Respond to these rapid questions in our The Meg quiz and we will tell you which The Meg character you are. Play it now.
The long-awaited screen adaptation of Steve Alten’s best-selling novel, “The Meg,” comes nowhere near matching the brilliance of Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” which is one of the few truly perfect works of art ever created in the history of American cinema. This is not surprising, given the fact that the film is one of the few truly perfect works ever created in the history of American cinema. It is not even on the same level as “The Shallows,” the brilliant 2016 thriller starring Blake Lively that is arguably the best of all the shark-based entertainments that have come along since “Jaws.” Overall, it’s a cheesy thriller in which an enormous shark wrecks havoc on the cast until Jason Statham arrives to save them all—the only real question being whether or not Statham will actually punch the shark to death. (“Sharkpuncher” has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”) The good news is that it is at least completely aware of what it is supposed to be doing—providing viewers with just enough aquatic carnage (though not enough to threaten the PG-13 rating) to allow them to painlessly pass a couple of hours in the multiplex during the sweltering days of August—and manages to accomplish that modest goal with the least amount of fuss and complication. It’s possible that the final product is nothing more than an exponentially more expensive version of those cheapo Syfy channel movies, but at the very least it has the good taste to be exponentially better as well.
Jonas Taylor, the world’s best deep-sea rescue diver, is played by Jason Statham. In any case, he was the best in the world until a rescue attempt in the Philippines went horribly wrong, and his claims that the ship was attacked by a mysterious unseen creature are dismissed as pressure-induced psychosis, resulting in him losing everything. After five years on the road, he finds himself in Thailand, where he is visited by an old colleague, inevitably named Mac (Cliff Curtis), and Mac’s new boss, Zhang (Winston Chao), who is the head of an underwater research facility outside of Shanghai that is investigating the possibility of an undiscovered undersea realm beneath the floor of the Marianas Trench. After being hit by something while exploring this new world, the submarine carrying three members of the research team, one of whom just happens to be Jonas’ ex-wife (Jessica McNamee), is rendered paralyzed and given a rescue window of approximately 18 hours. Would Jonas consider taking advantage of the opportunity to save his ex-girlfriend, confront his fears, and demonstrate that he wasn’t insane after all if it presented itself?
After being persuaded by Zhang, Jonas agrees and is taken to the facility, where he is introduced to the highly selected group of walking cliches that includes Rainn Wilson as the egomaniacal billionaire who is funding the entire thing, Ruby Rose as the edgy tech genius who is, perhaps inevitably, named Jaxx, Page Kennedy as the wacky African-American who doesn’t know how to swim and didn’t sign up for this, and Bingbing Li It is also true that there are a large number of additional people who mysteriously appear when they are required and then vanish when they are not. After all is said and done, the creature strikes again during the rescue attempt and reveals itself to be no less than a megalodon, a deadly shark about 70 feet long that was previously thought to be extinct. Fortunately, the beast has managed to escape from the depths where it had been contained and has made its way to open water before Jonas can say “I told you so.” to everyone within hearing distance. After that, he and the others must devise a strategy for bringing the megalodon down before it can reappear at the top of the food chain via a crowded nearby beach.
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While it’s true that “The Meg” (whose plot is, according to what I’ve heard, quite different from the novel) isn’t the most ferociously original film ever made—to be fair, with a story involving drunken divers, ex-wives, goofy money men, and a shark that most people don’t believe exists—there are moments when it feels less like a “Jaws” knockoff and more like a bizarre riff on ” There’s a lot more emphasis on silly action thrills than on gut-churning scares in this film, so it was a good decision to enlist the services of Jon Turteltaub as director. His name may not be synonymous with horror filmmaking (depending on your personal feelings about “While You Were Sleeping,” of course), but his “National Treasure” films told stories that started out completely ridiculous and then got progressively sillier as the story progressed. He clearly went into this project with the understanding that he would never be able to top “Jaws” in terms of thrills, and instead opts for a lighter, sillier approach—or, at the very least, as light and silly as it is possible with a film in which people are eaten by sharks. Despite the fact that the screenplay is littered with cliches, they are at least deployed with a certain amount of wit and style this time around, and there are even a couple of instances in which he plays on the audience’s expectations to provide some genuine surprises.
The Meg Quiz
Statham is the focal point of the film’s absurdity, and while this may not sound like a compliment, he is actually the ideal choice for a film of this caustic nature. He has the straightforward heroic demeanor down pat, but he also has a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor that is a welcome counterpoint to the surrounding nonsense. He is a great addition to the cast.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this The Meg quiz.
In no way, shape, or form, “The Meg” is a masterpiece. The inevitable attack on a swarm of innocent swimmers feels oddly truncated, and the climactic battle is not nearly as exciting as some of the earlier action beats. However, it manages to strike a reasonably effective balance between action and humor that never descends into the strained depths of the “Sharknado” saga or similar films that have emerged since the technology was developed to bring poorly rendered CGI sharks to the masses (and, to be honest, I much prefer it to that abomination that is “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”). And when “The Meg” finally gets around to making its most overt “Jaws” reference, the film turns out to be more clever and amusing than one might expect given the circumstances. One couldn’t ask for anything more than that—apart from more sharkpunching, of course.
For more personality quizzes check this: A Quiet Place Quiz.
