Rating of
2/4
Wacky monster movie that is weirder than expected
Indyfreak - wrote on 01/02/24
Meg 2: The Trench has no brains but a lot of balls to be as batshit crazy as it is. I don't know how else to say it.
It's one of those sequels that has twenty ideas for a story and uses ALL of them. It features not just one giant prehistoric shark but three of them. Plus a kraken sized octopus. And we got creepy little dinosaur-like reptiles scurrying about. There's even an early scene that is clearly meant as a 'take that' to JURASSIC PARK. Bold as brass, says I.
The story picks up years after the first movie and Jason Statham is raising the precocious daughter from the first movie on his own while still keeping an eye out for those pesky Megalodons. But an evil businesswoman is illegally exploiting the mega sharks' territory for profit (the fiend) and now there are more megalodons plus other prehistoric monsters swimming loose towards the surface.
Ben Wheatley directed this movie and he's done movies that I liked quite a bit like High-Rise and Free Fire. What I gathered from those movies was his dark sense of humor and to his credit, that remains here. There is a lot of civilian casualties in this movie and I respect that. And there's a few death scenes that are surprisingly brutal for a PG13.
I can't say this is a project for thespians or method actors to get involved in. But some people know what movie they're in and are having more fun than usual. Especially Page Kennedy. He got some laughs from me. There is some crappy dialogue in the script though. Look not for a monologue on par with Quint's USS Indianapolis speech in JAWS or the lunch debate in JURASSIC PARK. Expect a lot of one-liners trying to be quippy but instead a lot of them are quite pithy. Though if it's Statham saying it, it's a little bit cool.
