Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

Some years after the first Meg. Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham), still a total badass (because he’s played by Jason Statham), is now working for Jiuming Zhang (Jing Wu, also a total badass, but more on that in a second), the brother of the last film’s tragic (cough) shark victims. Apart from being a badass underwater explorer, Jonas is also a bit of an eco warrior now and takes good care of his daughter Meiying (Sophia Cai). Because this is a very Chinese co-produced movie, Jiuming is just as great at everything he does as Jonas, so if a Gary Stu double team isn’t part of your movie dreams, you’d probably best hide now.

Their combined perfection will come in handy when an exploration of the trench where the megalodons come from goes badly awry, and the team has to fight their way back to the surface not just through megalodons but also a couple of other critters. And yes, of course, Meiying smuggled herself on the expedition, do you even need to ask? Also involved are a traitor in our heroes’ midst, an evil American corporation of evil (in contrast to the angelic Chinese one the good guys are working for, of course) who hires the least competent mercenaries on the market – probably to save a buck – and eventually a place known as Fun Island. Which is more fun with added monsters.

Given that even the directors of Marvel blockbusters are allowed to put some stylistic marks on their films, you’d think that Meg 2 would leave some space for the things its director Ben Wheatley is known for and good at. No such luck here, alas – there’s really not a single shot in the movie that would suggest Wheatley, or really anyone with a personality behind the camera.

If one can cope with that, and treats The Meg 2 as the cartoonish shark action movie with way too much unfunny humour it is meant to be, there is a lot of fun to be had here. While the script is a mix of painfully unsubtle Chinese propagandist subtext, more clichés than you can throw a landshark at, plotting that’s as far from being dramatically effective as can be, and further dragged down into absurdity by having to include not just the usual one but two specimen of men who are always right and can do anything, it is difficult to fault a film that’s so hell-bent on shoving in whatever its writers think is fun. So there’s the expected megalodons, but also a horde of other critters, underwater action, a few second of claustrophobia, thriller-type traitors, a third act that just jumps to a completely different place as well as into a different shark movie sub-genre – whatever shark movie you’d like to watch, there are couple of scenes of it in here. None of which combined makes much sense as a story, or works as a proper narrative, but is very enjoyable as a series of colourful, noisy flashes in front of one’s face. If this makes a viewer feel like a cat following a laser pointer, well, there are worse fates in life.