The Meg (2018) Review: Why Jason Statham's Shark Blockbuster Is Better Than You Remember

The Meg put Jason Statham in a 75-foot prehistoric-shark movie, cost $178 million, and earned more than half a billion at the global box office. And yet Rotten Tomatoes still clocks it at a middling 47% from critics and 44% from audiences. On paper, it's a hit that nobody loves.

On Episode 36 of the Slept-On Cinema podcast, co-hosts Stan Steamer and GrobeStreet made the case that the numbers are selling it short. "I always feel incredibly comfortable and at home watching a creature feature," Stan said. "It's very comforting. There's something very comforting about animals and creatures just viciously attacking humans." GrobeStreet's angle was the family-friendliness: "It's nice to be able to watch a pretty jarring Jaws-type Creature Feature, shark movie, with the whole family."

The Premise

A deep-sea research station (the Mana One) punches through a previously unknown thermocline in the Mariana Trench and accidentally frees a 75-foot Megalodon — a prehistoric shark long thought extinct. Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham), a retired deep-sea rescue diver haunted by a past mission, is pulled back in to save the crew. Director Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) leans all the way into popcorn-movie instincts.

Why The Meg Deserves Reevaluation

The critical take in 2018 — that The Meg is neither scary enough nor silly enough — misses what it actually delivers: a hangout movie with a shark. GrobeStreet called out "the O-level" sequence as the specific moment the film earns its setpieces: "When they were in that perfectly reasonable elevator, and then it opened up into that just beautiful tube and you're, like, surrounded by water." The movie doesn't want to be Jaws. It wants to be a summer afternoon.

The BOLO

BOLO — Be On the Lookout — is the podcast's pre-watch list of visual and thematic beats to track.

• Stan Steamer: an elaborate handshake, Captain (bubbles), an arm, your dog, a Roomba, the squid, and chalk drawings.
• GrobeStreet: a submerged title, rejecting a handshake, a Bones TV show reference, being just in time, sex puns, the definition of crazy, duct tape, people falling off boats (just gonna happen), telling someone something they already know, animals sensing danger, and great diving form from Statham.

The Sleeper Pick

The sleeper MVP is GrobeStreet's call on a tiny interface gag he dubbed the Swipe Screen: "She took her glove palm and, like, grabbed the video and threw it in front of her so they could see it. I just thought the sound effects or everything was just so fucking cool." Great shark movies live and die on small tactile moments. The Meg has them.

The Draft Pick

Each episode, the hosts draft their favorite single element of the film.

• Stan Steamer took the shark-tagging sequence: "I'm taking the scene where they're trying to tag the shark and they're in the water with the tow line — sort of this like crazy, almost like water-skiing-esque situation." He also drafted Jax's look ("I was fully convinced that she was a digitally made person because of how cool she looked") and the gliders ("they just looked so, so fun").
• GrobeStreet took the Zorb attack: "The beach Zorb ball scene... The zorb was just absolutely — it looks so much fun, but also so terrified when a shark is chasing you." He also drafted the O-level elevator reveal and the fact that Jonas's first rescue was motivated by spite ("He had to prove his ex-wife wrong").

One Change to Blockbuster

What single change could have tipped The Meg from "critically mixed" into full blockbuster legend? Both hosts landed in the same place: go hard-R.

• GrobeStreet: "The higher rating with blood. If they just went all out for this — like, tense, scary, horrific shark movie that you don't bring the kids to go see."
• Stan Steamer agreed — "give me more limbs flying all over the place" — and added a casting nitpick: "I had a little bit of a hard time with Rainn Wilson. He's so typecast in my mind as Dwight from The Office. It's really hard to get over that."

Production Trivia

• The Meg opened to $145M globally in its first weekend and finished with $530M worldwide, making it the most commercially successful Jason Statham film of his career at the time.
• Bingbing Li, who plays Suyin, was 45 years old during filming — a detail that genuinely stopped both hosts mid-episode. "She takes great care of herself," Stan noted.
• The film was an international co-production between Warner Bros. and China's Gravity Pictures, which is part of why Meiying's arc and the Hainan Island setpieces carry as much screen time as the English-language leads.

The Quotable Moment (Pre-Bumper Sticker Era)

Episode 36 predates the "Bumper Sticker Line" segment, which the show introduced in Episode 43. No superlative was formally drafted here either — but both hosts circled the moment Jonas first spots the shark breach above the thermocline as the emotional centerpiece that justifies the whole premise.

The Spin-Off Idea

Each host pitches a spin-off the studio left on the table.

• Stan Steamer: Meg 5: Mind Control. Set decades in the future when the thermocline is breached by oil drilling. A grown-up Meiying has stayed in science and built a device for mind-controlling animals. "She harnesses one of these, like, crazy prehistoric beasts, and uses that to take down this sort of army of crazy prehistoric beasts that have taken over humanity."
• GrobeStreet: Below the Thermocline. A survival thriller that stays down there. "I want an entire movie — I don't really care how, I don't care if it's The Meg 7 or whatever — where, for some reason, it all takes place below the thermocline, exploring that whole world down there."

The Drink Pairing

• Stan Steamer: The Blood and Sand — Scotch, cherry liqueur, sweet vermouth, and blood orange juice. "The name is super on point for this film."
• GrobeStreet: "A couple ice-cold beach beers. So a couple Pacificos, a couple Coronas." Simple, summery, hot-sand-adjacent — matches the movie's vibe exactly.

Why The Meg Still Works

Most $500M blockbusters age into embarrassment within a decade. The Meg has gone the other direction. It's held up because it knows what it is: a glossy, confidently paced, mid-rated, globe-trotting creature feature built around a genuinely watchable Jason Statham performance. The R-rated version both hosts pitched would've been a different movie. The PG-13 one we got is a rewatch every summer.

Listen to the Full Episode

Stan Steamer and GrobeStreet break down The Meg in full on Episode 36 of the Slept-On Cinema podcast. Both agree it's one of the most comforting creature features of the modern era.

Listen now:
🎧 Spotify
🎙️ Apple Podcasts

Slept-On Cinema celebrates films with a Rotten Tomatoes critic score and audience score at or below 50% — not to mock them, but to find what's worth rescuing. New episodes weekly.