The Meg (Aug 10)

The Meg is a Matryoshka doll of maudlin suicide-run speeches and shockingly earnest stares for a film that seemed to be angling itself to be the shlocky, twee monster shark film of the summer. For a movie that was so devoid of creative integrity in the first place, its only saving grace was supposed to be the fact that it could roll its eyes at itself in enough ways that we felt in on the joke–Sharnado without commercial breaks. I never thought that I would look back on The Shallows (2016) fondly, but around the third or fourth time that a person in The Meg selflessly risked themselves in order to save the larger community, I began to sympathize with Blake Lively stranded on that little rock with no means of escape or hope for rescue.

The reviews that I had encountered before seeing the film primed me for disappointment, describing the film as a mirthless shark film that doesn’t succeed in jumping the shark into an appropriately over the top comedy. That did not deter me. I don’t think I was completely wrong to ignore the warning signs, but The Meg opened my eyes to all the new ways that flashy action films with $150 million budgets can fail you. I should’ve known better after seeing that Jon Turtletaub was directing, a man whose claims to fame are the National Treasure series and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Basically Turtletaub is what Nick Cage cracks open when he runs out of money to pay for his mansions made of profiteroles. Turtletaub apparently was also the architect of my childhood with films like Three Ninjas and Cool Runnings, which just goes to show that even top chefs eat turds from time to time.

My friend mentioned to me at the first unnecessary nod to mainland China approximately two minutes into the film that The Meg was part of a long and hallowed tradition of American moviemakers selling out artistically to Chinese production houses, who bankroll expensive CGI bacchanals in exchange for editorial control. It’s the reason why films like the Dark Knight featured confusing, Hong Kong side quests or why the Tibetan Rock Dog movie is just called Rock Dog. It’s the reason why films with big Chinese stakeholders do not feature examples of gay relationships or other subversive Western themes or practices and it’s the reason why this movie exists:

We see what you did Matt Damon.

I wish we lived in a world where moviemakers never had to compromise their artistic license in order to make oodles of money. Heck, I don’t even mind settling for a world where movies funded by Chinese studios didn’t feel so wildly out of sync with the emotional cinematic space that we inhabit right now. The artistic-financial compromise that is this movie tries to satisfy too many masters. An ironic shark film cannot mourn the death of a random Japanese scientist we don’t know for the entire movie. It cannot contain two separate scenes of wholesome parental pride and call itself edgy. The emotional range of The Meg is flat. The only intimation toward erotic romance is an eight year old’s eyebrow wiggle. Dwight Shrute’s surprisingly earnest farewell speech to the crew is hollow of any humor and leaves you sort of wondering why it had to be there at all. There are little glimmers of cross-cultural humor: the mother and child on the beach arguing over swimming feels like its not quite for an American audience. Then again the whole movie feels like it’s not really for any audience.

The trailer for this movie was good, which is why, if you’re thinking about going to see this movie, your best course of action is to just watch the trailer a couple more times and call it a day.