The coelacanth is an ancient, lobe-finned fish that had presumably gone extinct 66 million years ago until 1938, when Miss Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer rediscovered it in a fish market in South Africa and hauled it to her museum in a taxi. A cloudy-eyed, slimy-scaled, ugly-looking thing, the coelacanth’s unsightly but stubborn existence insists that we should never say “never” when it comes to what we think we know about our ocean. So why should we be so sure that the allegedly long-extinct megalodon, the largest shark that ever existed, isn’t hiding somewhere in the deepest, darkest crevices of our sea floor? Well, perhaps because we can’t even seem to make a decently entertaining film about it.
I first heard about The Meg last summer, right after being let down by another disappointment of a shark film. To help ease my discontent, I pinned my hopes so hard on this 2018 
summer blockbuster, that when I quickly devoured the novel by Steve Alten that inspired the film, I chose to ignore the fact that it was less than thrilling. When the trailer came out and the film promised to be a Jaws-meets-Godzilla–meets-Deep Blue Sea-style humor-filled action flick starring the hunkiest of heroes, Mr. Jason Statham himself, I was hooked—pun intended. I ignored my gut, the reviews, and the warnings of my friends, and blindly, eagerly, took the bait.
After a short prologue, The Meg introduces us to a crew of scientists as they welcome a bigwig billionaire to their deep-sea laboratory off the coast of China, hoping to prove to him that his money has been worth the dozen or so designer “slob chic” gray sweatshirts he had to forego to invest in their efforts. The billionaire joins the lab’s command center just in time to witness a submersible probe the “sea 
floor” and prove correct the lead scientist’s theory that it’s actually a thermocline (eye roll and pause for some Googling—yup, now you can roll your eyes too). But after everyone “ooo”s and “ahh”s at the gratuitously CGI-filled never-before-seen underwater landscape below the thermocline, the sub’s crew soon finds itself in danger—something is down there with them and damages the ship.
Deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Statham) is swept out of retirement in Thailand, helicoptered in to rescue the crippled crew, and of course, soon finds himself face-to-face with a megalodon. The whole operation manages to release the beast into our above-thermocline waters (yeah, don’t worry, color-coded thermal maps explain everything…) and the hunt is on to kill the Meg before the prehistoric predator can do any more damage. There’s also a love story-ish. And a small, adorable child. And some cringe-worthy clichéd attempts at humor. And a villain
we are supposed to dislike. But if you haven’t guessed by now, all these ingredients get ground up into one big meatloaf of a film and slopped onto our lunch trays before we can even say “I’ll pass.”
So why does this fish flick flop so hard? Too much computer-generated imagery is definitely to blame. Poor writing is another culprit. Weak character development and little chemistry between characters who are supposed to have it also don’t help. Oh, and the science. Don’t even get me started on the science. Plus, the scares are unfortunately quite lazy. Sure, a jumpy and unexpected death now and again is useful in a film like this, but it can’t be your go-to method. A good shark film requires more of that insidious, 
suspenseful, slow burn of terror to succeed—look at what John Williams managed to do with just two musical notes, for crying out loud.
But for me, The Meg’s gravest error is that it fails to capitalize on its biggest asset—being a monster movie. If I’m seeing a film about the largest shark that ever existed, I want more shots of it cruising between beachgoers, and fewer scenes of it chasing a boat in the open ocean. I need more gore and destruction, and fewer high-tech computer screens and submersibles. What’s the point of a pectoral fin rising above the waves if there’s nothing in the background to show me that it’s bigger than an entire human being? Why keep so much of this megalo-monster in an alien underwater world that doesn’t exist when it could be chomping on everyday things I can relate to—like surfers, boats, hell, even bridges? Come on guys, the action-filled scares could practically write themselves.
SpecialK Verdict: Womp womp. Unfortunately, nothing to see here but another disappointment of a shark film. You’ll have more fun if you skip The Meg and read about the coelacanth instead.
The Meg opened Friday, August 10.
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