MEG 2: THE TRENCH
FILM REVIEW
2018’s The Meg was one of my favourite films of that year. Purely for the sheer amount of fun I had with it.
Let's face it, Jason Statham fights a gigantic, prehistoric shark is about as good an elevator pitch as you are ever likely to hear.
Meg 2: The Trench, as is often the case with sequels, has to try and go bigger (or in this case deeper) to mixed results.
The fun of the first film - the fun of most creature features - is seeing these predators terrorising human beings in their own environment. As perverse as it sounds I go to these films to watch big creatures eat people and generally cause havoc.
Unfortunately, however, in this case the fun is not replicated when our leads go into the territory of the predator, and this is where Meg 2 trips up.
A large part of the films run time involves the crew underwater, infiltrating a secret mining operation, but this is not what any audience member has come to Meg 2 to see.
The segments come across as slow and plodding. Asking the audience to care about characters it will barely remember, or haven’t been introduced to in the previous instalment.
This series is not one to be taken seriously, but Meg 2 doesn’t seem to realise this. It seems to want to have a message, but can’t balance this adequately with the action. Resulting in that really make the film drag.
This also seems like a strange career move from director Ben Wheatley. I am mixed on his films, I really like some, and really dislike others, but they all, without fail, have a personality.
Meg 2 has none of this. Watching it, it could have been directed by almost anyone.
It has none of the brutality of films like Free Fire, the action here, disappointingly PG.
It has none of the humour of Siteseers. One thing I remember from the first film was how much I laughed on my first viewing, but other than a couple of decent lines, the script here falls flat. I was in a packed, near sold out, cinema screening, but it didn’t manage to raise a single big laugh from the room.
and it has none of the fever dream-esque horror of A Field in England. There was one moment that made me jump a little, but after that every moment felt tame and predictable.
It is a bog standard sci-fi action film, that waters down everything that could have made it great. Nothing about it distinguishes it from other films in the genre.
And, look, from his point of view, the money that this film will have made him may pay for his next smaller scale feature. One for you, for one for me. But I’m a little confused as to what the studio got from the deal.
Wheatleys name might be big among British cinephiles, but it’s not a name that is going to bring in the audiences overseas.
It’s an odd move that seems to benefit nobody but Wheatley himself.
As we move into the final act, the fun of the original film begins to return, as the Megalodons (and some friends from The Trench) begin to do their stuff, terrorising a group of holiday makers, and finally giving the audience what they are there for.
The pacing and the action begins to ramp up, but for most the damage will have already been done.
Greater special effects, extra monsters, and bigger Megs, cannot save Meg 2: The Trench from a floundering second act.
Somewhere in the wash it has lost everything that made the first such a fun experience, and leaves us with a deeply forgettable follow up.