Meg 2: The Trench (2023) - More ridiculous fun in Wheatley's game monster adventure

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Reliable star Jason Statham escapes the primordial mega-shark on this eye-popping poster for Ben Wheatley's Meg 2: The Trench

 

Passionate ocean protector Jonas Taylor ventures deep beneath the surface with his associates, where they find a secret mining operation in the trench. Here megalodons and other primordial monsters live.

 

Meg 2: The Trench is written by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber and Dean Georgaris (The Meg (2018), all), adapting The Trench (1999) by Steve Alten (Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (1997)), and directed by great British filmmaker Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace (2009)). It is the sequel to The Meg (2018).

After a smashing dino-age opening that establishes the hilariously ridiculous tone of this action adventure effectively, the film spends a long time in the dark, way underwater trench, and down there it gets a bit long in the tooth, (pun intended, sorry!) It's mostly CGI down there, and sometimes hard to make out what is going on, but things brighten up in more ways than one after this section, which also outlines the film's human villains:

Sienna Guillory (Remember Me (2019)) is fun as the wealthy evil minx behind the costly operations, and Sergio Peris-Mencheta (Rambo: Last Blood (2019)) has got a blessed mug that recalls legendary villain actor Robert Davi: Similarly, Peris-Mencheta delights in the villainry, screaming and fighting to my unspoiled delight. The film also has Jing Wu (The Climbers/Pan deng zhe (2019)) in the big part as a very smiling, risk-taking general manager of the meg-holding facility, and Wu wins over audiences with a highly energetic and likable performance here. The fun continues with returning Cliff Curtis (Training Day (1999)) and Page Kennedy (Same Difference (2019)), game as can be. SPOILER All of them clown around without end as megalodons, a giant octopus and some vicious gator-like dinosaurs attack on Fun Island, a resort vacation spot so shallow and ridiculous that all can recoil in its violent unraveling. Part of the fun of Meg is observing the idiocy of modern man come undone by beastly nature, a savage revenge from the deep. In this film a shot of two obese tourists in a 'biking boat' with obscene drinks getting swallowed up by the monster shark is an especially spectacular highlight.

Jason Statham (Spy (2015)) is back in the no-nonsense lead, a likable guy without much varnish or nooks to him - but he sure is good against a meg! There are more colors and kinetic energy to this sequel, a film that beats the original in ridiculousness and simple-minded, gleeful fun. 

 
Related posts:

 
The Meg (2018) - Moments of cruel fun enliven Turteltaub's monster shark feast
Ben Wheatley: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

A Field in England (2013) or, Shit and Thistles 

Top 10: Best drama-thrillers reviewed by Film Excess to date 
Kill List (2011) - Wheatley's jaw-breaking, great genre-mixer 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 129-139 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: 256.9 mil. $ and counting 

= Too early to say

[Meg 2: The Trench premiered 9 June (Shanghai International Film Festival) and runs 116 minutes. Shooting took place in Los Angeles, California, Hong Kong and in Thailand. The film opened #2, behind Barbie, to a 30 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it has just spent its 2nd weekend at #4. The film is making as much in China at the moment, (it is officially a US/Chinese co-production.) The first film made impressive 530.4 mil. $, a target that the sequel likely won't reach. It has yet to open in South Korea (August 15) and Japan (August 25). The film should cross 350 mil. $ to be considered successful but is likely to get a sequel nonetheless. Wheatley is slated to return with Freak Shift (pre-production). Statham returns in Expend4bles (2023). Meg 2: The Trench is rotten at 28 % with a 4.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Meg 2: The Trench?

RED (2010) - Schwentke's utterly hollow comic book adaptation

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This poster for Robert Schwentke's RED manages to make it look like some low-on-brains, very hot action fun

 

A former CIA agent, who is now deemed 'Retired, Extremely Dangerous' [hence the film's title], is attempted murdered. Along with 3 other similar old-timers, a Russian and a sweet girl, he will now try to reverse the conspiracy.

RED is an adaptation of the same-titled 2003-04 comic book miniseries by Warren Ellis (Thor #491-494 (1995-96)) and Cully Hamner (Green Lantern #58 (1995)), written by Jon and Erich Hoeber (Battleship (2012)) and directed by Robert Schwentke (Flightplan (2005)).

Bruce Willis (Die Hard (1988)) has a bland romance with a mousy pension office lady (Mary-Louise Parker (R.I.P.D. (2013)); John Malkovich (Beowolf (2007)) is an LSD-addled paranoid, and Helen Mirren (The Pledge (2001)) just looks good. Morgan Freeman (Along Came a Spider (2001)), Brian Cox (Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)), Richard Dreyfuss (The Big Fix (1978)) and a few others lend the film their integrity but don't make it any more interesting.

The very easygoing style is punctuated with an endless stream of perfunctory score music (created by Christophe Beck (Get Hard (2015))). There is no dramatic core or any exciting characters at play in RED, a movie which seems to want to live solely on the apparently (thought to be) top-entertaining ingredient of watching old people use weapons.

No one in the talented cast get any opportunity to show their real skills in this overly polished, comic book flat abomination of a film. - A project that reeks of being strictly a paycheck movie for its many stars. Ugh!

Here's an interview with Mirren and Willis, talking about the sequel, RED 2

Cost: 58 mil. $

Box office: 199 mil. $

= Box office success

[RED premiered September 29 (Austin Fantastic Fest) and runs 111 minutes. It was the first DC Comics adaptation not produced by Warner Bros. Filming took place in and around Toronto, Canada, LA and New Orleans for 9 weeks from January - March 2010, with reshoots in August 2010. The film opened #2 (behind Jackass 3D) to a 21.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for three more weeks  and grossed 90.3 mil. $ (45.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 14.2 mil. $ (7.1 %) and the UK with 10.9 mil. $ (5.5 %). Roger Ebert gave the film 2 stars, equal to a notch better than this review. The film got nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Film - Musical or Comedy. A sequel, RED 2, was released in 2013, and another sequel is now in development. RED is certified fresh at 71 % with a 6.3 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of RED?

Battleship (2012) - 200+ mil. $ worth of brainless destruction

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Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna look purposeful on the poster for Peter Berg's Battleship

Aliens enter our atmosphere and fall in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. - American and Japanese battleships have to fight them.

That is the premise in Battleship, crudely modeled over Hasbro's board game. The film offers good-looking effects, and there is no shortage of explosions, but it is still a boring sci-fi/military/disaster/action movie.
The characters are a bunch of Marines, who speak to each other in code and Navy-slang 90 % of the time, - pretty hard to relate strongly to, or to have any fun with.
When the world in the end has to be saved SPOILER by 'Mighty Mo' - the retired Pearl Harbor battleship - the film becomes involuntarily comical.
Battleship quickly became an infamous dud in Western minds, - although it actually did much better outside of North America, and thus didn't become quite the financial disaster that everyone had already somehow decided that it was. But it is a bad, stupid movie, - with some eye-candy to smoothen its digestion, like the VFX and ...

Taylor Kitsch and Liam Neeson in uniforms

men (and Rihanna) in uniforms.
The film's director Peter Berg (Lone Survivor (2013)) wasn't fully behind it; just weeks after its release, he was talking about its failure and his failure on it in a public Q&A.
Still, probably the main problem of Battleship is its awful script, by Jon and Erich Hoeber (the Red movies).

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Watch the film's trailer here

Budget: 209 mil. $
Box office: 303 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of Battleship?
What board game would you like to see a major studio throw 200 mil. $ after?