MEG 2: THE TRENCH:
DULL JASON STATHAM SHARK SEQUEL SEVERELY LACKS CHEESY FUN OF ITS PREDECESSOR (UNTIL THE LAST THIRD)!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: * ½ out of 4
WARNER BROS. PICTURES
The Megalodon is back in Meg 2: The Trench
Charismatic action star Jason Statham (The Transporter franchise, Crank 1 and 2, Fast & Furious franchise) returns as veteran diver Jonas Taylor to battle more sharks in Meg 2: The Trench, the sequel to the 2018 smash hit, The Meg. I enjoyed the first Meg as a dumb, cheesy homage to B-movies and giant monster films.
Yes, it has a lot of problems, and I don’t get into the human characters that much (Aside from Jason Statham), but there is plenty of shark screen-time and completely absurd moments that make it a fun watch for me. It’s the kind of film that knows it’s silly and stupid and just wants to take you along for the ride.
After the film was proven to be a success, a sequel was immediately put into development with Statham reprising his role and Ben Wheatley (Free Fire, Rebecca, In the Earth) replacing Jon Turteltaub as director. The trailers and advertising looked promising and since it’s a sequel, the Megalodon shark was likely going to be more prominent this time around because it was already established in the first film, so I wanted this to be complete, brain-rotting nonsense…that was some wishful thinking on my part.
Unlike The Meg which I proudly called a “So Bad It’s Good” movie, Meg 2: The Trench is an extremely disjointed and surprisingly dull follow-up with even less shark than the first movie. Aside from a purely chaotic final act where the movie finally gains some momentum, this is one of the most soulless sequels I’ve seen in a long time that not even Jason Statham’s charisma could save.
Following the events of The Meg, the film follows diver Jonas Taylor (Statham) leading a daring research team on an exploratory dive into the deepest depths of the ocean. When their “fantastic” voyage spirals into chaos when a malevolent mining operation threatens their mission and pits the group up against colossal Megs and other terrors of the deep, they must outrun, outsmart, and outswim these vicious sea predators in a pulse-pounding race against time.
The film also stars Wu Jing (Wolf Warrior 1 and 2, The Wandering Earth 1 and 2, The Battle at Lake Changjin 1 and 2) as Jiuming, Page Kennedy (S.W.A.T., Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood, Freaky Deaky) reprising his role as DJ, Sergio Peris-Mencheta (Resident Evil: Afterlife, Snowfall, Rambo: Last Blood) as Montes, Skyler Samuels (Wizards of Waverly Place, Scream Queens, The Gifted) as Jess, Cliff Curtis (Training Day, Whale Rider, Avatar: The Way of Water) as Mac, and Sienna Guillory (Resident Evil franchise, Eragon, Helen of Troy) as Hillary Driscoll.
Overall, Meg 2: The Trench should have been mindless popcorn entertainment throughout and while it eventually delivers some in the last act, it is a slog to get there to the point where it just isn’t worth it. The biggest crime this film commits is that it’s boring, I don’t know how you can make a movie about Jason Statham battling sharks boring, but those bastards found a way by having very little shark action and more humans exploring the dark, murky, and visually uninteresting underwater trench.
It feels like two completely different movies awkwardly spliced together with one being the Meg sequel we all paid to go see shark carnage, cheesy one-liners, and all while the other is this Abyss-style sea exploration movie with corporate espionage and rare earth mineral farming. The two plotlines almost never correlate with each other during this near two-hour snooze-fest with only a few glimpses of sharks here and there just to remind you what you’re watching.
Because of the serious lack of shark, the film once again focuses heavily on the human characters and like in the first film, I don’t really care about these people. While I never found any of them to be obnoxious, most of the characters for me ranged from bland and underdeveloped to just there and if you’re going to have a shark movie that’s heavily focused on humans then you better have some damn compelling or humorous characters for the audience to be invested in, the writers really should have taken notes on the main trio from Jaws or Blake Lively from The Shallowsand why those characters are captivating and why these tools are not…I’ll even take Jason Statham teaming up with Samuel L. Jackson from Deep Blue Sea.
Most of the action is dull because the majority of it takes place in this murky underwater trench at night so it’s hard to see what you’re looking at. Despite being all CGI, I enjoyed some of the creature designs during the action in the trench, but because the sequences are so dark and poorly lit, I can’t really appreciate the imagination or absurdity behind them.
However, Meg 2: The Trench eventually gains some momentum in the last third with a climax involving three Megs, a giant kraken, and underwater lizard-like monsters attacking an island and Jason Statham on a jet ski. This is when the film finally comes alive, and I start to have fun watching all these creative sea monsters attack people on an island, laughing at the over-the-top kills, and enjoying the cheesy dialogue, the problem is it’s delivered too late while the rest of the film has been incredibly dull prior to it so it doesn’t really feel like a rewarding payoff.
Despite an incredible final act, Meg 2: The Trench is a dull slog of a shark sequel that lacks the cheesy fun of its predecessor and a complete waste of time. You’re better off just waiting for the movie to come out on streaming, skip most of the film, and just watch the climax or if the last third gets uploaded to YouTube sometime soon.
It should have been a “So Bad It’s Good” movie to enjoy with tons of drinks and instead it’s a movie that will leave you in desperate need of a coffee (or any sort of caffeinated beverage) to keep yourself awake throughout the majority of it. Bad shark, very, VERY bad shark!
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