Meg 2: The Trench, 2023.
Directed by Ben Wheatley.
Starring Jason Statham, Wu Jing, Shuya Sophia Cai, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Skyler Samuels, Cliff Curtis, Page Kennedy, Sienna Guillory, Melissanthi Mahut, Whoopie Van Raam, Kiran Sonia Sawar, and Felix Mayr.
SYNOPSIS:
A research team encounters multiple threats while exploring the depths of the ocean, including a malevolent mining operation.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Meg 2: The Trench wouldn’t exist.
Director Ben Wheatley is an odd choice to direct Meg 2: The Trench given his credentials in the slow-burn artsy world (Free Fire serving as one exception, but still nowhere near mainstream), but the opening sequence taking a flashback trip to the Cretaceous period where a Megalodon shark devours a large dinosaur for lunch, in theory, sets the stage for no-holds-barred insanity.
It teases Jurassic Park meets Jaws in its beginning moments, disappointingly going on to deliver a narratively indecipherable slog that takes over an hour to get to the fun parts, notably occurring on an exotic locale dubbed “Fun Island.” Perhaps there was some heavy studio interference with the island carrying a carefully selected name symbolizing a middle finger from Ben Wheatley to Warner Bros. (it’s also worth pointing out that the studio didn’t hold any press screenings and markets aside from Los Angeles and New York.)
Regardless of what happened during production, Meg 2: The Trench is a mess resembling three movies cobbled together. There are some standard hand-to-hand combat scenes centered on returning Jason Statham as Jonas, an ecological activist by way of his fists, a lengthy and tedious segment focused on a deep-sea diving expedition with no clear objective or competent introduction to the team members (this movie can’t even do the most basic work of giving everyone a distinguishable skill), and finally the aforementioned lunacy where these characters have to protect an island from multiple threats, offering Jason Statham room to pull off some admittedly impressive stunts in an otherwise horrendous disaster that belongs at the bottom of the trench.
There are returning characters joining Jonas’ fight, ranging from the now 14-year-old Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai), who is consistently in peril during the previous entry, now feeling old and daring enough to join him and her CEO uncle Jiuming (Wu Jing) and the crew on their research. Jiuming runs an institute intended to protect the ocean, yet the group has a Megalodon locked up in an effort to tame and bond with it. There’s a dissonance in the mission statement that doesn’t add up. Meanwhile, the villains are a bland bunch also exploring the bottom of the Pacific Ocean looking for Cretaceous remains, unearthing more than they bargained for.
A messy script from the overcrowded screenwriting team of Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, and Dean Georgaris (adapting the novel The Trench courtesy of Steve Alten) is confused in more ways than one, as it also seemingly wants to say something about estranged family dynamics and finding one’s own way in life, at least before becoming a deep-sea diving bore.
Perhaps even more frustrating is that the muddled visuals render it nearly impossible to decipher what’s actually happening on screen. Yes, 25,000 miles below at the bottom of the ocean is meant to invoke a fear of the unknown, but the visual language has to encapsulate that blurriness while also serving as unconventionally striking. Instead, what’s here is a literal sore on the eyes.
The small upside is that there are inspired set pieces in the third act that give a stronger idea of the silliness Ben Wheatley presumably wanted to make with Meg 2: The Trench. It’s a movie where Jason Statham uses his hulking strength to lift up a helicopter blade to use as a weapon, which has to count for something. Aside from that, this is a film not screened for most critics where, once it’s over, the only words that come to mind are, “Okay, I get why now.”
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
Originally published August 4, 2023. Updated August 5, 2023.
