Journalists present at the Meg 2: The Trenchthe media screening received a voucher good for a “Sharktastic Cocktail” at the theater’s lobby bar. The last time I can remember a studio throwing critics drunk before a screening cats – and when that knowledge came to me, he anticipated a strange horror Mag 2 that the film never arrived. oh sure, Mag 2 it’s bad, but not in the surreal WTF-am-I-seeing? therefore Cats is bad Mag 2 is the most common, more common, less attractive type of waste; the kind you need more than one drink to enjoy.
First Meg it wasn’t jawbut it wasn’t Jaws: The Revenge either. In fact, back in 2018, I gave it a positive review on this very website, writing…
Too much time is spent on the characters, their connections, and the cuteness of the ocean floor rescue. Then The Meg returns to the surface, and its title character attacks Statham and his chums (please clap) at their high-tech marine lab. Suddenly the movie becomes a stupid stupid slasher movie, full of stupid jump scares. (As it turns out, the largest shark that ever lived is surprisingly good at sneaking up on its prey.)
Mag 2well, a little too faithful to the first film, as it spends even more time on the characters, their connections, and the cuteness of the ocean floor rescue – and it adds a pointless subplot about a mine full of “rare Earth minerals” at the bottom of the sea. Minutes and minutes pass without a single sighting of Meg (short for “megalodon,” as in a giant prehistoric shark) as the heroes investigate this illegal mining operation. The movie is more than 90 minutes before the slasher part starts – and by then, I was too tired to find much that was really stupid.
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The most important non-historical character is again diver and underwater rescue expert Jonas Taylor, played by Jason Statham. As Mag 2 begins, Jonas gets into a massive martial arts fight on a cargo ship with a bunch of illegal toxic waste divers. Why are divers and underwater rescue experts spying on sailors? My best guess is that the filmmakers realized that not much interest was going to happen over the next hour of their movie, and they really wanted to get some kind of enjoy it.
After that short diversion, the main plot begins at a facility in China called the “Oceanic Institute.” That’s where Jonas works when he’s not hitting toxic waste dumpers. At the Institute, the only Meg left from the first film lives in captivity, where several scientists are studying her, including Jonas’ friends (and returning Am Meg actors) Mac (Cliff Curtis) and DJ (Kennedy Page). Also on hand is Jiuming (Wolf Warriorand Wu Jing), an engineer whose creations include an exo suit that can increase the wearer’s strength and help them withstand the enormous weight at the bottom of the ocean. Was it Chekhov who said that if you introduce a strengthening exo suit in the first scene, it must increase someone’s strength by the last scene?
Anyway, it turns out that Jiuming is also the sister of Suyin, the female hero of Am Meg played by Li Bingbing – who did not return for the sequel, so is said to have died at some point between films. (RIP.) But her character’s daughter, Meiying (Sophia Cai), is still around, and now lives with her uncle (or with Jonas? It’s not clear.)
Jiuming thinks he can train their captive Meg to obey his audio commands. Jonas, who had an underwater dogfight with Meg in the first film, is understandably skeptical. Was it Chekhov who said that if you introduce a large prehistoric shark training in the first scene, a large prehistoric shark must respond to that training by the last scene?
Anyway, all these characters, along with several others, pass through an oceanic thermocline (just Wikipedia it) on a normal exploratory dive to the bottom of the sea. It seems that the Jonas team have completed 25 dives to this trench without incident – but wouldn’t you know it, when we watch they discover that there is an illegal mine , going into a series of ever-growing problems, and finally with a handful. of Megs and other assorted underwater creatures.
The long stretch of Meg 2: The Trench really located in the trench it is tedious in the real, especially in the section where the characters have to put on suits Jiuming and verrrrrry gently walk across the ocean floor to find a way back to the surface. This struggle ends in an ugly and impossible to follow set piece involving a race to an airlock and away from prehistoric monsters. From shot to shot, it is not clear where any of the people are in relation to each other, and they keep jumping around; they could look like a football field away from the sky in one shot and then inches from it in the next. It looks like… well, honestly, it looks like you’re watching people slowly march along the bottom of the ocean inside identical scuba suits.
Look, I’m not made of stone. When Jason Statham gets into what amounts to a prank match with three Megs while riding a jet ski and brandishing explosives, I laugh. When he dispatches an enemy with a shark-related punch, I laugh. That’s how this whole movie should be! Instead, those brief moments of delight are buried at the bottom of an ocean of exposition, dumb plot twists, and unbelievable underwater action scenes.
With so little else to occupy my mind, at a certain point I began to watch a lot Mag 2dialogue seems, in a meta way, to refer to the film itself – as if the characters recognize they are in a crappy film, but powerless to escape. These lines include:
- “Megs and humans were never meant to mix!”
- “This is some dumbass s—, mark my words.”
- “This is stupid!”
- “This feels unpleasantly familiar. “
- “Let’s hope it goes better than last time!”
Dear reader, it won’t.
Rating: 2/10
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