Meg 2: The Trench

Plot

It has been 8 years since the events of the last film. Jonas is now step father to Meiying, following the death of Suyin (Bingbing Li from the first movie – who did not return) . On a simple dive into a trench, the Mana One team he works for discover not only have they have been sabotaged by one of their own, but their new owner Hillary Driscoll is secretly mining the bottom of the trench in order to make billions from materials at the bottom of the ocean.

Soon, they unleash not only more megalodon into the area – but a gigantic octopus.

Direction

Fairly standard ‘d’ grade direction, which tends to rely too much on the constant computer technology. There are a couple of solid uses of things like deep focus that are done well, otherwise – pretty forgettable.

Cast/Characters

Statham is back as Jonas, and I still don’t know if he was British or American, as he swapped accents midway through, and back again.

Returning cast are Cliff Curtis and Page Kennedy as Mac and DJ, and Shuya Sophia Cal as Meiying.

New cast members are Jing Wu as Suyin’s brother, Jiuming, and Sienna Guillory as Driscoll.

Screenplay/Setting/Themes

Fairly lacklustre, with some ‘betrayal’ of team members that really don’t have any emotional impact considering the characters name is almost unknown before “they” betrayed us happens.

There are also a few characters who have the ‘one by one they die’ which is the same – considering they are all played by essentially hardly knowns.

The plot armour for some of the characters, like the last movie is a little hard to believe.

The real problem I had was the film wants to take itself seriously, while being advertised as a silly ‘B’ grade film. If there was some self-referencing by characters that what they are experiencing is just plane silly then I wouldn’t be so harsh, but it really felt like the film makers had no idea what they were making.

Overall

Even for a movie that might not be taking itself seriously, it tries to take itself too seriously. With no real amazing performances, likeable characters, this doesn’t really have a lot going for it.

I didn’t hate this, but I wouldn’t recommend it either. Only okay.

2/5