Film Review: Meg 2: The Trench 巨齒鯊2：海溝深淵 (2023) - China USA 🇨🇳 🇺🇸
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia 🇦🇺)
A rare success combination of two cinematic box office global powerhouse for China and Hollywood, comes the sequel of the commercially successful “The Meg” (2018) in the form of bigger and more mega sharks in director Ben Wheatley’s “Meg 2: The Trench”. The film series is entirely an adaptation of the science fiction horror by Steven Alten. By the looks of things, with over 7 books and continuing in the series, we are all in for plenty of more “Meg” movies to come. What makes “Meg” movies entertaining is that they never take itself too seriously and in turn, the monsters vs humans can only be fun to watch even if at times absurdity takes over when Jason Statham and Wu Jing, both kung fu their ways to killing megalodons.
In fact, the film follows the sequences of events after the first film, as we continue the journey with our hero played by the evergreen Jason Statham. This time, we are joined by Jet Li’s successor Wu Jing playing the uncle of Statham’s daughter. As with most ensemble casting (Cliff Curtis, Sienna Guillory, Shuya Sophia Cai, Skyler Samuels) the rest are there to fill up roles either to be eaten by the megalodons or finding ways to survive through it.
All in all, “Meg 2: The Trench” plays well whenever the mega sharks are attacking humans in the real world. It gets a bit lost in the darkness during the middle parts as they go deep deep under waters. The final quarter works best when both kung fu stars align together to fight and save the world. The beach attack wills revokes numerous “Jaws” memories, but these kind of films are exactly mindless entertainment and those expecting more should really not.
I rated it 6/10