Meg 2: The Trench is a frustrating film — 1. Because the megaladons aren’t even the stars, and 2. Because of the needless and boring subplot that takes up almost the entire movie.
After introducing us to the megaladon’s power and presence in the prehistoric setting, the movie begins to take itself too seriously. Jason Statham’s Jonas leads a group on an underwater mission, where they find illegal mining activity.
This takes over the film, and the sharks basically become an afterthought until their presence is convenient. This reminded me A LOT of Jurassic World Dominion, a film that massively frustrates me. When I’m going to a movie with “Meg” in the title, I expect that the flick is going to be about them — that simply wasn’t the case here.
Because of this subplot, which was very predictable, the movie drags through the first three-fourths. It still has its small moments of humor and exciting action sequences, but it takes itself all too seriously. Much like with the first movie, this was a major issue for me.
Meg 2 definitely misses the presence of Li Bingbing as Jonas’ love interest. The characters are still likeable, but there’s really no chemistry at all.
Statham seems to float through most of the movie, and there are a lot of poor performances that really took me out of it. One performance in particular took away a lot of suspense and made it blatantly obvious as to what twist or turn was going to happen next. I expect some of that in a film like The Meg, but it was distracting this time around.
In the final 30 minutes of Meg 2, we finally get some true Statham v. Meg action. This is exactly what I wanted from the movie, and I was extremely disappointed that this couldn’t have just been the focal point of the film.
It’s goofy and dumb, but that’s the entire point. Even while there were awesome moments in the final act, it still somehow felt like the megaladons were being overshadowed because the movie was just trying to do too much at once.
In the end, Meg 2: The Trench could’ve been so much more, but once again, it takes itself way too seriously. The megaladons are pushed to the side for an array of other animals and an unnecessarily complicated and boring subplot.
I wanted to have a blast with this movie, and it was more of what I wanted in the final 30 minutes, but overall it just didn’t work. The tone isn’t consistent, the acting is all over the place and it’s ultimately a disappointment. The megaladon deserves its own movie, but unfortunately, that wasn’t delivered in Meg 2: The Trench.
Rating: 4 out of 10
