Meg 2: The Trench

• Titled Shark 2 in some territories
• Directed by Ben Wheatley
• June 9, 2023 (SIFF) / August 4, 2023 (US)
• Based on the 1999 novel The Trench by Steve Alten

A malevolent secret mining operation allows a trio of ferocious megalodon to pass through the protective thermal layer and terrorize the surface.

As big and dumb movies go Meg 2: The Trench is among the biggest and the dumbest. It’s unapologetically over the top and largely testosterone driven as well as a bit of a rehash of the last film. And that’s just fine.

The Meg was not a sophisticated film but rather it was well done in its abject stupidity. It was enjoyable junk. I’m genuinely surprised anybody made that movie the more I think about it. And I’m surprised anybody made a sequel. I think we can all think of a film or three that was really good and made plenty of money even though it wasn’t a critical darling but because it was just like this-big and dumb. Money may breed sequels but studios like the street cred that comes from critical love.

Jason Statham’s character of Jonas Taylor has gone from a disillusioned antisocial individual to a crusading environmentalist who takes on polluters much like any Jason Statham character would with one-liners and lots of action. In the opener he is gathering evidence of illegal dumping and waits until he is 200+ miles from land to pop out of his shipping container and gather evidence. Did he know this was the spot they would be dumping at? Why not have a plane or boat ready rather than be solo so far from land? It makes for a cool scene but makes little sense.

Most of the other survivors from the last movie return other than Jonas’s girlfriend Suyin Zhang who died of terminal movie illness prior to this sequel. I really am not sure how she died and that seems kinda important. Jonas cares for Suyin’s daughter Meiying (Sophia Cai). Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Jason Statham has finally gotten to the point where in the big budget movies he’s got a kid. Homefront wasn’t big budget. Let’s be honest.

More monsters escape through a hole in the thermal layer of the trench. We get three megalodons, a squid, and aquatic dinosaurs. It makes for some cool moments, but they’ve been down there for millions of years and you’ve got to ask how do they still have legs? Legs would seem to be the most useless thing that far down. At least legs capable of walking on land yet here we are. And do not even consider why those dinosaurs have lungs capable of breathing air.

There are themes of pollution and corporate corruption, but those are more excuses for action than anything. And the action is fantastic. It starts and does not let up. The people here know exactly why the audience is watching and that is to see Jason Statham kick butt and he does plenty of that as do the rest of the supporting cast.

While it’s not a serious action movie it certainly does take a much more humorous tone than the previous movie. It doesn’t become a straight up comedy but even the kills are funny. And funny kills means bad guys are going to get their just desserts in an appropriately humorous way.

What jumped out at me by the end was how few of the good guys actually died in comparison to the first. I think it maxed out at three. Once that realization hits you that nobody else is going to die because so much time has elapsed from the previous death to whatever point in the story you’re in it does take away that a sense of danger for the characters. You get that they’re all going to make it out okay and that’s exactly what happened.

And the characters that died are extremely underdeveloped. They were given depth in the last movie so there was a bit of a feeling for a while there that anybody other than Jason Statham could die. They offed people left and right. Then again Meg 2: The Trench does not have as many supporting characters as the last movie.  The core cast is relatively small and there are even an extremely small number of minor characters. SOMEBODY needs to finish the story.

There’s a token human villain named Montes (Sergio Peris Mencheta) who I guess was the captain of the boat in the opener. They are not clear with that via in film information. But they are clear that after spending two years in a Philippine prison he has a hard on to get revenge on Jonas. But honestly the real bad guys are not Montes or the or the polluters or the greedy corporation that set up the undersea base to mine rare earth minerals. The real villains are the monsters. They feature a lot more in the story than the people that actually caused the issues.

There isn’t much story here. It’s just ‘kill the monsters before the monsters destroy and eat too many people.’ The mercenary miners are for action purposes and to give the heroes a tangible final conflict. It is a rehash of the last film with a smaller cast but done well enough that it feels fresh and fun.

Meg 2: The Trench is not art but rather pure entertainment. It’s just meant to entertain and it does that in spades. If you want to watch a fun movie this is it!