*Contains spoilers*

The Meg is a movie that was hyped for months before its release on Aug. 3, 2018. The movie is an absolute thriller, featuring a giant prehistoric shark, the megalodon. The megalodon, “big tooth,”  is a 75-foot-long shark that lived back in the early Pliocene era. The movie features Jason Statham, Ruby Rose, and Rainn Wilson as some of the main characters. The film made an astounding 365.6 million dollars at the box office.

This film brings the giant sharks back into play, after the infamous movies Jaws and Deep Blue Sea. The movie has some major plot twists that kept me on the edge of my seat. It brings the concept of, with our ever growing technology, that maybe this idea isn’t too far off. The newly developed submarines and research on sharks could always bring a new creature into our century. Who knows, maybe there is a giant shark roaming the depths of our ocean. The Meg kind of brings us as humans back into a reality check. We haven’t always been on the top of the food chain, and we certainly aren’t now, as this movie supports. The film gives us the familiar feeling of suddenly not wanting to go on the yearly trip to the beach, just as Jaws did.

I personally loved the way the sharks were done. I’ve always been captivated by great white sharks. The Meg blew the mechanical shark from Jaws and the “smart sharks” from Deep Blue Sea out of the water.  Some say that the movie is a cheesy version of Jaws, which isn’t true. Jaws is only an icon because it was the first shark. Yes, Jaws gets points for being the first and bringing the concept of killer sharks, but it’s not nearly as well done as The Meg. They shouldn’t be compared, because The Meg is the new Jaws. With the availability of resources in 1975, the Jaws shark only looked good from one angle, whereas the Meg looks astonishing throughout the movie with multiple angles and movements. The creators of the Meg strategically created the movie poster with a human, a shark (quite similar to the size of the infamous Jaws shark)  and the Meg, which absolutely dwarfs the Jaws shark, giving it the appearance of a minnow. The Meg has “more teeth” and proves that bigger and better is the way to go.

If that weren’t already enough to declare The Meg the superior shark movie, add in the fact that the Sam Noble Museum in Oklahoma has just announced a new exhibit: Megalodon. Last time I checked, the shark in Jaws didn’t get a whole informational exhibit about it.

The Meg, however, was not all shark attacks and smiles. The saddest part of the movie for me, honestly, was when the humpback whale and calf were killed by the megalodon. I mean, they were just minding their own business. However, this scene also shows the pure size and muscle of the shark as it attacks the facility leaving gigantic teeth marks in the glass.

My favorite part of the movie was when they injected the megalodon with poison and got it onto the boat. Upon examining the body of the shark, they realize that the teeth don’t match the impressions in the glass from a previous scene. A few things ran through my mind: “Did they just kill a big great white?” “Why don’t they match?” And then the REAL megalodon breaks the surface of the water and grabs the carcass of the now dwarfed megalodon compared to this shark. It flips the boat and takes the other shark with it. That part of the movie honestly blew my mind. How could there be TWO huge sharks lose?

The Meg is such an amazingly done movie and will be my favorite movie until something else is worthy enough. I mean, who wouldn’t love a movie about a giant prehistoric shark coming into our century?