Robert Taylor – Podcasting Them Softly

For a movie about a giant shark, given a giant budget, Jon Turtletaub’s The Meg is just kinda underwhelming. First off it’s PG-13, which is just not gonna do your shark attack flick any favours, I mean people wanna see sharks fucking people up and rating constraints will put a damper on that. Secondly, they just don’t do much with the infamous prehistoric megalodon other than have it jump around a bit, swallow a few people whole and arrive at a densely populated beach that looks like it was conceived by Wes Anderson’s production designer. What does work? Much of the interaction between some engaging human characters is funny, genuine and likeable. Jason Statham is great as a legendary deep sea diver who would rather just crush beers in his Thailand shanty. Robert ‘Longmire’ Taylor, Olafur Darri Olafsson, stoic Cliff Curtis, unbelievably sexy Ruby Rose, Bingbing Li and a smarmy Rainn Wilson are fun. There’s a welcome tribal feel to the group dynamic and enthusiastic cheesiness that somehow reminded me of Stephen Sommers’ Deep Rising, a much more fun ocean set creature feature. But the shark action is lifeless and just not exciting, and if the lynchpin of your film doesn’t hold the thing together all you have is what works, in this case a fun group of folks played by varied actors running around impressive sets. The rest? Boring as hell dude. There’s one cool moment when a little girl sees The Meg slowly swim up to a giant glass window underwater and lunge for her but Netflix put that as the little teaser video on the film’s main menu so it’s spoiled before you even start the thing. I’ll still take Deep Blue Sea over this tide-pool detritus any day.

-Nate Hill

I am a fan of Steve Alten’s writing and of shark, or sharksploitation cinema in general – so read these words with that in mind.

I first read MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror when it arrived on the scene in the late 90’s and believed then – just as a certain movie out at the moment has confirmed for the world – that it was/is the basis for something cinematically awesome. But that was twenty years ago, when Alten was poised to become the next Peter Benchley and have his man vs big shark, or in MEG’s case, prehistoric bad-ass shark, optioned before it hit the shelves. All of the ingredients seemed to be there. A new JAWS, it appeared, was on the cards – then, it didn’t happen.

I followed the gestation throughout the years of this mighty megalodon movie that got away. Talented filmmakers crossed its wake, and I confess, I would have liked to have seen Jan de Bont’s take on the material – this talented director of photography that came to the director’s chair and gave us SPEED and TWISTER. I think had his next picture been MEG, we might well be talking about Jan in a different way – and it might have saved us from SPEED 2?

But they all saw MEG a different way. They didn’t see it the right way. Thus the production floundered and the seasons came and went. The MEG, all the while, lay silent in the depths of development hell.

CUT TO:

A YEAR AGO.

I contacted Steve (https://podcastingthemsoftly.com/2017/08/02/20-years-in-the-making-an-interview-with-steve-alten-by-kent-hill/) to talk about the arduous journey his big shark book had taken to get to the screen. (A year before the worldwide press descended with the onset of the film’s success, I might add.) I was excited because, at long last, it seemed as though there was no stopping it now. A live action feature was in production and MEG, or The MEG, as it was soon to be titled, was rising and with or without the ‘The’, we who call ourselves ‘Megheads’ were about to have all we’ve ever wanted.

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And it is the big shark summer blockbuster that I’ve longed for since reading that Novel of Deep Terror way back when. With an exceptional cast to lead us through a picture that is at once funny, moving and action-packed – there’s plenty for one to sink one’s teeth into. The filmmakers have given rise to the ‘Alten-verse’ which explodes spectacularly like the prehistoric leviathan that is it’s centerpiece.

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Steve said we should catch up after the movie was out, so, I now present that chat and as for The MEG – I sign off by directly quoting the final line of one of the many splendid reviews for the picture previously published. In part because I share its sentiment exactly, and also because, whether by accident or design, it makes reference to that other big shark movie you may or may not be aware of…

“It will leave your inner 12 year old and your actual 12 year old, smiling like a son-of-a-bitch.”

VISIT:https://www.stevealten.com/