Warner Bros.
It would seem almost impossible to botch a film pitting Jason Statham against a gargantuan prehistoric shark, and yet that was the only feat accomplished by The Meg, director John Turteltaub’s underwhelming 2018 aquatic monster mash. Nonetheless, with a $530 million global box-office haul, a sequel was preordained, and with English auteur Ben Wheatley (Kill List, A Field in England, In the Earth) at the helm, Meg 2: The Trench seemed primed to at least surpass its incompetent predecessor, if not finally deliver the B-movie goods promised by its outlandish premise.
Alas, it does neither—and in a mundane fashion that negates even unintentional comedy.
If his name weren’t listed in the credits, there’d be no way to tell that Wheatley directed Meg 2: The Trench (August 4, in theaters); there’s zero trace of the psychotronic folk horror, mordant humor or demented bloodshed that marked his earlier work. Rather, the film (adapted from Steve Alten’s book) largely stays the aesthetic course set by Turteltaub’s original, full of high-tech contraptions and screen readouts, helter-skelter choreography, and dimly lit centerpieces involving its colossal CGI creatures. The nicest thing one can say about it is that cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos mercifully ditches The Meg’s Chinese blockbuster-grade visual glossiness, instead opting for a somewhat flatter and duller sheen.