Meg 2: The Trench

Eventually stops taking itself seriously and becomes the movie it's meant to be.

While there are undeniable instances of magic, there are just as many unintentionally laughable ones right along with them.

Attempts to bite off its 2018 predecessor by going bigger in every way, but rarely for the better. It’s a clumsy action movie with the occasional spurt of fun monster conflict amidst a sea of flat characters and a tiresome plot of corporate espionage.

What's all most astounding about this is that it's directed with zero panache by Ben Wheatley.

If Wheatley were inclined to release Meg 2: The Fun Island Cut, there’d be a lot more here to recommend. As it is, the film’s dead in the water.

This franchise needs to be buried at the bottom of the Atlantic for a couple of decades, along with some illegally dumped nuclear waste. Perhaps then it might finally mutate into something entertaining.

Just as “Meg 2” fails to work as a serious, scary shark thriller like ‘Jaws,” it also lacks the camp appeal of “Sharknado.” Instead, it’s stranded at sea, somewhere in the middle, and even appealing tough guy Statham can’t save it.

It offers a throwback to the kind of no-brainer formula genre thriller that used to be par for a summer’s moviegoing course, but now seems a bit out of place.

The filmmakers are more than comfortable with the writing team either overlooking any scientific inaccuracy in Steve Altern's source novel, or in adding their own logic-defying scenarios, including that meeting of the megalodon and Tyrannosaurus...

Unfortunately, one must make it through most of the movie to reach this fun, chaotic conclusion.