Have you ever been disappointed in a movie that you thought was going to be really good? Most people have, at one point, gotten their hopes up over watching a movie that seemed like it was going to be fantastic. It sadly is a feeling that comes through a lot with movies and “The Meg” is one that did not deliver what it should have.

           Released on Aug. 10, “The Meg” opened with barely $45 million dollars at the box office, which is less than half of its $130 million movie budget. So, already, the movie was a flop and I can see why it only made a third of its budget because the film was not that good.

Jon Turteltaub, who produced the “National Treasure” films, directed and Jason Statham, Ruby Rose, Rainn Wilson, and Bingbing Li starred as some of the main characters. With Statham on board with this film, you would think that it would have been a lot better, but not even his role could help bring this movie back from the deep-sea trenches.

           “The Meg” follows the plot of a group of deep-sea researchers in China who encounter the 75-foot-long shark Megalodon, who was the biggest shark to ever exist and was thought to have been extinct for millions of years. The crew must figure out how to help save the waters and defeat Megalodon, with the help of Statham’s character Jonas Taylor, who is a deep-sea diver and rescuer and encountered the massive predator five years before.

           Reading the plot sounds like the film would be very interesting and full of action and terror, but it is mediocre at its best. The film starts off slow and we do not see Megalodon until over a half hour into the movie when it eats a giant squid and destroys one of the facilities’ trapped submarines. For how much the film’s trailer showed of Megalodon’s attacks, the film sure does love to focus more on the characters and their relationships than the actual force they’re supposed to be fighting. Now, character developments and relationships are a good thing to have in a film, but when it’s supposed to be about battling a humongous prehistoric living fossil, all I want to see is that battle and less of the other characters and their troubles against each other. And this movie did not show as much of the battles and attacks that I thought it would. The trailer was misleading and made it seem like it would be more terrifying and a little comical, but overall it was just cheesy and cliché.

           I guess I had more of an expectation of it being bloodier and gorier, which would have made this film a lot better. The PG-13 rating really set this film back because there is not as much bloody action that you would expect from a shark movie. As we have seen before, having horror (and other) movies trying to get a PG-13 rating, the film falls flat because it is more focused on getting teens to see this movie than getting the plot to deliver on its promise. The dialogue was also cheesy and nothing too spectacular.

           This film has the same feel as “Deep Blue Sea,” but I would rather watch that film that this one. The only time I would watch this film again was if there was nothing else on tv to watch. I had high hopes for “The Meg” but it really disappointed. Even some of the actors and director have said that this film is not what it was supposed to be and are disappointed as well with the final product.

           Overall, “The Meg” is a film that had a great concept that did not come to fruition. It is sad that it did not live up to its potential because there were so many things that could have been done to make this movie awesome. If you see this film, you will not be blown away and if you do not see this film, you’re not missing out on much. Sorry “The Meg” but you will never rise up to the surface of your potential and will have to settle back down to the deep dark depths of the sea until someone can make a better version of the story.