Welcome, brave readers, to the shark-infested waters of Meg 2: The Trench—the film that takes everything we loved (or at least liked) about The Meg and turns up the confusion dial—not the entertainment one.
Yeah, it’s taken us a while to get to Meg 2: The Trench after watching it, but here it is.
Let’s start with the basics: The Meg (2018) swam into theaters like a surprise guest at a summer barbecue—cheesy, loud, and weirdly satisfying. It brought in a tasty $529 million worldwide on a mid-sized production budget (somewhere between $130–178 million), delivering a campy yet profitable spectacle.
Fast forward to Meg 2: The Trench (2023), directed by Ben Wheatley, which dived deeper—literally—into the Mariana Trench and into murkier cinematic territory. Its opening weekend domestically hit $30 million, a serious drop from the original’s $45.4 million debut
Still, international audiences—or, more precisely, China—kept the sharks fed, with overseas numbers pushing the global gross to around $398–399 million.
So yes, it’s less than the original—but not disastrous. Still, it wasn’t the universally beloved beach flick audiences might’ve hoped for. Meanwhile, Critics had a field day. The Meg scored around 46 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (critics) while Meg 2 limped in at a meager 28 percent.
Enter the Razzie Awards. Meg 2 didn’t just flop; it flopped with flair. At the 44th Golden Raspberry Awards, it racked up three nominations, including Worst Director (Ben Wheatley) and, famously, Worst Supporting Actor (Jason Statham?)—yes, Statham apparently earned a Razzie for his heroic shark-fighting turns. (Jason, we are usually fans of yours, but what were you thinking with this?) See a sample from some reviews below.
JUDGEMENT
“If you’ve bought into the dream of watching Statham do flips on a jet ski, harpoon sea creatures, and say things like “see you later, chum” – all while dressed like the world’s sexiest, angriest fisherman – be warned, there’s another po-faced hour and a half of tiny submersibles and buttons on walls to wade through first. Meg 2: The Trench is enthusiastically married to the idea that you must eat your vegetables before you get your dessert. But, really, it’s too little, too late.” Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent
“The first Meg wasn’t exactly at the top of the creative food chain. A surprise hit from the dog days of 2018, it took a seemingly foolproof recipe for fun — Jason Statham fights a 90-foot prehistoric shark — and drowned it in an ocean of soggy melodrama, mediocre creature effects, and thrills of a strictly PG-13 variety. Still, however low that blockbuster set the bar and expectations for such B movies on an A budget, Meg 2 sinks lower. It makes the original look like, well, Jaws by comparison. It boasts the worst effects $130 million can buy, the kind usually reserved for TV movies whose portmanteau titles promise sharks and dangerous cyclones of wind. And it’s wildly boring for something so damn silly.” A.A. Dowd, Digital Trends
“I will always be the first person to champion silliness, especially where sharks are concerned. But in Meg 2, Wheatley appears so committed to fashioning the most preposterous imagery possible (a shark getting stabbed by a helicopter propeller, for example), that they quickly lose any shock value or humor. The result is… well, boring, which is kind of an impressive feat for a big-budget, Statham-starring, mega-shark joint.” Aurora Amidon, Paste
“Even the action-heavy final section of The Trench barely seems like a production trying to have a good time. How do you make a movie about jet-skiing Jason Statham throwing harpoons at giant sharks and do it with such little joy? This is a bizarrely inert film with none of Wheatley’s dark humor or vicious skill with horror. It’s almost like he just gave up on doing anything interesting when he found out he couldn’t make it R-rated. Cliff Curtis and Page Kennedy develop a strange buddy-comedy-action vibe later on that almost works, but it feels a different movie from the rest of the action. Absolutely nothing here has stakes—so many people in Jonas’ world die with barely a nod to the fact they ever existed—and anyone who has ever seen a movie knows who will make it to the final scene.” Brian Tallerico, rogerebert.com
“A lot of things cease to have meaning in a blockbuster that nods to, but can’t match, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Alien and Aliens. Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and James Cameron are old school (some might call them dinosaurs). Yet, when it comes to creature features, they’re still crushing the competition. Wheatley has said he’s up for making Meg 3. He thinks he’s got this. The sad truth: he’s being eaten alive.” Charlotte O’Sullivan, The Standard
“If a movie is at least terrible but entertaining, or the cliched so-bad-it’s-good, there’s at least something to talk about. Here, however, there’s nothing. It is a black abyss of empty, wasted time. There are only actors taking a paycheque, saying their lines in one take, and everyone moving on with their lives and putting Meg 2: The Trench behind them. Even Jason Statham, who is a capable actor when given the right material, can be compelling on screen. Even when he chews out a couple of one-liners – knocking a guy into a passing shark and saying “Goodbye, old chum” is the highlight – there’s nothing there. Likewise, the supporting cast is made up of bad TV actors, Cliff Curtis, and computer-generated aquatic creatures that look like they were copied and pasted from a CD-ROM of Encarta95.” Brian Lloyd, entertainment.ie
