The Meg (2018)

The Meg - 2018

Our final film in the Shark Week series is 2018's "The Meg", a movie where a megalodon arrives from the deep to terrorize the world's oceans.

The film's cast includes Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Shuya Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Jessica McNamee, and Masi Oka.

A helicopter takes off from Shanghai, China, and arrives at its destination: an underwater research station two hundred miles off the Chinese coast.  The helicopter passenger is the financier of the research station who has come at the bidding of the scientists that work there.

We are instantly wowed by the beauty and scope of the research station once we are taken underwater.

Jack Morris, the financier, is shown why he has been summoned.  A team of scientists has descended to the ocean floor to see if it actually the ocean floor.  Their theory is that it is a layer of freezing hydrogen sulfide.  If they can penetrate it, a whole new world awaits beneath.

And that's exactly what they find.  The team gazes in wonder at the discoveries that have yet to be made as they survey their surroundings.

Unfortunately, something big hits the submersible and knocks out their communications with the surface.  It renders there craft immovable.

The only one who can rescue them is an out of work drunk named Jonas who was fired for raving about something large in the extreme deep of the oceans.  He is able to recover the crew, and the scientists work out that what hit them was a megalodon, something they thought was extinct.

As it turns out, it is not extinct at all.  It followed them through a temporary hole in the thermocline of hydrogen sulfide, and it's following them.  It seems that it is very hungry, too.

The team assesses what's going on, and they decide that they need to destroy it before it does untold damage to life.

It's already wreaking havoc.  One of the scientists, Suyin, gets in a shark cage so that she can be in a position to administer some poison to kill it.

The megalodon attacks before she gets the chance.  Suyin is rescued by Jonas, and they are nearly killed by the megalodon.  It is trapped by a contraption the crew rigged up, and it dies.

They haul it out of the water.  The scientists realize they've got much bigger problems when a second, more massive megalodon feasts on the dead one and destroys their boat in the process.

Along the way, somehow Jonas and Suyin form a bond.  The two joke and tease back and forth, much to the delight of Suyin's daughter Meiying.

The group works out that the megalodon is headed for a very crowded area: Sanya Bay, and they follow it there so they can destroy it.

The first to notice the "meg" is a little dog who jumps off the boat it is on in order to get away from it.

The megalodon slips into Sanya Bay almost unnoticed.  When it is finally discovered, the cry of "shark" sends the water into a churning frenzy as the swimmers frantically try and get out.

After an initial struggle, Jonas is successful in defeating the megalodon.

He turns around to see the water swarming with sharks who have come to feed on the carcass of the dead megalodon.

As Jonas hitches a ride, he's stunned to see that the little dog made it.  (Just in case you were wondering.)

After toasting their friends, Jonas, Suyin, and Meiying make plans to go on vacation together.

Cast rundown:

   Jason Statham..............................Jonas Taylor

   Bingbing Li...................................Suyin

   Rainn Wilson.................................Jack Morris

   Cliff Curtis....................................Mac

   Winston Chao................................Dr. Minway Zhang

   Shuya Sophia Cai..........................Meiying

   Ruby Rose....................................Jaxx

   Page Kennedy...............................DJ

   Robert Taylor.................................Dr. Heller

   Olafur Darri Olafsson.....................The Wall

   Jessica McNamee...........................Lori Taylor

   Masi Oka......................................Toshi

And that's it for The Meg.  This film did massively well at the box office.  A sequel is currently in the works, though there is no word on who will be starring in it.  The film rights to the book were first acquired in 1996, but production didn't begin until 2005 for a 2006 release.  The project was shelved and was put back into production in 2015, with filming beginning in 2016.

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