6 years after the events of the first film, Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is now the guardian of Meiying (Sophia Cai) following the death of her mother Suyin and continues working for the Oceanographic institute alongside his friends Mac (Cliff Curtis) and DJ (Page Kennedy) under the direction of Jiuming Zhang (Wu Jing), Suyin's brother, as well as performing environmental investigations exposing illegal dumpers and polluters. Jiuming continues the work started by his father and sister with the backing of billionaire Hillary Driscoli (Sienna Guillory) including having successfully captured a meg, named Halqi, and kept it in captivity despite the concerns of Jonas. As Jonas, Jiuming, and several others embark on a journey from Mana One research station to explore the Mariana Trench, they stumble across a conspiracy with far reaching implications that unleashes the threat of the Megs once again on humanity.
After weathering a troubled 22 year long development cycle, The Meg proved to be a sleeper hit overindexing in the United States and making over $500 million worldwide. Shortly after the first film's release it was announced the producers were in development of a sequel that would mine material from other material in Steve Alten's Meg novel series. With Ben Wheatley stepping in for directors duties and the writing team of Dean Georgaris and Jon and Erich Hoeber, Meg 2: The Trench delivers on the same silly fun as the previous film and is unapologetically ridiculous Summer escapism.
Jason Statham and Sophia Cai reprise their roles as Jonas and Meiying respectively from the previous film, and despite the clunkiness of having to explain away Li Bingbing's character Suyin from the previous film, the movie does a solid job of building upon the chemistry between Statham and Cai with the two in a unique place with Jonas now Meiying's legal guardian and there's a solid dynamic between the two. We also get the welcome returns of Cliff Curtis' Mac and Page Kennedy's DJ respectively with both still great supporting characters to bounce off against Statham with DJ in particular given some very funny developments spurred by his experiences in the last film. Much like the novel it takes (loose) inspiration from, Meg 2: The Trench is stuff to the gills with things that happen and it's probably the most movie you'll get in a Summer blockbuster in terms of sheer variety. There's a little bit of Aliens, some Abyss (or if you will: Leviathan), of course traces of Jaws, and even a little bit of Die Hard and Jurassic Park thrown in for good measure. The last act of this movie is just insane and much like the prior film it is unfortunately held back from getting too bloody thanks to its PG-13 rating, but in terms of delivering on crazy action and spectacle it's certainly firing on all cylinders.
Meg 2: The Trench is my kind of cinematic junkfood. It's a movie that feels like a throwback to those 90s era blockbusters complete with a rap song over the end credits called "Chomp" that almost makes you expect the credit "Voice of Magic Taco.... James Earl Jones" (look up Simpsons and Zorro, you'll know what I'm talking about). As you can tell I had a blast with this movie and I hope they mine the rest of the book series for all it's worth.
After weathering a troubled 22 year long development cycle, The Meg proved to be a sleeper hit overindexing in the United States and making over $500 million worldwide. Shortly after the first film's release it was announced the producers were in development of a sequel that would mine material from other material in Steve Alten's Meg novel series. With Ben Wheatley stepping in for directors duties and the writing team of Dean Georgaris and Jon and Erich Hoeber, Meg 2: The Trench delivers on the same silly fun as the previous film and is unapologetically ridiculous Summer escapism.
Jason Statham and Sophia Cai reprise their roles as Jonas and Meiying respectively from the previous film, and despite the clunkiness of having to explain away Li Bingbing's character Suyin from the previous film, the movie does a solid job of building upon the chemistry between Statham and Cai with the two in a unique place with Jonas now Meiying's legal guardian and there's a solid dynamic between the two. We also get the welcome returns of Cliff Curtis' Mac and Page Kennedy's DJ respectively with both still great supporting characters to bounce off against Statham with DJ in particular given some very funny developments spurred by his experiences in the last film. Much like the novel it takes (loose) inspiration from, Meg 2: The Trench is stuff to the gills with things that happen and it's probably the most movie you'll get in a Summer blockbuster in terms of sheer variety. There's a little bit of Aliens, some Abyss (or if you will: Leviathan), of course traces of Jaws, and even a little bit of Die Hard and Jurassic Park thrown in for good measure. The last act of this movie is just insane and much like the prior film it is unfortunately held back from getting too bloody thanks to its PG-13 rating, but in terms of delivering on crazy action and spectacle it's certainly firing on all cylinders.
Meg 2: The Trench is my kind of cinematic junkfood. It's a movie that feels like a throwback to those 90s era blockbusters complete with a rap song over the end credits called "Chomp" that almost makes you expect the credit "Voice of Magic Taco.... James Earl Jones" (look up Simpsons and Zorro, you'll know what I'm talking about). As you can tell I had a blast with this movie and I hope they mine the rest of the book series for all it's worth.