The Meg

Smack-dab in the Donald Trump-fueled era of “bigger is better”, it was practically inevitable that bigger-than-life, macho, steroid-infused movies would make a comeback, along with their chronic lack of gray matter and a foundation so staid that the occasional wan quip falls flat.

For the occasion, the choice was made to loosely adapt Steve Alten’s 1997 novel “Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror”, subjecting it to the typical Hollywood blockbuster treatment: First they scoured practically every sci-fi component out of it and then pumped what was left with testosterone, to make an epic action film (with an estimated budget of about $150 million) built around Statham’s stone-faced physicality. The unavoidable consequence is that science gets relegated to the background (Dr. Zhang with all his bioethical scruples comes across as a fool), and the solution to any problem becomes brute force: hit it hard and hit it often — that’s the method they employ to annihilate a marine creature envisioned solely in terms of a deadly menace.

To direct this kind of production, Warner Bros. enlisted Jon Turteltaub, whose long career is strewn with all manner of tedious hodgepodge, such as the vapid “Phenomenon” (1966) and the Manichaean Disney film “National Treasure” (2004). In a way, it was a prudent decision – at least for such a dichromatic context like this where everything is black and white and the rules of commercial entertainment are unfailingly respected: good guys win out, villains die, and little kids (and puppies) survive.

SFX Department: Despite the huge outlay for digital special effects (we’re talking a 920-square-meter green screen) and the use of ginormous water tanks (roughly 800,000 gallons), the film still can’t quite convey a sense of realism. In fact, this film doesn’t hold a candle to “The Abyss” (1989), despite the fact that James Cameron made his film some thirty years earlier. The Chinese locations (Sanya Bay and Shanghai’s futuristic skyline) seem deliberately calculated to improve US-China relations.

AAA Desperately Seeking Better Entertainment.