#35: MEG 2: THE TRENCH

Starring Jason Statham, Wu Jing, Sophia Cai, Page Kennedy, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Skyle Samuels and Cliff Curtis. Screenplay by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber and Dean Georgaris. Directed by Ben Wheatley. Budget $129 million. Running time 116 minutes. 

The three screenplay writers and also the guys responsible for the story had a big problem. They just couldn't agree on a story for this second film. Should it be a sequel retreading the same beats as the first but with a different Megalon or should it be something new? They all agreed they wanted to try something new, but should it be a big budget version of Walking With Dinosaurs? How-about a reworking of Deep Blue Sea crossed with The Abyss with a group of scientists and workers besieged by sharks on a rapidly sinking deep sea research laboratory? Should it be Die Hard on the high seas with not one, not two, but THREE massive Megalon sharks adding a further dimension, how about an underwater heist movie? Or should it be Jurassic World, with a holiday resort terrorised by a bunch of humungous Megalon sharks? The trouble was they just couldn't agree. They argued for days, then weeks, then months until one of them had an epiphany moment, what-if we do all of them? The three writers burst into tears, gosh weren't they clever, they all agreed. What a brilliant idea.

And that was what they did. Not one story, not two but four completely different stories vaguely linked in someway, usually by THE STATH (Jason Statham) oh and some MASSIVE PREHISTORIC SHARKS, but only when we remember them. The producers were excited but had a note. 'Can we please have dinosaurs too.'

And that's the plot of this wretched piece of sewage, a film so shit, it's almost like it was financed by the combined might of the water companies.

It starts with THE STATH infiltrating an illegal nuclear waste dumping operation on the high seas, before finally arriving at the research base Mana One above the Trench leading to the discovery of an illegal mining operation in the trench itself and not one but two disabled submarines stuck at the bottom of the sea. Then it's back upstairs for the brief Die Hard sequence on board Mana One, with three massive Meladons in hot pursuit and something else, something that eats giant Megadons - a giant squid, or in this case, a tentacle, then it's a race off to the holiday resort for the final sequence, where THE STATH faces off against the beasties with some jury-rigged exploding spears. 

Shoe-horned into the bloated cast are a stepdaughter for THE STATH, and a Diversity-bingo card checklist of secondary characters and a generic band of limitless bad guys, lead by a Spanish henchmen all working for the generic rich British CEO of a global corporation who's financing the mining operation that only exists in the Trench. Oh and a pack of dinosaurs that somehow managed to survive over 65 million years. 

Obviously because this is a Chinese financed movie the film is packed with a horde of Chinese characters and Chinese sensibilities, and the whole third act sequence that takes place on 'FUN ISLAND' which is populated by beautiful Chinese people and fat, obnoxious Americans who all die horribly. Oh and the dog from the first film. The script contains only sound bites and memes, the violence which often results in death is utterly blood free and bullets only kill when fired by the heroes. Much of the first hour is filled with subtitles and The Stath delivers a truly generic and blank performance, even more so than usual. The main baddy, leader of the underwater villains returns to life over and over again until he's finally eaten by a Megalon. 

Oh, yes the sharks, sorry Megalons. They're barely in it. They're mostly forgotten and only appear vaguely until the final showdown on Fun Island, heavily featured in the trailer, but woefully underused and wasted in this putrid liquid crap. 

One character is torn to pieces in the back of a helicopter leaving not one drop of blood, a piece of cloth or any gubbins at all. Oh and there is a hilarious midair helicopter refuelling that is so staggering stupid and implausible as to render everything else utterly unbelievable.

This is a water-logged, boring and crushingly tedious movie that plumbs new depths of blandness. Added to this was the shaky cam approach to each and every action scene.

Which is a real shame because the trailer, the best thing about this film, seemed to indicate it all took place in a holiday resort, which would have been fantastic. Sadly the writers had other ideas and Ben Wheatly was too busy counting his fat wads of money to care.

Shit, bland and almost completely without merit. And do not under any circumstances, if you choose to go and see this crap take the 3D option. Worst use of 3D ever.

3/10