After 20 years of development hell, the film The Meg opens in Australia this week. The screenplay is based on the first of Steve Alten’s six-book, horror sci-fi series. The film has been pitched as an action-packed thriller, centring on our hero, naval captain and diver Jonas Taylor (played by Jason Statham) and his monstrous fishy nemesis. The pre-launch trailer, featuring frightening scenes of the Meg set to Beyond the Sea, a chirpy love song first popularised by Bobby Darin, suggests we shouldn’t take the film too seriously. But, then again, perhaps we should.