The Meg

Deep within the fabled Mariana Trench lies a chilling thermocline, beneath which dwells a vast undiscovered ecosystem aquatically flourishing in nocturnal isolation.

Unaware of the limitless ocean above and possessing no knowledge of the research scientists strategically planning upon its surface, it has existed unclassified and uncatalogued for millions of years, endemic beasts prehistorically assembled confined.

Until that team of international scientists, brilliantly driven by innate information hunger, breaks through to observe within, attacked by an unknown shortly thereafter, and left helpless and motionless on the unforgiving ocean floor.

The depths of which are superlative indeed.

One of the ensuing versatile rescuers has previously operated under comparable conditions.

But this time while ascending a vent is ruptured by his craft upon that ocean floor which clears a warm path through said impassable thermocline, an insatiable giant freely emerging thereafter, to instinctually wreak havoc on the postmodern oceanic imagination.

Bombastically so.

For it truly will not stop preying.

The Meg's megalodon functions like Jurassic World's indominus rex, constantly ending unsuspecting marine lives without ever stopping to consume them.

Its illogic should be nautically fathomed.

Don't predators usually eat the animals they incapacitate, and wouldn't a giant squid or two whales (😢) feed a massive shark for three weeks or more?

If the megalodon attacks and kills with unrelenting ferocity, wouldn't everything existing beneath the thermocline have perished millions of years ago?

Additional peculiarities: investigating profound oceanic depths appeals to me, but would lights used to illuminate their environments not cause serious damage to their cloistered inhabitants who have never been lit up before?

Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is amazing, and I loved how he instantaneously took absurd risks throughout without question, but hadn't he been drunk for several years beforehand? He certainly gets it together quickly and resiliently never seems to want any more alcohol.

He was wisely sticking to beer and must have been secreting insane amounts of adrenaline but such a rapid turn around remains a fishy point of contention.

And wouldn't all the characters who had descended to the bottom of the Trench have suffered from the bends for some time after failing to adequately decompress after rapidly returning to the surface?

Quizzical.

The Meg's fast-paced implausibility is funny and endearingly ridiculous, and it sticks it to the shark fin soup industry and celebrates the majesty of whales, along with scientific and athletic heroics, childhood, friendship, teamwork, and new love in bloom, while criticizing ill-considered commercial endeavours, but several plot developments are somewhat too convenient nonetheless, and there are so many of them that the ridiculousness seems absurd (😉).

Not that I was searching for rational discourse from The Meg, I was looking for a ludicrous Summer blockbuster that doesn't make much sense and brings together a cool eclectic team to randomly deal with starboard chaos, perhaps making a criterion out of Jaws après ça.

From this angle it doesn't disappoint.

But it still keeps one foot too firmly lodged in the realistic to get away with its entertaining shenanigans scot-free.

Statham does a fantastic job.

And works really well with Bingbing Li (Suyin) and Shuya Sophia Cai (Meiying).

I was hoping the meg would pass after consuming twice its weight in ocean plastic.

That's not true, I just thought of that now.

Seriously though, ocean plastic is a huge problem.

And the situation can be rectified simply by properly disposing of your garbage and recyclables, and creating way more much cheaper biodegradable bottles, food wraps, and containers.

It's that easy.

*Is Rainn Wilson (Morris) the new Rick Ducommun?