Meg 2: The Trench Review

After a five-year break, the Megalodons return in a sequel to The Meg. Cult filmmaker Ben Wheatley takes on the directional duties for his first studio film.

Five years after a Megalodon attack on Sanya Bay, Mana One has continued to explore the Mariana Trench for scientific research. During the latest exploration mission, Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) and his team discover an illegal undersea mining operation. When the Mana One subs crash Jonas and his teams are forced to get to the mining facility whilst avoiding all the deadly sea creatures.

There have been numerous shark B-Movies that have been released. There have been films like the Sharknado and Mega Shark movies, and they clearly have an audience. The Meg movies want to capture that audience and the films have been cheesy, silly monster movies. This was the case with Meg 2’s trailers which highlighted the monster carnage and the gags. However, these trailers only told half the story.

Meg 2 was a film of two halves. It told two different stories and had two different tones. The first film was a much more serious film that had heavy-handed environmental themes. It looked like Wheatley wanted to make a James Cameron movie, specifically a movie like Aliens and The Abyss. This was due to the dark setting of The Tench and the industry look of the underwater mining operation. There were also story ideas involving industrial and corporate corruption, sabotage, and explorations, themes that were common in Cameron’s films and still have a presence in the Avatar films. The imagery of Jonas and the other survivors marching on the sea floor did look similar to the crew of the Nostromo exploring LV-426 in the first Alien movie.

This serious tone of this half of the film did not fit Meg 2’s story. The film spends a lot of time on character development as it showed the relationship between Jonas and his step-daughter, Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) because she wanted to join the exploration despite only being 14. It was hard to take the film seriously when the audience was meant to accept that an underwater mining facility could be built without anyone noticing and a character was able to swim 25,000 feet under the sea without a diving suit. The film tries0 to explain it but it doesn’t make it any more plausible.

This section of the film had a dark, gloomy undersea setting and the mining facility had an industrial look. Compared with the self-seriousness, Wheatley seemed like he was working as a gun-for-hire director. Wheatley is known for making surreal art-house films, think pieces, and dark comedies. His filmography includes films like Kill List, Sightseers, and A Field in England. He is also a B-Movie fan, he has worked with Arrow Films when they re-released the cult classic Zardoz. The Meg sequel could have been more interesting if he had been allowed a freer reign.

Meg 2 got into gear during this second half. This was when we got all the monster carnage that audiences want as three Megalodons and various other creatures attacked another Chinese beach resort. This was similar to the climax of the first film, but at least there was a sense of fun and a tongue-in-cheek tone. This half of the film featured many people getting eaten and attacked and had Jason Statham riding around on a jet ski with explosive harpoons. The film embraced its silliness, and it made Meg 2 a more enjoyable experience.

The second half of the film ramped up the comedy and this was where Meg 2 felt Wheatley-esque. Wheatley films often show humans being the worst and during this sequence, the characters were willing to screw each other to ensure their survival.

Despite Meg 2 offering the monster madness it had the same problem as the sequels to Jaws and Jurassic Park: they were all trying to continue a one-off story. They all had no reason to have a continuation from an artistic perspective. Meg 2 had a bigger disadvantage since The Meg was hardly an original film to begin with.

Meg 2 offered the enjoyment a B-Movie fan would want but they would have to sit through a slow and ponderous first half.