344. The Meg; movie review

THE MEG
Cert 12A
113 mins
BBFC advice: Contains moderate threat, occasional bloody moments, action violence

More than 40 years ago, Jaws shocked the world with a giant shark which terrorised people off the coast of an American town.
It has spawned scores of imitations, from thrillers to comedies, but none have had the impact of Steven Spielberg's classic.
So, Mrs W and I had little expectation of The Meg reaching anywhere near its bar.
We were right to be sceptical. The special effects are comparable but it prompts an overwhelming sense of 'we've seen it all before."
That not to say it didn't make me jump, I flew from my seat at Nottingham Cineworld four times.
The Meg stars whispering Jason Statham as an expert in deep-sea rescues who is in retirement after losing two friends in a previous mission.
However, he is lured back by an old pal (Cliff Curtis) and his boss (Winston Chao) because his ex-wife (Jessica McNamee) is in trouble at the bottom of the ocean.
What has caused the emergency - ah, that would be a megalodon - a ginormous shark which was thought to have become extinct two million years previously.
So, for an hour and a half, whispering Jase and his pals take on the biggest foe ever seen under (and occasionally over) the waves.
Aside of our hero, there are a host of disaster movie cliches, starting with the non-Caucasian bloke (Masi Oka) who dies in the opening exchanges, the money-grabbing billionaire (Rainn Wilson), the cute kid (Shuya Sophia Cai), the overweight tekkie (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) and the attractive young woman (Bingbing Li) who thinks she is a match for any man.
If I nipped to the bookies and bet on who dies and survives, I think I would have been correct on every pigeonhole.
In a nutshell, it is that level of predictability which means that The Meg struggled to score with Mrs W and me.
However, it is on its way to making half a billion dollars at the box office, so I am sure director, Jon Turteltaub, and his producers will be very pleased with themselves.

Reason to watch: If you have never seen a disaster movie
Reasons to avoid: Follows a very well-worn path

Laughs: None
Jumps: Four
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 4/10

Director quote - Jon Turteltaub: "What’s cool about sharks, ironically, is that you can’t see them. That’s what makes them so scary. They come out of nowhere and there is nothing you can do to prevent it or stop it. Hunters kill lions. But there’s really no way to go kill a really big shark that’s about to eat you."

The big question - When will they decide we've had enough shark movies?

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