‘MEG’-ABITES
Killer shark tale is out of its depth
Are you ready for “Jurassic Shark”? Beginning with credits that go “Glub, glub,” “The Meg” gives us a prelude during which something unseen rams a small undersea lab. Five years later, a small submersible passes through a thermal layer, hiding a heretofore unknown “Lost World,” where the eponymous creature known as “the Meg” dwells. Also living beneath the layer are the Roberta and the Sally. But we will get to them in other movies.
“Meg,” short for Megalodon, aka “big tooth,” is a species of gigantic shark that is supposed to have become extinct over 2,000,000 years ago. You can just think of it as “Jaws” x 5. “The Megalodon” is based on a 1997 novel by Steve Alten (“Phobos: Mayan Fear”) and was directed by Jon Turteltaub (“The Sorcerer's Apprentice”) and adapted to the screen by Dean Georgaris (“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider — The Cradle of Life”) and Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber (“Battleship”). They could have called the film “Scary Previous Credits” and left it at that.
“The Meg” stars Jason Statham (Dwayne Johnson must have been booked), an actor whose previous work I have admired. You'd figure he'd be good as expert deep sea diver and Naval Capt. Jonas Taylor, a tough guy with a heart of gold, whose specialty is difficult rescues. Jonas has been drinking beer in Thailand — where we hear the strains of the Thai version of “Hey Mickey” — since the incident in the opening scenes, when he had to let some people die to save the rest.
But “The Meg” is not good enough to make anyone shine. The villain of the piece is a 90foot shark that lacks the novelty of the giant squid of Disney's landmark “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” a 1954 film also invoked in “The Meg,” and among the people trapped in the submersible are Taylor's ex-wife Lori (Aussie Jessica McNamee) and a lovable techie clown named Toshi (Masi Oka, “Heroes”).
The submersible was launched from a high-tech base off China built by coarse billionaire Morris (Rainn Wilson), who is loud and aboard and has a scene in which he speaks of monetizing the Meg (D'oh). Among others on board are Chinese engineer Suyin (Bingbing Li, “Transformers: Age of Extinction”), her cute, wise-
cracking daughter Meiying (Sophia Cai), stereotyped African-American technician named, yes, DJ (Page Kennedy), fellow technician Jaxx (Ruby Rose, TV's new Batwoman), and a doctor named Heller (Robert Taylor, TV's “Longmire”), who blames Taylor for the earlier deaths. The leaders of the group are Mac (Cliff Curtis) and Zhang (Winston Chao), Suyin's father.
If I were the cynical type I might think the film was cast with big Asian names because its makers expect it to be more successful overseas than in home waters. As the idiot's Captain Ahab and his brave lady, Statham and Li have chemistry, but it's undeveloped. Scenes of the Meg attacking Chinese beaches full of frolicking bathers suggest a PG-13 version of “Piranha 3DD” (2012). The score by Harry Gregson-Williams did not once remind me of John Williams' Academy Awardwinning music for “Jaws.”
(“The Meg” contains perilous action, bloody violence and profanity.)