I’m not too proud to admit that this was a film I’d anticipated at the beginning of the year. Jason Statham versus a Gigantic Prehistoric Shark? This looked like goofy pleasure made right for my stupid pleasure bone. No, Statham’s never going to trouble the Oscars with nuanced performance and emotional transformation, but in meatheaded classics like the Transporter and Crank films, he’s got a certain go-for-broke machismo which can be ridiculously entertaining.
Alas, this doesn’t really fulfil those wishes. It all feels very by-the-numbers and blunted down, whether it’s the minimisation of any actual gore from the prehistoric shark attacks, Statham being in the uncomfortable position of having to be forced into playing both traumatised and romantic rather than just unstoppable badass, the overstuffed supporting cast (Ruby Rose, for instance, has proved she can be a good addition to an ensemble, but in this film she has virtually nothing to do – she’s not even spouting exposition behind a computer screen, the most she does is briefly give the Megaladon an option for a potential feeding frenzy that doesn’t really happen).
Look, this has its occasional moments – a couple of reasonable shark attacks, a cute kid who is, I’ll reluctantly concede, definitely cute, and a half-decent ending. But I hoped for a whole lot more than I got.
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