The Meg

Jason Statham attempts to stop a giant prehistoric shark that scientists say should be long extinct but is still alive. And it's hungry. The Meg is an thoroughbred action B-movie, pulled forward by an excellent Statham and a big budget that Jon Turteltaub does some pretty wild things with. It's a shame, then, that by the end they softened up and the megalodon rampage has to do without blood. But it's still pretty entertaining crap. (08/09/2018)

I’m actually not all that surprise by Jason Statham being in this film. MEG is quite a quality b-rated movie, which looks stupid only in those moments when Jason doesn’t have a beer in his hand. Because when he does, he looks like the coolest guy under the sun, so I think he should’ve had one even while he was holding a fishing rod with the megalodon in his other hand. (11/01/2019)

Jon Turteltaub serves up a solid shark spectacle for 130 million USD. I went to the cinema without expectations and left pleasantly surprised. Jason Statham is absolutely superb and pulls the whole film up, and the gorgeous Ruby Rose and the verbose black guy who provides the entertainment are also good. The budget really comes through and it's a pleasure to see the underwater world with all that goes with it, including the giant Megalodon, which is nicely cunning and sneaky. The film reminds me of a mix of Deep Blue Sea and Jaws, and for a PG-13 film it's very bloody in places (the scene with the whale with its guts sticking out on camera just had me gawking). The scares work, a few people jumped out of their seats nicely during the screening, and the director serves up some great suspense with Statham's life on the line several times. For me, perfect entertainment with nerve-wracking suspense. The scene with the helicopter is the highlight. 80%. (08/16/2018)

Entertaining idiocy about a bloodthirsty prehistoric shark, in which Statham sings the same tune as Dory in Finding Nemo. The tricks are solid and the B-movie screenplay is supported by essential crutches such as a whining black guy, a bothersome billionaire and the requisite love story. But the movie also has a British joker up its sleeve who used to be a professional swimmer and saves everything, including the movie. I enjoyed it. (10/04/2019)

A forgettable, average B-movie. It needed a director like Stephen Sommers or Joe Johnston, who would make such deliberately silly subject matter into a better spectacle. John Turtletaub is not very good.____P.S. The Czech subtitles by Kateřina Hámova are once again horrendous. No, “squid" really isn't “octopus," and there were plenty of other mistakes as well. (08/22/2018)

MEG runs mostly on two things: the predictable problem with accessibility, which makes the potentially adrenaline-pumping and thrilling premise suffer from constant downplaying and visual softness; and the attempts to humanize the main characters, which mostly look terribly ridiculous – we have the most classic cast: from a doctor to a whiny black man to a pretty scientist, and of course we have Jason Statham, who is initially mired in booze and remorse, but for most of the film he's an incredibly cool, fearless superhero, so that the viewer gradually comes to see the shark not as a terrible threat, but as someone looking forward to Jason’s next heroic stunt. But I’m cool with it. MEG lost any A-grade ambitions with the announcement of the creative team, and the production poured the 150 million into deliberately dumbed-down and great-looking entertainment where everybody es having plenty of fun (Statham pulls it off outrageously, Turteltaub occasionally delights with inventive action or suspenseful point-of-view shots), and if it weren't for the aforementioned attempt at personal conflicts and the associated boring dialogue, the film would have flown by. Making a family film with a bloodthirsty shark is no joke, and the creators quite managed it. Even the dog survives in the end. 60% (08/15/2018)

I went to the cinema to see The Meg out of curiosity, because I wanted to see how Jason Statham would handle a giant shark in such a high-budget film, expecting no miracles. In the end, it was pretty good, mostly because the shark looked realistic and the film offered a pretty compelling look at the mysterious life in the depths of the ocean. I would, however, fault the somewhat longer running time for a film of this nature and the insertion of excess relationship and family filler that could have easily been dumped into the ocean or replaced with more action (and even blood). As something to watch once in the cinema, however, The Meg is ideal. (09/16/2018)

Chinese people like American blockbusters, yet at the same time they don't have the same demands from them as the American market. And movie studios realize that targeting a multi-million dollar market, which by virtue of the absence of any cultural alternative has inherently easier movie motives, is the way to a giant vault above the city where they can jump into a pile of dollars in a one-piece bathing suit. The Great Wall, starring Matt Damon, was a similar attempt at such a breakthrough, and it lived up to the expectations of a colorful, passionate, expensive action movie starring an American superstar. The Meg is aimed purely at the Chinese market, just by the way the actors are forced to act... Chinese. Excessive emotional expression, unnecessary gestures, sweeping gesticulations, plus the constant cuts to the people who are currently speaking. Not to mention a funny attempt to prove the moral superiority of the Chinese crew members over everyone else with their constant self-sacrifice or impassioned speeches about how man is hurting nature. I have no reason not to think that the disjointed scene where the American millionaire, who had been behaving quite normally – helping characters in trouble etc. – now decides to kill all the characters with Semtex was an afterthought, imposed by the demands of the Chinese production company. Why did there have to be some helicopters exploding completely randomly? Because Chinese audiences like exploding helicopters. We might just as well ask why the actress Ruby Rose had her tattoos repainted in the makeup room into Chinese visuals. Could it perhaps be because tattooed crosses aren't exactly popular with the Chinese? The Warners are betting that audiences will adapt to whatever succeeds in China, for which they deserve no more than one star. A perfectly clean equation of the film and the product. (11/13/2018)

I was afraid it would turn out to be like the one real disaster this summer, Skyscraper (I’m sorry to talk about it this way, but it was almost a catastrophe), but in the end, it turned out much better than I expected. Maybe Statham helped, whom I welcomed as the main character after a long break; he fit his role quite well, and his English, more precisely, his London accent sounded almost funny at times (so it was entertaining). In terms of the story, it’s not much, let’s be realistic, but unlike Skyscraper, this started with a lighter tone and ended that way too (Skyscraper was trying to be too serious). The CGI was very decent, with a few scenes really polished to the smallest detail, but given the budget, it would be sad if it didn’t look this way in the end. The ending was quite sugary; personally, I would have turned up the intensity (overall, you won’t see much blood, which is a bit disappointing considering it’s a movie with a giant shark). But so be it. Finally, I want to say that it bothers me a bit that the target audience for the film is once again Asia, but we can’t blame the film for that (and actually, the studios in general). Not accepting those hefty financial injections from the East would probably be a sin, that must be acknowledged. I give it 67%. (11/28/2018)