The Meg (2018)

	Also Known As: En eaux troubles (France), Megalodon (Chile)
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Jon Turteltaub (Cool Runnings, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, National Treasure 1-2)
	Actors: Jason Statham (Transporter, The Expendables), Bingbing Li (A World without Thieves, Transformers: Age of Extinction), Rainn Wilson (Super)
	Country: USA, CN
	Genre: Action, Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 28.12.2018, in-flight entertainment 8" screen
Synopsis: After discovering a reserve filled with prehistoric animals, the team on-board a top-of-the-art marine research base calls Jonas (Statham) to the rescue to deal with one that escaped.
Review: To think I almost went to see it in the cinema only based on the title (Megalodon in Chile) and poster. For sure it would have allowed me to better enjoy the action and be less distracted by the ridiculous story and acting. 43 years after Jaws (waw!), movie-makers and producers don't know anymore what to do to surf on the still popular sub-genre. I like how they went full pop-culture with Piranha 3DD (but not in its sequel Piranha 3DD), but usually the attempts fail at going younger/trendier (Shark Night 3D), cheaper/weirder (the Sharnako series) or in the case of The Meg, bigger. The 1999 Deep Blue Sea was OK but still only a B-movie. The Meg goes full crazy with a basic story centered around the apparitions of the animal and the poorly depicted relationship between the main characters. The situation is not helped by the Chinese co-production which shows in the mandatory presence of mediocre actors with little interest, the location, the bad humor and morale, and some bad special effects (the beach with thousands of perfectly-spaced buoys, ridiculous). I complained about the Science in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadow but the one here is not much better, and without the excuse of being a SF movie adapted from a cartoon TV-series. Going deeper than the Mariana trench in a small sub-marine, really?? And the behavior of the mega-shark makes no sense. All the bad things in this movie are well listed on this YouTube video. Usually they exaggerate the bad traits of a movie for comic purposes, but this time they just state the obvious. I don't rate it worse because there is still some fun in watching Jason Statham kicking the ass of a prehistoric Megalodon (also watch The Rock doing it to a flying wolf in Rampage), but this no cinema, this is pop-corn entertainment.
Rating: 2 /10