PORTLAND, Maine — [Editor's note: This article is a critical analysis of a film and does not represent the views of NEWS CENTER Maine, but that of the author.]
In 2018, "The Meg" was released to mixed reviews and a box office of $530 million.
Now, Jason Statham is back for the sequel, "Meg 2: The Trench."
Story
Jonas Taylor (Statham) returns and is apparently working as a photographer gathering evidence against people who pollute the ocean. But that story thread is quickly abandoned as Jonas prepares for yet another dive into The Trench, a deep part of the ocean beneath freezing waters where ancient beasts roam the sea floor.
The Trench is full of giant sharks called megalodons and other creatures like aquatic dinosaurs and giant octopi.
Going with Jonas on the trip to explore the sea floor is his best friend, Jiuming (Wu Jing), his young daughter, Meiying (Sophia Cai), and a few other divers (most of whom just exist to be killed by the megs).
While following a group of megs behaving erratically, Jonas and his team discover someone else has reached the Trench and is mining it.
Leading the mining team is Montes (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), an ex-convict Jonas helped send to prison for illegal dumping in the ocean.
When Montes sees Jonas' team, he sets off a series of explosives, trapping their vehicles along the ocean floor in a submarine landslide. The only hope for Jonas, Meiying, and the others is to put on diving suits and walk three kilometers to an underwater base.
If running out of oxygen doesn't kill them first, the megs and other undersea monsters just might.
Analysis
"Meg 2: The Trench" is a frustrating swim through dull waters thanks to a bait-and-switch from this movie's trailer.
The trailer (featured at the top of this article) promised Statham doing more of what he did in the first movie, fighting giant sharks with little more than a few explosives and his bare hands. But the sequel promised more, more giant sharks, more monsters, and more campy action.
What the audience will find itself stuck with, instead, is a long slog of Jonas and Jiuming fighting people instead of megs.
At least 70 percent of this movie is Jonas and his team being shot at, nearly drowned, and trapped, not by monsters, but by people. Just generic, evil people who don't offer anything interesting to the story.
By the time "Meg 2: The Trench" finally gets around to Jonas fighting megs at the end of the movie, viewers will be too exhausted from dull action sequences against nameless henchmen to even care.
"The Meg" was an entertaining creature feature that understood what people wanted to see... Statham doing dumb, but fun stunts while killing giant prehistoric sharks. It's a crying shame the sequel decided to gorge itself on boring human antagonists for much of its runtime instead of doubling down on monster action.
It's never a good thing when a film promises one thing and delivers something else.
Also playing this weekend
There's a new Ninja Turtles movie out this week, once more bringing the heroes in a half shell to the big screen. Here's the synopsis for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem":
"The film follows the Turtle brothers as they work to earn the love of New York City while facing down an army of mutants."
To see which movies are playing at a theater near you, click here.
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