Meg 2: The Trench
Director: Ben Wheatley
Writer: Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Dean Georgaris
Based on: Steve Alten‘s novel The Trench
Sequel to: The Meg
Cast: Jason Statham, Jing Wu, Shuya Sophia Cai, Cliff Curtis, Page Kennedy, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Skyler Samuels, Melissanthi Mahut, Whoopie Van Raam, Kiran Sonia Sawar, Felix Mayr, Sienna Guillory
Seen on: 14.10.2023

Plot:
For the last 8 years, Jonas (Jason Statham) has been devoted to fighting environmental crimes in the ocean, and further studying the Mariana Trench and its depths. When the research team of the Mana One finds not only megalodons at the bottom of the trench, but also an illegal mining operation, things start to spiral out of control.

When I realized that I wouldn’t be able to see Meg 2 in cinemas, I was devastated – that’s how much I loved the first film. I was fantasizing about renting out a cinema to see it later. In the end, I simply watched it at home and ultimately, I’m glad that I did because Meg 2 was a disappointment.

I had my doubts about the sequel, but in anticipation of it, I managed to conveniently forget those doubts. I shouldn’t have. But they came back to me as soon as I saw how the film handles the non-return of Bingbing Li. That is to say, it just doesn’t. One quick mention that she is dead with no details, barely an acknowledgment of that fact in terms of emotional impact on her daughter Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) or her lover Jason, and then just forgetting that she ever existed.

And this level of care went into all of the character work here. This means that people we barely get to know, we barely are able to tell apart start dying and somehow the film wants us to care for them? That’s just not how it works. It also completely undermines a huge part of what made the first film so awesome: the people in it were genuinely likeable and you rooted for them.

The other part that made the first film so great was that it knew exactly what it is and which tone to strike. Meg 2 doesn’t. In fact, the megs seem added as almost an afterthought to the story and it isn’t until the last half hour or so that the film actually turns to what you’d want and expect from it: Jason Statham fighting megs on a jet-ski armed with nothing but harpoons. At that point, though, the dull, outright boring first half of the film has sucked all of the fun out of it, and even the parts that finally get where the film should have been from the start feel a little listless.

It just seems like nobody had any fun while making this film, and while some valiant performances try to save it anyway, the result just isn’t what I had hoped for. It is just disappointing.

Summarizing: Let’s forget this film exists and focus exclusively on the first one: the only Meg for me.