directed by Jon Turteltaub (Cool Runnings, National Treasure) and based on the first in a series of novels by Steve Alten, the premise is pure B-movie: a group of marine biologists accidentally allow a prehistoric giant shark to escape from the secret depths of the Mariana Trench and terrorize the ocean. Yet The Meg manages to do something entirely unexpected: it both embraces its inherent ridiculousness and rises above it.

Many voices have rung out to decry The Meg, saying that the film would have been more fun if it had gone full exploitation extravaganza, with unemotional and over-the-top deaths seasoned with hefty buckets of gore. I heartily disagree. Thanks to a diverse cast of characters you can actually care about and some well-placed dancing around typical action-thriller tropes, The Meg is much better than it ever had any right to be, and a worthy addition to Statham’s cinematic oeuvre.

Statham Vs. Shark

Jonas Taylor (Statham, of course) is a skilled rescue diver whose illustrious career comes to an unfortunate end when a mission in the Mariana Trench has to be aborted after he and his crew are attacked by…something. In order to rescue 11 other lives, Jonas is forced to abandon two members of his crew. But rather than be congratulated for this narrow escape, Jonas is deemed to have mentally collapsed under pressure and unnecessarily left men for dead. After all, there is no way the mammoth creature he insists attacked them could actually exist. Right?

With his career and his marriage in shambles, Jonas retires to Thailand and submerses himself at the bottom of a series of beer bottles. However, his singular abilities are called back into action when an old friend, Mac (Cliff Curtis), and a famous marine biologist, Zhang (Winston Chao) show up on his doorstep. Zhang is operating a state-of-the-art research facility bankrolled by brash billionaire Morris (Rainn Wilson, channeling Elon Musk by way of Dwight Schrute’s beet farm). But when one of his submersibles gets stuck at the bottom of the Mariana Trench – deeper than any dive has ever dared to go before – Zhang knows that only one man can be trusted to attempt the rescue. Especially since Jonas’s ex-wife, Lori (Jessica McNamee), happens to be on board the submersible.

Jonas shows up at the facility and initially clashes with Zhang’s scientist daughter, Suyin (Bingbing Li), who believes all of the stories about Jonas’ lack of mental fortitude and thinks they’d be better off handling the rescue themselves. However, Jonas soon earns the trust of Suyin and everyone else in the facility when it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that his version of events was true after all: at the bottom of the Mariana Trench lives a gigantic prehistoric shark known as the Megalodon. And now it has emerged from the depths to attack every living creature in its path.

A Killer Cast

The film’s main strength is its cast. Statham is his usual winking, charismatic self, and the rest of the actors appear to be having a great time too, moving seamlessly from comedy to terror and back again without missing a beat. Bingbing Li goes toe to toe with Statham not just in heroism, but in banter, and gives a sparkling performance. The two of them have a fizzy chemistry that you can’t help but want to see bubble over into romance. Meanwhile, as Morris, Rainn Wilson is perfectly cast to play the kind of smarmy billionaire that you’ll be dying to see get chomped in half by a massive sea creature. (He’s really just as much of a bad guy as the shark is.)

During early scenes in The Meg, one thinks one can predict exactly where the film is going. Jonas has to rescue his ex-wife? They’re obviously going to get back together! Jonas needs to redeem himself and prove himself to the brilliant scientists at the facility? This is obviously going to drag on for the entirety of the movie! There’s a cute dog swimming in the water? It’s obviously going to be sacrificed to the megalodon to make you have feelings! And yet, The Meg manages to avoid falling into these easily embraced plot contrivances.

I was pleasantly surprised by the way the film handled many aspects of its human relationships, starting with Jonas and Lori. Their marriage is acknowledged as something that was a mistake on both sides – and so instead of spending the whole film either at each other’s throats or attempting to get back together, they just treat each other like reasonable adults. They’re friendly and obviously close, but there’s no unnecessary romantic drama there. (The drama is saved for the shark scenes, obviously.) In fact, Lori is one of the many people at the facility who encourages Jonas to hook up with Suyin!

The burgeoning interest that Jonas and Suyin have in each other was also treated refreshingly. Suyin is just as capable a diver as Jonas, in addition to being a brilliant scientist. At some points in the film, he does have to save her, but she also gets opportunities to save him and others. She is no damsel in distress, no mere romantic heroine, but a hero in her own right – not to mention a mother to a hilarious little girl named Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai), who is precocious without being annoying, a rare feat for a child in a movie like this.

Monster Mash

Suyin, Lori, and engineer Jaxx (Ruby Rose) form a trio of badass women in science – unusual in a blockbuster film like The Meg, where women characters are typically mere tokens for ogling and rescuing. (The only person who gets ogled in The Meg is Statham, who gets a delightfully gratuitous scene in a towel in front of Suyin that inspired one audience member in my theater to yell out, “Get his number!”) That the cast is not only diverse in terms of gender, but in ethnicity as well, deserves to be applauded. In addition, the various supporting characters are given enough screen time and dialogue to actually worm their way into your heart, making the various character deaths surprisingly impactful.

Speaking of deaths: you’re probably shocked to have gotten this far into a review of a movie about a giant shark without much reference to the titular monster. But that’s just proof of how much else The Meg has to offer. Because it’s rated PG-13, the film relies more on the adrenaline rush of the attack than it does on the gory aftermath. The megalodon itself is mostly seen teeth first, all ragged, bloody, chomping jaws that are capable of exerting enough pressure to crush the hull out of a submersible. When its fin ominously appears above the surface of the water, one cannot help but giggle a bit at this stereotypical image of impending doom, but once the jaws open up, things get a lot more intense – especially if, like me, you opt to see the film in IMAX. (Do it. It’s worth it.)

Conclusion: The Meg

The Meg is not a masterpiece, but it is a perfect Jason Statham vehicle: packed with action and still a ton of fun. Those expecting something as unabashedly silly as Sharknado will indeed be disappointed, but others may be pleasantly surprised if they give the film a chance.

What do you think? Does The Meg sound like a fun diversion or just another film off the summer blockbuster assembly line? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The Meg was released in the U.S. and the UK on August 10, 2018. You can find more international release dates here.