Meg 2: The Trench review: a shark movie drowned in stupidity

Sharks aren’t the only animals with horror movie cred. But while creature features have tackled almost every commonly known animal under the sun (or sea, or elsewhere), there’s not, say, a big-studio killer-snake movie every two or three years.

It’s still striking that sharks — easy to demonize because of their dead-looking eyes and supposed relentlessness, and because of the enduring popularity of Jaws and TV’s Shark Week — have inspired such a range of horrors, from stripped-down and intimate (The ShallowsThe gloomy (Open WaterThen, it’s back to SyFy level chintz. It is this latter water that can be dangerous. The Trench For the sake of self-conscious silliness, you may end up risking your own destruction.

Though 2018’s The MegThe adaptation was long in the making. Jaws-ish novel, it didn’t bear much resemblance to the all-time shark movie champion. Meg 2Swims farther away, it could be the first major shark movie that so completely plagiarizes Deep Blue SeaIt is a champion in its own right. Jaws ripoffs. The broader collection of sea monsters is a rip-off. Meg 2 also owes a debt to Steven Spielberg’s other megahit creature feature, Jurassic ParkIts goofier moments (or more precisely, its hilarious moments) Jurassic World sequels). This series is lacking in horror movie nerve compared with its unofficial sources: In the first film, the giant prehistoric sharks barely managed to consume the delicious human beings.

Meg 2 Even with Ben Wheatley, a director best known for dark comedy and violent thrillers, stepping up for the man who made Phenomenon. In the new film, Jonas Taylor is back (Jason Statham) and he uses his oceanic brawn in order to combat environmental crimes on behalf of the Oceanic Institute. He also makes repeated submersions into the lost-world trench as a security detail (after defeating an escape megalodon from the previous film). The creatures are kept at bay by a thermocline, a layer of shifted-temperature water trapping them in their habitat — save one megalodon, who has been inexplicably raised in captivity by the well-meaning yet deeply stupid scientists. (This is such a dumb idea that the movie can’t regard it as a convenience, and seems uncertain about how to make it a plot point.)

Suyin, the Oceanographer (Li Bingbing) from previous MegMeiying’s (Sophia Cai) mother,, was unceremoniously dropped from the screen in between films, and she is now a teenager. Meiying is eager to follow in her mom’s ocean-exploring footsteps, while both of her surrogate dads, Jonas and her uncle Jiuming (Wu Jing), balk at this idea (Jonas especially; Jiuming is more of a daredevil). The majority of the population is a large portion Meg 2The film is not a monster mix but an underwater thriller. That’s a good way to keep busy between shark attacks. Meiying steals on a routine run to a mine, and the adventure turns deadly after Jonas (or whoever he is) uncovers a mining rogue with unanticipated backing. There are also additional megalodons down there, because, as Qui-Gon Jinn sagely pointed out, there’s always a bigger fish.

Warner Bros. Pictures

There’s no rule, however, that there’s always a better-looking fish. Conventional wisdom has held for years that rainy and nighttime scenes could hide shady effects. Meg 2Takes that strategy to the extreme with its lengthy underwater sequences. The deep-ocean murk and unreal textures don’t just enhance the middling CG; they create easy shortcuts to stylization, with reflective surfaces, red emergency lighting, and bioluminescence providing Wheatley with better image-making opportunities than the overlit, frequently ugly original. It doesn’t have the painterly textures of 2020’s Underwater (or the moodiness of Wheatley’s smaller pictures), but at least Meg 2 doesn’t spend as much time skimming the surface as its predecessor. Wheatley may not know how to get the most suspense out of this material but he does maintain a corny sci-fi zip.

Unfortunately, what goes down must come back up to the surface for a protracted and increasingly manic monster-attack climax, as the bad guys’ machinations loose another set of megs. In the movie’s final 45 minutes or so, the watery setting only exacerbates the fakeness of the CG animals, frequently green-screened settings, and even sometimes the computerized goopiness of the water itself.

It’s not just the effects that falter, either; the editing hits increasing chop as Wheatley cuts between various mini set-pieces. Still, he does have some fun with the shoddy-looking monsters, at one point placing a (virtual) camera just behind a megalodon’s massive teeth as victims are swept inside its mouth and, presumably, down its gullet (an R-rated version of this shot could have been a great B-movie knockoff of a terrifying moment from the recent Nope). It’s fine.Look at the pictures below.The B-movie tradition shows a giant Squid as a series of endless tentacles appearing from the water. No creature has ever been seen. JawsMegalodons are known to swim with their fins sticking out of the surface water.

Warner Bros. Pictures

It is a good thing that sharks are almost as unaware as their prey. It’s true. Meg 2The movie has little to offer to the subgenre of shark movies, except for the fact that it is too low-budget to be able to show its full potential. Jason Statham’s cartoon stoicism is the source of its simpler spectacle. Cliff Curtis, a reliable character actor and the rest of the cast are all charming. Resident Evil alum Sienna Guillory, aren’t at shark-slaying levels; Statham is, though, as ever, he’s more fun in hand-to-hand combat with actual humans.

Two movies in, the Meg series doesn’t seem to have much idea about what makes sharks scary, apart from the fact that they appeared that way in other, better movies. Sharks have been portrayed in too many films as calculating, malevolent forces. At least these movies understand our primal and instinctive fear when we realize that much of the planet is not ours. The trenches of Meg 2It is not a movie that inspires awe or terror. More fantastical Warner films like AquamanYou can also find out more about Godzilla vs. Kong do a better job on both counts.) Statham, on the other hand, is a force that most movies understand; while sharks are just another poorly sketched villain.

The Trench The movie hits cinemas August 4.