‘Meg 2: The Trench’ Review: Gleefully Jumping the Shark

A cute canine, an 8-year-old lady and numerous sunbathing beachgoers survived “The Meg” (2018) miraculously unhurt. The British filmmaker Ben Wheatley, who steps into the director’s chair for “Meg 2: The Trench,” has racked up stomach-turning physique counts (together with canines) in his darkly comedian thrillers like “Down Terrace,” “Kill List” and “Free Fire,” so it appears solely honest that his tackle a killer-shark film would lean a bit extra vicious.

But “Meg 2,” like the primary, maintains a field office-friendly PG-13 ranking, so Wheatley is essentially restricted in how a lot carnage he’s permitted to depict. Nevertheless, he finds many inventive methods to butcher dangerous guys and facet characters that hit the identical horror-adjacent pleasure facilities. There’s a shot from the viewpoint of a shark’s mouth because it’s consuming folks. I name that good directing.

The first “Meg,” with its story of a long-extinct carnivore re-emerging to wreak havoc amongst scientists, was paying homage to “Jurassic Park.” “Meg 2” takes the pure subsequent step and borrows from “The Lost World.” The shark-hunting, ocean-protecting hero Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) now has a stepdaughter (Sophia Cai) to guard, whereas the repertoire of prehistoric predators on the hunt has been richly expanded to incorporate a number of land-roaming dinosaurs and (why not?) an enormous squid. Of course, any shark film will inevitably reside within the shadow of “Jaws.” Wheatley has enjoyable with it by nodding playfully to “Jaws 2.”

The director having enjoyable is the presiding feeling right here — which can account for why the film is so steadily amusing, and sometimes pleasant. It has a lightweight, irreverent tone that generally verges on parodic, as when a villain’s archly assured victory speech is disrupted by a shark look straight out of “Deep Blue Sea,” or when a splashy pink title card cheerfully informs us that the populated space about to be descended upon by a trio of sharks known as “Fun Island.” Just how shut does the film get to full-blown parody? At one level, Statham actually jumps a shark.

It’s not that the primary “Meg” was significantly severe: It contained comedian reduction, however the humor felt extra studio-mandated. “Meg 2” has a spark of wit that feels looser and extra applicable to the fabric. The supporting solid — particularly Page Kennedy and Cliff Curtis as scientists pressured to affix the motion — are supplied way more freedom to chop unfastened and get foolish, whereas sure sight gags have a verve that actually pop (together with an escalating bit that has increasingly more of our heroes wandering into the identical armed holdup). No canines come to hurt on this one both, it must be mentioned. There’s sufficient madcap mayhem elsewhere that any extra would have been overkill.

Meg 2: The Trench
Rated PG-13 for intense motion, gentle language and extreme shark violence. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters.