THE MEG REVIEW!!!

*** This is a very slightly tweaked review of The Meg that I worked on for the Examiner in 2018!!!***

Jason Statham has done a lot of action movies over the years and has kicked a lot of butt on the big screen Now, today's biggest action star goes against his biggest adversary yet - a BIG prehistoric shark once thought to be extinct. So, get ready to see Statham vs. shark in the entertaining "The Meg."

In the Warner Brothers presentation of "The Meg," a deep sea submersible, which is part of an international program, has been attacked by a massive creature, and now lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest trench in the Pacific - with the crew trapped inside. With time running out, expert deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor is recruited to save the crew and ocean from an unstoppable threat - a pre-historic 75 foot shark.

Years after first confronting the creature, Taylor must face his fears to save everyone before it's too late.

"The Meg" is a fun flick that offers a lot of tense action and some really incredible underwater shots. This fast-paced flick does a great job keeping the audience entertained and also featured a few little laughs.

Audiences are sure to have a good time, which I could tell from the showing that I attended.

UPDATE: In general The Meg and its sequel is pretty much the same. It delivers exciting shark action and amazing visual effects, especially in the underwater sequences. If you want to give The Meg another watch, it is currently streaming on Max (formerly known as HBO Max)!

The cast includes: Jason Statham (The Fate of the Furious) as Jonas Taylor, Bingbing Li (Transformers: Age of Extinction) as Suyin, Rainn Wilson (Smurfs: The Lost Village) as Morris, Cliff Curtis (Risen) as Mac, Winston Chao as Zhang, Shuya Sophia Cai as Meiying, Ruby Rose (Pitch Perfect 3) as Jaxx, Page Kennedy (the recently cancelled Rush Hour) as DJ, Robert Taylor (Longmire) as Heller, Olafur Darri Olafsson (Netflix's Lady Dynamite) as The Wall, Jessica McNamee (Battle of the Sexes) as Lori and Masi Oka (Death Note) as Toshi.

"The Meg" is directed by Jon Turteltaub, who has directed "Last Vegas," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and the "National Treasure" movies.

"The Meg" is based on the book (MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror," the first book that author Steve Alten ever published. Over the course of several years, "The Meg" has been in and out of development many times. The rights to the "Meg" novel" were acquired by Disney's Hollywood Pictures in 1996. By 1999, the project stalled and the rights were bounced around for some time. Director Eli Roth was attached to direct the film due to him wanting the film to carry an R-rating and the studio didn't.

"The Meg" is rated PG-13 for action/peril, bloody images and some language and has a running time of 113 minutes.