My main reasons for seeing 'The Meg' were that there are classic shark films out there (there is an obvious example that won't be named by means of fairness in the review but has been mentioned elsewhere) and that it was part of my many quests to see as many 2018 films as possible. It did look from the cover that it would be some kind of guilty pleasure fun, which was my ideal kind of film for the day.
Apparently 'The Meg' had a lot of studio interference, meaning that what was initially intended (and from the sounds of it what was initially intended would have made it a much better film) was not seen in the film, and it shows in the final product. Wanted some guilty pleasure film, a kind of turn-the-brain-off-at-the-door sort of film. Instead, 'The Meg' turned out to be poorly written and mostly devoid of tension and fun, one where one is rooting for the shark than any of the human characters. Is it better than any of the shark-creature films from SyFy and The Asylum? Oh yes, so much better, now those are mostly abominations. That doesn't stop 'The Meg' from being potential unfulfilled.
There are positives. 'The Meg' does start off reasonably well with a sense of unsettlement and the climactic scene is pretty entertaining. The best character, kid you not, is the shark which had personality and one that was not too scary or goofy.
It's pretty decent visually, nicely shot in particular, the music fits well and Jason Statham brings charisma to his role and is believable in that aspect.
On the other hand, the rest of the acting is a mess. Worst of all is a dreadful Bingbing Li, with a character that bores and annoys and approaching the character in a way that's completely wrong and out of kilter with everything else. None of the characters are well written, too bland to be interesting and too annoying with dumb decision making to be likeable. A few of them are completely unnecessary. Development is zero.
Special effects are uneven, some times they are pretty good and at other times they look so artificial and like they were made in haste. The action scenes with the shark are too few and they are generally devoid of tension, scares and suspense, ruined by unintentional humour, tameness, stupid goofiness and lack of sense, even when taking it for what it is meant to be. The story is as shallow and predictable as can be, with the pace dulling significantly outside of the shark action and indicative of padding out the already overlong by 15-20 minute running time.
Faring worst is the script, which is even more atrocious than Bingbing Li's acting, bad enough to warrant a paragraph of its own. Far too much talk, very clumsy attempts at humour (unintentional and the cringe-worthy intentional), a good deal of waffle some of which adds nothing, a lot of ridiculousness and implausibility, excessive sentimentality, muddled and clunky scientific exposition and some of it perplexes in terms of clarity too.
In summary, has good things but ruined primarily by the script. 4/10 Bethany Cox
