‘The Meg 2’ movie review: Ben Wheatley deserves his cash grab, but his artistic outlook is starkly missing
More than a few eyebrows were raised when it was revealed that acclaimed British filmmaker Ben Wheatley had been stapled in as the director of the sequel to 2018’s The Meg. But despite the strange match-up, cinema fans would have been forgiven for thinking that Wheatley’s undoubted talent might have given The Meg 2: The Trench something of unique flavour.
Sadly, this hope could not be further from the truth, and the result is a tiresome and rather irritating offering stretched egregiously over 113 soggy minutes, hopelessly indebted to significantly better monster action movies like Jaws and Jurassic Park. One can’t even quite figure out why the haplessly idiotic and clichéd band of marine scientists are back down at the bottom of the sea, despite the dangers of giant sharks and other oceanic nasties, and for the most part, it doesn’t really matter.
All we know is that things do go starboard, and Jason Statham’s Jonas Taylor and his crew are tasked once again with taking out a series of big old megalodons after they pierce through the ocean’s thermocline protective layer once more. The first act of The Meg 2 is just about as boring as an action film can possibly be, with little added to the genre despite having Wheatley at the helm, whose hitherto refreshing artistic outlook is starkly missing.
Things do warm up a bit when The Meg 2 allows itself to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, self-referential, intertextual and, even at points, genuinely funny. We’re often teased with what will happen through dialogue before the thing itself actually occurs, as though to tempt fate and say, “Ah, we told you so,” but merely being aware of poor quality isn’t necessarily an excuse for it.
It’s also during those moments that one can’t help but think that the film might have been three times as interesting if puppet Wheatley and his masters weren’t so adamant on creating at least a whiff of serious narrative at the cost of just wholeheartedly going down the spoof route. After all, The Meg 2 is certainly aware of its own ridiculous nature, and it’s pretty much only those self-aware moments that the film can shine.
Statham is, well, Statham, but for the love of God, just don’t ask him to speak more than three words at a time. He can just about manage a classic action moment like “I’m ready” or “I’ll do it”, but more than a handful of syllables is a real problem for the somehow-unaged 56-year-old, where sentences spew themselves out in a beyond unintelligible cadence. Thankfully, Wheatley hasn’t asked much more of the actor than to throw a few harpoons, look big and strong, and get thrown about a bit.
A few kind words ought to be given to Ray Strachan, though, most likely the real star of proceedings with genuine humour and energy. But apart from his and Cliff Curtis’ efforts – who returns as Mac from the first film – the quality of acting remains roughly at the level of its lead star. There are a few exciting action moments, of course; the odd, unexpected jump scare here and there and a climactic scene with Statham taking on several pissed-off megalodon sharks from a jet ski is amusing if nothing else, but overall The Meg 2 is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a bad film.
The most glaring omission is of the director himself, though. There’s no sense of the glorious tension of Kill List nor of the barbaric yet amusing violence of Sightseers, and it seems rather apparent that The Meg 2 serves as Wheatley’s first big cash grab. While this is disappointing, considering the fact that he’s provided such high-quality cinema over the last 15 years or so, we won’t deny him his hard-earned bag of loot, but just don’t expect this to be a Wheatley film in any way, shape or form other than by name.
