Shark 2 - L'abisso

Personally, I was surprised that Jason Statham decided to make a sequel to the Meg. Most likely because I did not think the Meg was his type of movie. Not exactly Crank on water or anything. The film is an obvious cash cow but worth the money. No need to put any thought into how stupid this movie its cause it's met to be the opposite of smart. Its entertaining as hell and does not slow down long enough for me to point out the plot holes and the science mistakes. A perfect Tie-in to Shark Week. I went into this baby knowing that I was going to like it and I came out loving every minute of it. It's not met to be Shakespeare but it's definitely a fun experience.

I have no problem with 'brainless' action / monster movies, as long as they are done right. The first Meg was a decent enough bit of entertainment. The sequel is a very pale immitation.

There are is a pointless eco=polution sub-plot that I assume are included to pad out the story. They add nothing to the story, plus they are really badly done with obvious villains who are revealed too early and have very predictable deaths.

As other reviews have pointed out, what little Meg action there is takes place in darkness with average cgi. The acting is phoned in by most of the cast.

The movie kicks into overdrive in the last act, where all hell breaks loose and we get a series of multi-monster / bad-guy action scenes. Even here, all logic goes out the window.

It also doesn't help that this was made before the events of the Titan submersible disaster and anyone watching this will have a passing knowledge of the effects of incredibly deep submersion on the human body, so the entire underwater action in the first half is ridiculously stupid.

This just isn't silly enough to make it worth a few hours of your time.

The first impression of The Meg 2: The Trench (2023) is that this was hard to watch. There were dumbfounded scenes that did not make any sense led by decision making. The kills were not that good especially since it is a PG-13 movie. The only parts that I liked are Jason Statham and his great acting and the antagonists getting killed off. Other than that, I was ready to leave the theater. It really questioned me on how does the protagonists keep on surviving after questionable events. I honestly liked the first one better because it was not that bad of a shark movie. The sequel, however, just made it worse. I am surprised that this film was allowed to make it in Dolby Cinema since it only allows good or great movies in the auditorium. Overall, The Meg 2: The Trench is pretty bad with its scenes and kills. I would recommend to stay away from this movie.

My Rating reflects expectations. If this was touted as a edge of your seat thriller with cutting edge CGI and unexpected twists and turns, it'd be a 2. But this was always going to end up the campy, overacted, completely implausible, CGI riddled cheese-fest that it is. And it absolutely delivered on that expectation.

It has Plot holes so big you could swim a megladon through, hilarious foreshadowing via dialogue (if they say something won't happen, its going to happen,) and a decent smattering of quips, giggle/smirk inducing lines, and the requisite action scenes.

It ticked all the boxes for expectations - and exceeded it in areas like "completely unrealistic technology," "inaccurate animal behaviour" and "Implausible physics/hydrodynamics." But that just added to the fun.

For the naysayers - expecting more quality/realism/etc from this movie is like expecting a Fast and the Furious movie to be extolling the virtues of bicycles.

Its a fun, lighthearted, and "laugh at the ridiculousness" sort of flick and that's worth a passing grade.

A bunch of separate script scenarios thrown together. Editing is terrible. Characters you dont know anything about due to no introduction and without explanation. Plot holes. The story doesnt evolve seamlessly. And what happened to shark carnage? I love jason statham movies. A d i love shark movies. But its just more of JS usual movie types that this time just wasnt that good. The underwater scenes were getting good but its like they just didnt know what to do with it. While there was some fun to it i dont think it was worth the money spent at a theatre. Wait for it to come out on streaming. Sorry.