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The Meg is a science-fiction action film which came out in 2018, starring Jason Statham as gruff and stoic diving expert, Jonas Taylor. Comprised of a C-list cast and some mediocre CGI, the story follows a group of suspiciously attractive marine biologists and a most ingenious antagonist for a film set entirely in the ocean: a giant fucking shark.

We’ve all seen Jaws, Sharknado 1, Sharknado 2, Sharknado 3, Sharknado 4, Sharknado 5, Sharknado 6, The Reef, The Shallows, 47-metres Down. There’s inarguably a market for shark-related movies, and The Meg slots nicely into a well-established, if narrow, genre. So what could one have to say about a film in which an angry, aquaticallyproficient, action-movie trope (Statham, not the shark) paddles around with a harpoon for a little under two hours?

While my commentary may seem harsh, The Meg stands as not only one of my favourite movies, but exemplifies an interesting crevasse in a well documented phenomena I will hereby refer to as ‘good-bad movies.’ We all know a good-bad movie when we see one, be it Clueless, Nightmare on Elm Street, the Fast and Furious franchise (Statham strikes again), they are each placed on a unique axis of critically unacclaimed and widely popular. Some are self-aware, leaning into their nature as a satirical parody of actual movies (Austin Powers, Zoolander, Mars Attacks). Others started as genuine attempts at filmmaking, before being accepted as cult-classic trash for university students to watch while getting stoned (The Room, Birdemic, The Happening).

Where The Meg falls short against many of its shark relatives is its failure to commit to either category of the good-bad movie, despite ticking many of the preliminary boxes. It holds a sweet 46 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and grossed $530.2 million against a budget of approximately $150 million, establishing it as both a reviews flop and a box office banger. However, as articulated by Owen Gleiberman writing for Variety, The Meg is simply not “good enough - nor bad enough” to reach the goodbad movie stardom I so badly want for it.