Movie Review: The Meg (2018)

Synopsis: A team of researchers discover a hidden ocean trench 200 miles off China's coast and send a submarine team to explore it only to have the crew attacked by a megalodon, an enormous prehistoric shark thought to be extinct for millions of years. The team is rescued, minus one, but the researchers soon learn two of the megalodons have followed them out of the trench.

Who's in it? The movie stars Jason Stratham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis and Ruby Rose.


Review: This has been on my watch list for a while but after a pair of very bad shark movies, I've been somewhat reluctant to watch it.  However, I recently saw trailers for the sequel and, intrigued, finally gave it a chance last night. I wasn't disappointed.

The film reminds me a lot of the classic 1960s monster films I used to enjoy (the ones with Godzilla, Mothra, etc) with humans (and just about every other living creature) trying to survive a relentless assault from a creature that is massive enough to eat whales, capsize ships and withstand a great deal of punishment. Throw in one billionaire who doesn't want to call for help and you have a surprisingly entertaining thriller.

I think one of the things I liked most about this film is it wasn't as predictable as you would expect. There were quite a few "fake out" moments scattered throughout, making it difficult to tell if or when one of the secondary characters would die. On top of it, the film did a decent job giving those secondary characters just enough personality to make me care if they lived or died. A lot of films just don't do that anymore.

I was a little confused about when this movie was supposed to be taking place. I am assuming in present day but some of the technology they were using (especially those submarines) did look somewhat futuristic, along with that research facility. I also found myself questioning the parenting skills of Suyin (Li). For someone who had a young daughter (Shuya Sophia Cai) depending on her, she sure did seem to have no problem putting her life in danger. Of course, I also failed to understand the logic of keeping the daughter in danger as well. Why would you bring her on a boat while hunting a massive shark?

The end to this movie was also a lot more intense than I would have expected with plenty of suspense and a great final scene for the title character. There are a lot of movies from this genre with endings that ruin the film. This is not one of them.

Final Opinion: It was an entertaining and exciting movie, and I can't wait to see the sequel.

My Grade: A

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