No.249 : The Meg (2018)

 The Meg at the IMDb

Jason Statham stars in this ‘hunt the fish’ thriller that is ‘Jaws’ in all but name, but also takes the time to rehash every seafaring cliché that you could point a harpoon at.

We open in the past with Statham in charge of a rescue attempt on a stricken sub. He gets most of the men off but has to close the hatch on the last few when an unknown force starts to attack the sub. He’s haunted by the decision and retreats into a refreshing bottle of Chang beer, in one of the many overt examples of product placement on show.

Nothing will get Statham back in the water, and we head off to a sea exploration lab off the coast of China. Dwight Shrute, who seems to have done well out of the beet business, is coming to inspect his billion dollar investment. He’s come at a good time as the deepest trench of the ocean is about to be explored by one of their submersibles. The diverse crew see lots of nice sea life but are then attacked, and rendered disabled, by a megladon, a prehistoric shark that can grow to 70 feet. With life support for only 18 hours left they may as well start writing the obituaries…unless Jason can be tempted out of his retirement? Well it is his ex-wife that’s in peril and his name’s over the title; so he'd better get packed.

The rescue goes well, apart from the standard sacrifice of a crew member, and all that’s left is to take care of ’The Meg’ before it kills anyone else. They could just leave it alone, but that wouldn’t make for much of a film so they set off with a few schemes, the first several of which are doomed to fail, as you‘d expect.

After catching their prey an even bigger fish appears; with the crew and hardware decimated, how can it be stopped now that its heading to Amity, sorry, some Chinese beach where it‘s bright coloured inflatables day?

I avoided this film when it came out as it looked rubbish. You know what they say about making rash judgements? That’s right, they are often correct. The ingredients were all here -  Statham in an obvious cash in monster movie, a genre that makes it hard to be original and a Chinese Co-Production which led to several Chinese characters being shoe horned in for no discernable reason, including a cute wee girl who possibly was an ill-advised passenger on a boat under constant megladon attack.

It really was by the numbers, with the troubled Statham trying to gain redemption whilst struggling with a CGI fish that changed size depending on what was required of it. Shrute should be ashamed of his outing as the billionaire financer who for some reason was getting into the fish exploitation business. He had no arc to speak of and even when he went off piste to avoid the lawsuits he was hardly a malevolent genius or even a misguided do-gooder he was just ‘can you show me the way to the bank?’ throughout.

Statham gave his usual effortless performance playing the same baldy Cockney who inhabits all of his films. He had no journey or emotional range and it looked like he was just waving a harpoon against a green screen until the run time hit the contractually agreed length.

The effects were decent in places but there is only so much that you can do with a big fish chomping on people and boats. There was plenty of gore but that was pretty comic, with the buckets of chum the only realistic blood on show.

If you watch ‘The Meg’ you pretty much get what you deserve. There may have been a message about the environment or over fishing in there, but it was hard to pick it out amongst all the CGI, product placements and cardboard cut-out characters who were designed to keep the demographic and screen time to the backers’ requirements. A cookie cutter film that could have done with a shark bite to the script to jazz things up just a little.

THE Tag Line : MEGa Disappointment  - 35%

 

No.108 : The Reef (2010)

The Reef at the IMDb

 You know all those films you’ve seen about a group of sexy youths stranded at sea and who are plagued by a big shark? Well, here’s another one.

A group of four Australian twenty-somethings take off in a fancy boat to have a look at an idyllic island off The Great Barrier Reef. Their slightly older deckhand, who looks like Moxey off ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’,  does the heavy lifting as the two guys and two girls frolic about on the sand for five minutes. They quickly realise that their boat is in danger of running aground due to the tide but manage to get back on board in a scene that offers no peril whatsoever but a few bikini shots for those so inclined.

They decide to head back but as night falls they are all awakened as the boat capsizes due to the hull being ripped open by the coral reef. They all manage to escape the craft and soon assess their options from the upturned hull - stay with the boat or swim for safety. The leader of the group wants to swim but Moxey who “knows these waters” advises caution. I think he was trying to sound like a wise old sea salt but looked more like he was missing from a German building site.

The four pretty people decide to leave Moxie in the boat with the distress beacon and head off on the ten mile swim with a cut in half boogie board between them. As you’d expect things quickly go wrong as a portentous dead turtle signals trouble ahead. Can you guess what it is yet? Well if you’ve looked at the poster you’ll have gathered the trouble is in the shape of a big fraggin’ shark.

True to form the four youths are slowly whittled down by the shark who is either reading the script or just a bit hungry. Who will survive? Will that woman ever stop screaming and is the boat insured?

This was an OK ‘Based on True Events’ film but I bet my synopsis is longer than the plot pitched to the studio. If you’ve looked at the poster you’d be able to guess almost every event and there is really nothing here to recommend it over the superior ‘Open Water’ or even ‘Open water 2 : Adrift’. The attempts at characterisation were perfunctory at best with one pair a brother and sister with the added baggage of a former pair of lovers reunited for the trip. There were some touching moments of bonding and sacrifice but for the most part you are tapping your watch waiting for the shark to show up.

The five members of the cast were fine but there wasn’t much for them to do apart from scream a lot. The leader, who looks like former Rangers striker Nacho Novo, had the most to do in keeping the group together but the two womens’ scripts must have read ‘Aaaaarrrghhhh!’ for 20 pages.

The shark was well realised and the IMDb states it was a real one. You can see the joins as it bashes through our heroes however and the kills were a bit soft, mostly happening underwater with a change of the water colour the only clue that you are one more body closer to the end.

The film ends somewhat abruptly with a couple of captions serving to end the story and whether this was due to budget constraints or the magic 90 minutes being hit I’ve no idea - I’m not that bothered either way! It was competently made and had enough to have me stay to the conclusion but it was just so familiar and unmemorable that I’ll probably see it again in a year and be unaware I’ve been there before.

THE Tag Line - Don’t Lay Your Hands On a Copy. 45%