The Meg - Movie Review

Starring Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, Page Kennedy, Jamie McNamee, Robert Taylor, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Sophia Cai and Masi Oka.
Written by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber.
Directed by Jon Turteltaub.

★★½

This is a movie about a giant prehistoric shark. When the movie focuses on the giant prehistoric shark, the dumb popcorn fun happens. When it tries to focus on "character development," it falls flat. And at a two-hour running time, there's too airtime that does not contain the giant prehistoric shark.

It's based on a series of books, so I would assume that means there's somewhat intelligent source material to draw from. Director Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) takes a hammy script and makes it worse by dwelling too long on reactions after alleged laugh lines, choppy pacing, and very lopsided acting. Some of the acting is so bad, I was begging for this character or that to get killed off as soon as possible so I wouldn't have to hear their painful line-reads anymore.

But this movie's budget didn't hit $130 million because of some all-star cast. It's about the effects, and the Megalodon is a really cool creation. It's ominous in the dark waters, its giant mouth can bite through a whale, and there's some genuine excitement/suspense when it approaches.

Overall, I don't mind having seen it on $5 Tuesday. I would see a sequel, because I assume they'd try to learn from what doesn't work here. Is it the next Jaws? Nope. Is it the next Jaws 2? Close.