Meg 2: The Trench Review (2024)

It pains this staunch The Meg defender and all-around shark-movie lover to report that Ben Wheatley’s Meg 2: The Trench is a titanic disaster. Like a lazy student caught spying on their neighbor’s test, writers Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, and Dean Georgaris adapt author Steve Alten’s The Trench by unsubtly “borrowing” from superior films with similar desires to unleash monsters both alien and earthly while humanity pays a brutal price (that we deserve). James Cameron’s Aliens, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park: The Lost World, William Eubank’s Underwater, and more have their signatures stolen by Meg 2: The Trench, forcing comparisons that never favor 2023’s most infuriating summer release. There have been so few movies about megalodons, and yet Meg 2: The Trench feels like a creature feature we’ve seen a billion times over – probably on late-night cable, only able to hold our attention for fleeting minutes before the channel changes to greener televised pastures.

Jason Statham returns as diver extraordinaire Jonas Taylor, but there’s so little effort made by the trio of writers to get viewers up to speed on his past exploits in the realm of aquatic cryptozoology. The off-screen fridging of Suyin Zhang – Li Bingbing does not return – opens the door for Suyin’s brother Jiuming (played by Chinese action star Wu Jing) to fill in as Statham’s buddy counterpart. It’s a shame, because losing that appealing romantic tension between a charming, multidimensional Statham and Li deflates Meg 2. Statham falls back into the chirpy action-hero stereotypes that have defined his most forgettable efforts, and is less endearing as “Protective Father Figure Statham” chaperoning the return of Sophia Cai as Suyin’s always-makes-the-worst-decision daughter Meiying Zhang. Nameless companions defined by their underwhelming demises, the frustrating imbalance between toothless from-the-deep terrors and B-movie ambitions laughed at for the wrong reasons –it's all so surface-shallow.

An anemic screenplay devoid of connective tissue between The Meg and Meg 2 quickly raises red flags. Georgaris and the Hoeber brothers sacrifice any semblance of thoughtful scripting as Jiuming’s oceanic research project is infiltrated by technology-stealing rivals, churning through waterlogged action beats held together with seen-before storytelling chains rusted to the point of disintegration. It displays all the confidence and craftsmanship of a Syfy Original given a Warner Bros. Discovery budget, which feels so distressingly unlike Wheatley’s other, sharper-witted films. Dialogue dribbles out of mouths like it’s written by an AI database fed only great white schlock like Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre or Jersey Shore Shark Attack (both real), as the film throttles forward into the most basic plot advancement this side of Weyland-Yutani meets Deep Blue Sea.

Even worse, Meg 2 devolves into a visual eyesore after an almost exclusively submerged first act surfaces for sea monster feeding frenzies at an Instagramable paradise numbingly dubbed “Fun Island.” There are shots as Taylor leads exosuit-wearing divers across “The Trench” where the beauty of unexplored ocean depths illuminates – neon tendrils on flora wave with the current, and baby octopi colored like different Skittles flavors bob like buoys. Then the action reaches shore, and atrocities against green screen usage become the norm. Attack sequences look horrendous as computerized recreations of megalodons, human snacks, and water splashes layer jankily atop one another. Digital effects in the back half present as embarrassingly rushed versus the film’s more impressive beginning, almost like a whole different team – from director on down – reshot everything under frugal conditions at a breakneck pace. That would also explain the barren production design around Fun Island, which gives up dressing empty space, creating locations that somehow devalue scenic Chinese landscapes.

Not even carnage can salvage Meg 2. Statham and Wu wage war against megs with homemade explosive spears while riding personal watercraft like spring break jousters, and yet there’s no lasting impression left by the violence. The gore of Meg 2 is PG-13 tame and entirely animal-related –a complaint the similarly rated first film dodged thanks to thicker tension, intense thrills, and far tighter tonal command. A few chills are felt when a meg swims out of The Trench’s pitch-black shadows and right past Taylor’s billion-dollar submersible, but there’s hardly any horror elsewhere. The repetition of megs swallowing victims whole to avoid disgusting injuries overstays its welcome.

It’s astonishing to witness Meg 2 nosedive, because the opening third – a survival-horror stretch about escaping The Trench – earns a shoulders-shrugged-up “fine.” The remaining two-thirds sink like a stone statue wearing concrete shoes. Quality diminishes as performances become increasingly phoned-in or special-effects attention wanes (as mentioned above). Key guests of Fun Island possess the on-screen presence of wealthy Patreon donors who spent tens of thousands for a small speaking role –not to excuse top-billed actors like Sienna Guillory or Skyler Samuels, whose lifeless turns won’t be clipped for demo reels. Even something as innocuous as ADR’ed lines – a common technical element in all movies – hit with an amateurish choppiness that doesn’t match the eye for detail Wheatley exhibited in Kill List and Sightseers.

When Meg 2: The Trench embraces the simpler shark-infested pleasures that define the original, it's at its best. Page Kennedy steals scenes as returning engineer DJ, overcoming his wimpier ways and reborn as an action hero this time around. Cliff Curtis gets to lob jokes at Statham’s harder-edged lead, and those might sneak a quick smirk. Swarms of reptilian mini-predators thrash and gnash at Taylor’s colleagues in The Trench, an additional threat that adds much-needed adversarial opportunities. These are flickers of a better Meg 2: The Trench, directed by a filmmaker with enthusiasm for his vision, while the rest feels like studio gruel that values nothing but spectacular distraction without any substance or passion for the art form.

Not even carnage can salvage Meg 2