Film Review – Meg 2: The Trench (2023)
As we all continue to ride the rollercoaster of this year’s monumental summer cinema season with Barbie and Oppenheimer in the front seats, attention turns to August. One of the industry’s known “dumping grounds” for those films they don’t quite have enough faith in to release at the height of summer or those that wouldn’t compete with the big hitters as they devour the box office takings, as has transpired in recent weeks. However, the long-anticipated follow-up to mega shark blockbuster The Meg might be the exception this year as expectations of another round with Megaladons And Friends could take a large chunk out of Barbenheimer’s dominance this weekend. In fact, it’s a certainty, though there is a huge caveat: the sequel is absolutely awful.
Five years on from the events of the first film, Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) has been continuing his own bout of vigilantism against the forces of eco-terrorism whilst still helping Mana One, the ocean station he has helped form, explore the deep Trench where the found the titular megalodon. But while she seems at peace in captivity, in reality she wants to out and her escape, as well as another deep dive into said Trench, starts a chain reaction that could let more prehistoric creatures loose on the world. Stranded thousands of feet below sea level with a group of mercenaries one step ahead of them, who will surface first?
It’s easy to see why venturing back into the depths of the ocean had so much appeal to everyone involved in the sequel: the $500million worldwide gross of the original helped, of course, but the first film’s biggest strength was in not taking itself too seriously and to make sure to have fun with its ridiculous premise while bringing all the thrills and spills of a summer blockbuster with it. And everyone loves a good sequel, right? In the case of The Trench, however, it doesn’t take very long at all to regret buying the ticket for a second chomp, compounded even more with the faint echoes of Oppenheimer, Barbie, Talk to Me, Turtles and more coming from the adjacent screens. The assignment this time has a rather intense case of sequel-itus and it’s hard to find anything positive to say about this one bar The Stath’s usual machismo. Honestly, we can’t remember much bar the fact that there’s sea, megs and lots – LOTS – of shouting.
Under the watchful eye of Ben Wheatley, this should have been a hugely alluring endeavour with the British filmmaker’s first big step into Hollywood after his success in the more humble English countryside. Alas, even he struggles to manufacture anything out of its literally horrendous screenplay that essentially steals fun things from other films, repurposes them at their own will and tries to pass it off as entertainment, perhaps the worst sin in blockbuster cinema (amongst others). There isn’t any hint that it’s Wheatley behind the wheel as none of his trademark flair is visible through the wreckage, making him seemingly happy to be more “director for hire” than auteur and the film is even poorer for it.
Straining under the weight of its hopelessness, The Trench sinks deep into its own ocean of nonsensical claptrap and finds no way of bringing itself back to the surface with each lazy, monotonous and spectacularly unfun moment feeling like an eternity but, thankfully, soon floundering so that the torment subsides. No amount of hi-tech scuba gear, underwater vessels or floating doors can save this one, not even the great Jason Statham. Shockingly, inept cinema of the most turgid order.
★
Action, Thriller | UK/USA, 2023 | 15 | Cinema | 4th August 2023 | Warner Bros. Pictures | Dir.Ben Wheatley | Jason Statham, Jing Wu, Cliff Curtis, Shuya Sophia Cai, Sienna Guillory
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