Title – Meg 2: The Trench (2023) 

Director – Ben Wheatley (High Rise) 

Cast – Jason Statham, Cliff Curtis, Jing Wu, Sienna Guillory

Plot – A research team lead by Jonas Taylor (Statham) discover that their work is about to bring them face to face with both a man eating monster of epic proportions and a nefarious mining corporation that will stop at nothing to make a profit. 

“This is truly a terrible idea”

Review by Eddie on 04/08/2023

When Ben Wheatley announced himself with his excellent sophomore horror outing Kill List in 2011, there was a hope that the talent on display in that feature wasn’t going to be used in the decades after on films like Meg 2: The Trench. 

Sadly in 2023, here we are. 

A sequel to the fun if not exactly memorable big shark outing The Meg from 2018, The Trench sees the return of Jason Statham’s one man eco-warrior and shark disposer Jonas Taylor, who along with a collection of new and old friends finds himself coming face to face once more with the most fearsome creatures of the deep, creatures that sadly don’t get much of a chance to take centre stage in Wheatley’s film, that for the most part squanders a potentially great set-up on a bland thrills and chills that will make one long for the razor sharp teeth of destruction to come in and save the day. 

Filled with as to be expected trite dialogue (at one stage a character asks someone why a previously captured shark is swimming in the ocean, only for the answer to be “she must have escaped?”) and cookie cutter side characters, that this time around includes Chinese superstar Jing Wu as kindly billionaire Jiuming and Sienna Guillory in a rather thankless role as corporate woman Driscoli, The Trench is going to disappoint many who came along to see the films dorsal finned stars take the spotlight, only to find them hidden in the shadows for much of the films first half that is going to bore rather than grip viewers. 

Spending more time delving into the deeps that the first film only scratched the surface of, Wheatley had a chance to create something fun and unique here as our main ensemble go to previously unexplored depths but once we enter into the black abyss after a strangely stagnant and po-faced intro section, The Trench gets bogged down into a CGI heavy slog that goes for far too long, leaving the films bonkers and insanely over the top finale on and around “Fun Island” with too much work to do to salvage a film that wasn’t able to give us enough of what we wanted to see for too many minutes of screen-time. 

There’s no doubt The Trench knows what it is, every few minutes there’s a quip, an unbelievable moment or Jason Statham being Jason Statham but there’s no denying that this is one of Wheatley’s least inspired film yet in a career of topsy-turvey outings, at least even the worst type of Wheatley films like In the Earth and High-Rise had an eye on doing something differently with The Trench happy to coast along on its big budget, delivering nothing more than a few moments of fun in an otherwise bland and washed ashore refuse of a feature.  

Final Say – 

Meg 2: The Trench seems to understand what it is but fails at the same time to focus on what would’ve made it the next B-grade guilty pleasure, with a bland first half that will have viewers dozing off on the high-seas, not even an explosive and chaotic final act can help this sequel make a splash. 

2 figurines out of 5