Movie review - Meg 2: The Trench

Meg 2: The Trench sees Jason Statham and Cliff Curtis once again wrestling with giant, prehistoric sharks at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.Meg 2: The Trench sees Jason Statham and Cliff Curtis once again wrestling with giant, prehistoric sharks at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.https://youtu.be/k2W_dyYmNx8 Listen to the reviewThe original Meg was a Chinese-American co-production, mostly shot around New Zealand, about Jason Statham taking on a gigantic prehistoric shark - a megalodon.He was given able assistance from Kiwi star Cliff Curtis, Chinese celebrity Bingbing Li and a cute little Chinese moppet called Sophia Cai.Cliff and Sophia return with the Stath, though both New Zealand and Bingbing Li are abandoned before Meg 2: The Trench."The Trench" being the famous Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean anywhere, and the home of the last movie's invading megalodons.For the second film, director Ben Wheatley decides we need an historical recap. Flashback 65 million years...A caption explains that the world was inhabited by dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes, but the king of them all was.... Anyone? That's right Tyrannosaurus - "T" to his friends - Rex...But was it really? What's that hurtling in from the sea, and aiming at our carnivorous friend? It's a big, galumphing mega-shark - rather poorly animated, it has to be said.Okay, that's all the explanation this story needs, thinks director Wheatley, who's better known for rather more intellectually rigorous art-films like A Field in England, High Rise and Happy New Year Colin Burstead.Wheatley immediately throws us into the middle of some problems in the Mariana Trench.Jonas (Jason Statham) is now an eco-warrior taking on ratbags who dump nuclear waste in our oceans. Don't worry about that.He's also inherited the late Bingbing Li's daughter Meiying - now a stroppy teen - as well as Meiying's heroic Uncle Jimmy, whose hobby is training a tame megalodon. That's not important either. Cliff Curtis, tell us what is...There have been people - possibly nuclear ratbags - tampering with the Trench, and once you start doing that, who knows what you're going to unearth?Jonas and his buddies decide to take a couple of deep-diving minisubs down into the deeps to find out what's up and who's doing it. No, not you Meiying...But of course we know that saying no to a stroppy teen is a waste of time in this sort of movie…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details