Just when you thought it was safe to go to the movies again. . . There hasn’t been a Jaws sequel in over 30 years. Sharknado is thankfully relegated to the SyFy channel. And The Shallows, yeah, it was actually pretty damn good. But now, terror reaches new heights, er, depths, with The Meg. Based on the surprisingly well-liked novels by Steve Alten, The Meg brings the ocean’s fiercest predator back to the surface.

Five years after losing two friends to an unknown beast, deep sea rescuer Jonay Taylor (Jason Statham) is called back into action to save a sub from the deepest trench on Earth. The explorers are soon terrorized by a Megaladon, the largest shark species in history, thought to be extinct for millions of years. Once the Meg decides to take a trip to shallower waters, it’s up to ‘Jonas and friends’ to stop the shark’s rampage, before it finds fresh meat. Oh, also, Jonas has to save his ex-wife. But it’s not a reconciliation story, because he actually has the hots for this new oceanographer chick. But she only gets interested in him after he takes his shirt off. It makes sense, don’t worry.

“It’s already proven aggressive to boats.”

It shouldn’t come as a shock that The Meg is not well put together. The CGI is awful, the editing is terribly jarring. Two things badly needed for a passable monster flick. And for a movie called The Meg, it takes an inordinate amount of screen time to get to the actual shark. I swear we passed the forty minute mark before it made an appearance. Or maybe it just felt that long. However, it does deliver on some ridiculous shark action, as promised by the snappy trailers. We have sharks swallowing whales, jumping over boats, terrorizing Chinese beach-goers, the works. At one point, topping Jaws 4‘s roaring Great White, the Meg leaps clear out of the water, Statham riding its head the whole way.

Now, This Guy thought he knew what to expect from The Meg, but unfortunately, he was mistaken. It’s actually really hard to place in the hierarchy of shark attack films. It’s not Jaws. But it’s also not Jaws: The Revenge. It’s not exactly Sharknado, because that at least knows exactly what it is. The Meg feels like it has no idea what it’s actually trying to do. Are they taking the piss out of everything? Not really. There;s humour, but nowhere near as funny as needed, and certainly not self-referential. The trailers were more self-aware than the finished film. Is it trying to just be a by-the-books shark flick, ala Deep Blue Sea? Then why such a shoddy job on an easy mindless blockbuster? Supposedly there was a cut of this flick with a hard R and tons of gore. For a movie about a giant killer shark, The Meg is surprisingly tame and sterilized. Just not in any decent way.

“That living fossil ate my friend.”

That’s not to say it’s a bad film. It is, but that’s not the point here. The Meg chose to swim straight down a very strange line in the shark flick hierarchy. Rather than go full cheese, and keep us laughing at the ludicrous display, and instead of playing it totally straight and making us laugh harder, it just sort of. . . treaded water. Never fully committing to deliver what we all wanted.

This Guy Scores It: Who cares? Statham RIDES the fucking thing into the SKY!