Starring Jason Statham, Wu Jing, Shuya Sophia Cai, Cliff Curtis, Page Kennedy, Sergio Peris-Mencheta and Skyler Samuels. Written by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber and Dean Georgaris. Directed by Ben Wheatley.
Apelles Entertainment/China Media Capital/Flagship Entertainment Group/Gravity Pictures

Jonas Taylor (Statham), when he’s not doing eco-warrior stuff like exposing illegal radioactive waste dumping, is a committed single parent dad, who tells his daughter Meiying (Cai) that she can’t go on the upcoming submersible exploration of the prehistoric world that exists at the bottom of the nearby deep sea trench. Meiying stows away on one of the two mini subs anyway, so Jonas must do his best to keep her alive after their submersibles are put out of action by explosions triggered by an illegal mining operation overseen by a villain called Montes (Peris-Mencheta). 

Jonas, his brother-in-law Zhang (played in a no-nonsense manner by Wu Jing), Meiying and the other sub survivors must now leave their wrecked craft and trudge across the ocean floor to seek a means of escape within the mining operation’s undersea base. This portion of the film is really enjoyable, with the scriptwriters throwing a lot of obstacles in the way of the characters, forcing them to exit their smashed-up subs after it’s disclosed that their backup rescue sub has been sabotaged by unknown betrayers, leaving them with no option but to don reinforced diving suits and start walking through a bioluminescent zone in the hope that the brightness will hide their helmet beams from the enormous megalodons swimming above them. After encountering a toothy eel/lamprey and other denizens of the deep, they find themselves having to take a risky shortcut through a dark valley as their air runs perilously low. 

It’s then a race against time to get inside the secret base before prehistoric sharks or some equally prehistoric, toothy amphibious beasties get them! Even inside this base the threats continue, as Jonas has to battle the vicious Montes, water starts pouring into the place, and a supposedly friendly workmate at HQ jettisons escape capsules before the protagonists can use them to get to the surface. At one point Jonas even swims outside the base without a suit! One of the characters explains how it is possible for Jonas to do this (he has to expel all the air from his nostrils, etc), but I think the main reason Jonas can survive the powerful pressures at the bottom of the trench is because of one very important factor: he’s played by hardman Jason frickin’ Statham! 

As the story unfolds, MEG 2: THE TRENCH presents us with giant prehistoric sharks and other critters escaping into the upper ocean after explosions cause a breach in the cold water barrier that usually seals off the undersea lost world. The movie also mixes in armed merc bad guys, a semi-trained captive megalodon, and underhand characters who’re willing to kill their colleagues to cover up the fact they’re running a rare minerals mining set-up in the trench.

Many critics and viewers have mercilessly ripped into this movie, but I think it’s a really enjoyable, fun creature flick! Any movie that begins with a prologue set in the Cretaceous Period, showing a huge Tyrannosaurus Rex getting munched by a megalodon (okay, I know megalodons didn’t exist during the age of the dinosaurs, but so what?) is obviously letting viewers know that they need to sit back and enjoy the monster antics coming up!

Director Ben Wheatley, better known for off-kilter, sometimes quirky, sometimes psychedelic low budget horror pics like KILL LIST (2011), SIGHTSEERS (2012), A FIELD IN ENGLAND (2013), and IN THE EARTH (2021), here goes into full blockbuster mode, presenting us with a mega-enjoyable third act that sees the tourists at the holiday resort of Fun Island getting attacked by super-sized sharks, a huge octopus, and swarms of smaller amphibious predators! There’s a fun shot seen from the inside of a megalodon’s mouth as it chows down on hapless swimmers, and there’s a gag where a tentacle disrupts a waterside wedding!

As the likeable main characters deal with gun-toting killers as well as the berserk beasts, lots are exciting (sometimes verging on silly) incidents are thrown at the screen: Statham hurling homemade spear-bombs at the monsters as he pilots a jet ski! A megalodon-vs-kraken fight! Undulating tentacles assaulting a helicopter! And, best of all, Statham using a broken helicopter rotor blade to skewer a megalodon through its open maw! Sweet! 

Don’t listen to the naysayers: just get a beer (or two), switch off your brain, and enjoy the on-screen antics! Colossal prehistoric sharks, a killer kraken, Statham being Statham, hordes of salamander monsters, and generous doses of action: what’s not to like?!