The Meg

Based on a book by Steve Alten, The Meg follows Jason Statham’s grizzled Jonas Taylor as he and a crew of scientists must battle a previously-thought extinct species of enormous shark. It’s a larger-than-life premise that’s utilized to a distressingly ineffective degree by filmmaker Jon Turteltaub, as the movie, which runs a ludicrously padded-out and overlong 113 minutes, suffers from an erratic, poorly-paced narrative that’s increasingly devoid of compelling sequences – with the bulk of the proceedings transpiring in the confines of a cramped research facility and focused mostly on the exploits of dull, one-dimensional characters. (It’s clear, too, that the lack of compelling shark-related action contributes heavily to the movie’s less-than-engrossing vibe.) And although Turteltaub, working from a script by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber, does manage to pepper the picture with a small handful of entertaining sequences, The Meg segues into a progressively tedious midsection that emphasizes tedious character interactions over actual instances of plot – with the most egregious example of this everything involving Jonas’ flirtatious relationship with Bingbing Li’s Suyin (ie there’s just zero chemistry between the two). It ultimately (and not surprisingly) gets to the point where the title shark becomes far more sympathetic than any of the movie’s wafer-thin human figures, and there’s little doubt, as well, that Turteltaub’s third-act efforts at finally embracing the goofiness of the premise come far too late to make anything resembling a positive impact – which certainly (and assuredly) confirms The Meg‘s place as a serious missed opportunity that should have been so much better.

*1/2 out of ****