MEG 2: THE TRENCH (2023) – This sequel sinks to new depths!
Rating: ⭐

When the MEG was first released in 2018, it managed to earn more than half a billion dollar at the worldwide box office. No doubt this feat was aided somewhat by its link to China as this was an American and Chinese production featuring chinese actors as well as locations in China. China has a huge box office potential so this link naturally helped garner tickets being sold to the millions there. MEG 2 repeats this formula with its American and Chinese producers in the hope of capturing a big chunk of Chinese market again. Whether it succeeds or not remains to be seen in the coming weeks as it opens wide across the world this week.
I have a weakness for shark movies and the MEG 2 promises some mega shark action with its very creative posters. I have to admit that The Meg (2018) was a disappointment because it failed to deliver enough shark action and had a pretty cheesy premise. MEG 2: The Trench comes along with some even nastier looking posters featuring an incredibly huge shark that makes Steven Spielberg’s great white shark in Jaws look like a pussycat. Naturally that brought my expectations up as I anticipated the film makers raising the bar higher with this new chapter given the first film’s relative success. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case. The film fails at so many levels. My biggest disillusionment was that there was barely any shark action on the screen for the first hour and a half!! Instead, screentime was filled with cliched and standard Hollywood chase and fight sequences. It might have helped if the plot was coherent or had any of the characters exhibiting attributes beyond being one-dimensional that would make things more interesting.
Even the final act where the sharks finally get to chow on some humans fell short of expectations. The attack on holiday makers in a beach side resort was a similar set up to the first movie and the shark kills were unimaginatively conceived. Perhaps the film’s biggest “crime” was the way it dismissed all the killings and destruction by the monster sharks as if they carried no consequences. Our main characters were seen enjoying themselves on the beach drinking and exchanging cute funny lines with each other after the mayhem. Some were even frolicking with a few surviving pretty lasses as if all the horror of the attack never happened! Such disregard to the ramification of the shark attack to lives and damages to property is increasingly being displayed in many Hollywood movies. This is especially prevalent in superheroes movies which invariably ends with a brush off to the consequences from the massive destruction to properties and lives. MEG2 follows this same illogical and irresponsible approach which is frankly a very dangerous hidden message being delivered to young impressionable minds.
The CGI of the MEG sharks looked cheesy and never really menacing since they did little other than loom around and across the screen. The massive sized sharks are shown to be so strong that they can easily break through structures and yet, our hero at one stage manages to escape death by warding off the shark with just his foot against its jaws (see accompanying photo for what I mean). Main star, Jason Statham looked a bit out of place and gave a display of his routine swings and punches. Ace actor from China, Jing Wu (aka Jacky Wu) may be famous for his martial arts and action movies back in China, but here he is reduced to playing second fiddle to Statham. He role sees him performing some standard action stuff and mouthing out “cute” one-liners while perpetually maintaining a wide grin at regular intervals.
Despite all the hype and all the imaginatively designed posters, the movie does not live up to expectations. MEG 2 is a disgraceful entry in the shark movies genre, and I have no plans to revisit this franchise.