Flasz On Film

When the Jon Turteltaub-directed The Meg was opening in 2018, after over two decades of being flung around in the backrooms of Hollywood make-believe-land, everybody expected it would immediately spawn a franchise, while simultaneously knowing to expect which direction it would go. After all, even Steven Spielberg’s Jaws – arguably one of the most accomplished movies ever to come out of Hollywood – was unable to germinate and sustain a series that would not immediately embrace trashy self-awareness and camp.  

Therefore, anybody who walks into a screening of Meg 2: The Trench hoping to emerge artistically reinvigorated or refreshed, should get their ducks in a row and get themselves educated on the matter. The Ben Wheatley-directed follow-up to The Meg is not a work of artistic elevation, and the only major unknown regarding its quality or approach to the material relates to whether it would be a trashy piece of schlock or a blockbuster-adjacent one that is at the very least attempting to look a bit classier.  

Well, it’s kind of both as in some strange way it manages to ride the line between seriously trying to deliver a thrilling ride of appropriate calibre and just facilitating a camp experience; which is perhaps why it’s well worth giving this movie a chance as long as your expectations are appropriately tempered. You are not walking into Mission: Impossible 7. You are not even walking into The Meg. You are actively deciding to watch a sequel to something already quite ridiculous. With a colon.  

However, at least the very beginning of Meg 2: The Trench would have you believe for a second that you are indeed watching some kind of a Mission: Impossible or Jason Bourne rip-off because you will be dropped – in media res – into an infiltration sequence where we reunite with Jonas (Jason Statham), now an environmentalist spyhard. You will then hang onto his shoulder as he catches a crew of a rogue container ship dumping radioactive waste into the ocean, punches a good handful of faces in, jumps into the water and gets scooped up by his friends. One thing leads to another, and we get to reunite with some other returning characters as we find out that the outfit Jonas works for has its fingers in many puddings… and that they also have a captive megalodon, which eventually breaks free to rejoin its friends who live in the trench Jonas and his friends have been exploring. But wait! They aren’t the only people busy looking for treasure in this “land under the sea that time forgot or something.” And of course, there are more creatures lurking in the darkness. More megs. More threats. More villains. More… everything. After all, it is a sequel.  

In any case, none of this excessive plotting matters to anyone and it shouldn’t really come as a shock to realize that the movie doesn’t make too much sense. It’s a parade of plot-induced psychosis laced with references to such genre staples as Deepstar Six, Deep Blue Sea, Leviathan, The Abyss, at least two Jaws sequels and even The Lost World: Jurassic Park, whose only major sin is that it refuses to conform to direct-to-Syfy trashiness on an aesthetic level. In fact, it is a bit like Cocaine Bear, only not as overtly funny and rambunctious. But its intentions are clearly aligned along the same trajectory of wanting to see if you can make Sharknado on a Hollywood studio dime.  

Therefore, Meg 2: The Trench shouldn’t be counted among “serious” blockbusters because it isn’t one and I am pretty sure Ben Wheatley knew what he was doing when he set himself on a tightrope, balancing the expectations of a summer blockbuster with the proclivities of an umpteenth sequel to Lake Placid destined to languish in the far corner of Amazon Freevee. I strongly believe he succeeded because although the movie is not perfect and it perhaps could have had its opening act telegraphed a bit more (after all, would anyone care about the environmentalist subplots and off-the-cuff foreshadowing? I doubt it), it’s still a fun piece of genre pulp. What is more, it’s a piece of genre pulp which is smart enough to be aware of its own pulpiness, but not enough to be in on its own joke. If that makes any sense.  

Consequently, even though some of the characters openly invoke references to other movies, like preparing poison-tipped bullets like Brody did in Jaws 2, the movie as a whole functions as a revolving door of organic references, trashy callbacks, strangely ridiculous motivations, and narrative conveniences all pushing the story along and keeping you invested both in the ridiculousness of the proceedings and in the primary drama unfolding before you. The movie truly behaves like a sequel to Deep Blue Sea 3 or Sharknado 17 where for some reason dinosaurs stage an attack on a beach together with a giant squid and where Jason Statham goes full Ahab on jet skis while squaring off against not one but three ancient megalodons, each one more menacing than the one before it. Problem is, it doesn’t look trashy enough to immediately allow you to detune your expectations because its special effects are perfectly formidable, Wheatley’s blocking and set piece engineering is competent enough to house its Spielbergian flourishes and the entire affair is pervasively propulsive. 

Therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised if some viewers emerge from this viewing not knowing how to parse what they witnessed. It’s trash that doesn’t look like trash but still tastes and smells like something you’d find on cable or in a DVD bargain bin. Meg 2: The Trench is a miraculous little movie that should not exist in the current era of risk-averse populist blockbusterism, because it is likely to alienate the typical summer tentpole demographic with the outright dumbassery of its conveniently ridiculous storytelling despite looking like – you know – a real movie. Meanwhile, it is anything but.

Meg 2 may look like a serious attempt at a summer blockbuster aiming to ensnare audiences and bring in tonnes of cash to its financiers, but it is really a piece of blockbuster-adjacent schlock that has more in common with an Anaconda sequel than with anything you’d expect to see in a theatrical setting in 2023. Still, it is a piece of schlock you can have a good time with, provided you have done your homework and checked your expectations at the door.