Statham....You're gonna need a bigger boat: The Meg

Welcome to the first film in this series of Scene it! I've been thinking a lot about what films I'd like to see for the duration of 2018 and leading up into 2019 and more than likely beyond that, so if you're interested in listening to my opinions and decide to stick with me; expect a variety of different types of films to be uploaded. I'm open to suggestions as well.

The first one I've decided to look at is Jason Statham's The MEG. Now I've been a massive fan of the over the top action films Statham's been in recently; most notably his role in the Fast and the Furious Franchise. The Dynamic between himself and Dwayne Johnson really added some substance to those films; but we'll leave that for another time. With this in mind the idea of Statham taking on a prehistoric shark…. well this film really was a no brainer.

It's fair to say that there's been a lot of schlocky horror films and some not so bad that have come out over the last few years, but I think the soundtrack in the trailer was what really drew me in…you've got to love a bit of Sinatra…makes everything real classy.

But before I get distracted let's get into it. To give a quick synopsis of the film it's about a Billionaire whose funded a Marine rig about 200 miles off the coast of China to become the first to detect whether or not the Mariana Trench is deeper than previously thought. And you thought this film had no substance; Yay for didacticism ? A crew of three scientists are sent down to test the theory and land up creating a disturbance in the barrier separating two worlds and unleashing the beast. Like the Jurassic Park Franchise they had to come up with silly notions to give the humans some sort of chance, but turns out one of the crew members is the main protagonist or possibly anti-heroes ex love interest. We see the crew that are still aboard the station try and come up with plans to rescue the three colleagues trapped below the Trench and enlist the help of Statham.

The film opens up with the 5 years before sequence of Jonas Taylor (Statham's character) doing a deep sea dive to rescue survivors on a sunken submarine. And with something clearly crushing the submarine meant taking who he could and abandoning any remaining survivors trapped in a separate room on the sub, to die. There was a doc on board that blamed him for the scenario and conveniently was on the new crew on the Chinese rig. He labelled Taylor deluded in this report; however apologised and believed him once he heard the recording from the new crew's experience. The head of the team leaves the base in search of Statham who can be found in Thailand I think? Drinking and possibly owns a boat. Once a water baby always a water baby! They rope him in after some negotiating and bring him on board. You keep getting pointless lines that don't seem to add to any exposition really from the annoying billionaire, who tries to gain some form of authority in the scenario but naturally nerd vs jock…..well that's a timeless classic. At this point BingBing has already taken a vessel and gone to be a hero and rescue the stranded crew only to put herself at risk by attracting the attention of monsters as well as see a snippet of the megalodon for the first time. Statham quickly catches up and orders her to pull herself out of harms way whilst attempting to save the crew. Unfortunately things go wrong again and not everyone is saved. However a touching moment does happen and you definitely feel a pang of sadness. Once back some more bravado and dredging up the past ensues and Statham storms off to brood. BingBing's daughter goes for a wonder on the station and encounters the beast who tries to attack the fortified glass.

There is some definite ridiculousness think 2012's the nutrinos are mutating silliness and this allowed the 70 ft behemoth to seek out the people and eat as many as he or she can stomach. However some of the shots made more sense to attack people and didn’t? So I don't think there was a lot of consistency in terms of shark motives. There different tactics but the time old American method of blowing up your problems is utilised and as expected is futile.

Lucky for us the billionaire tries to be hero but also endangers everyone by lying to them and you find yourself seeing more cliché's in this film from other films such as saving the shark for science, using explosive devices on it low angle shots of the shark and of course other predictable shots that you'd expect from the cheesy film; however cheesy good, not cheesy bad! The CGI at times was horrendous and some good ol' animatronics could have made this look a lot better than what it did.

What I liked about the film: There are a lot of familiar faces in the film; Statham of course, Bingbin (Great Wall), Rain Wilson (Star Trek Discovery), Masi Oka (Deathnote) and Ruby Rose (most famously orange is the new black). Ruby rose featured in this film as a engineering guru and her fate will remain a secret in the film as I'm sure she's got a pretty big fanbase; watching her demise in John Wick was pretty good though. She does seem to be type casted a lot.

The relationship between Statham and the little girl is comparable to the relationship between Scott and Cassandra Lang with Marvel's Antman and nice to watch a non-irritating child actor as they're few and far between at the moment. It balances sweet and comedic elements that makes you care about them and probably stop zoning out so much

The relationship between BingBing and her Father in the film is also a cool dynamic as it adds more depth to her character and adds dimensions to both characters and empathy for later on in the film.

A whole kettle of people to munch on

Also Watching Statham being drunk and the chemistry between him and Li Bingbing's character had a lot of cutesy moments that made you root for them both; her daughter was a cool addition too as Statham seems to work well with kids and definitely has the cool dad vibe going for him

I had the unfortunate luck of going with a lot of parents who took underage kids so there was plenty distractions from what was happening on the big screen and did make the film seem longer than what might actually be. There was periodic periods of action on screen and points that were perhaps rushed too much; so bearing this in mind it may need to be given another watch to determine whether I really liked it. It's no Jaws; however sits well above however still in the same genre as Sharknado and Sharktopus; so if you're looking for a couple giggles and feel like passing about 2 hours give it a watch; my rating is a sold 4/5

It's a bird...it's a plane...no it's a Megaladon and he's ready to play a game

If you watch it do let me know your thoughts on it as there's varying opinions in my group of what we thought about it. Let me know in the comments below.

Ciao for now!