Aka Shark 2. Wherever he goes people love him. God knows why. Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is involved in fighting environmental crimes while helping marine biology centre Mana One explore the Mariana Trench, where the Megalodon, a giant prehistoric shark, had been found. Following the death of Jonas’ wife Suyin Zhang, he has been raising her teenage daughter Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) with her uncle, Suyin’s brother Jiuming Zhang (Wu Jing). Jiuming acquired his father’s company alongside wealthy financier Hillary Driscoll (Sienna Guillory). Mana One has been studying an 80 ft (24 m) female Meg called Haiqi, who was discovered as a pup and trained by Jiuming in a reserve in Hainan. Jonas and Jiuming lead a routine submersible exploration to the Trench. Fellow Meg survivors engineer DJ (Page Kennedy) and operations manger Mac (Cliff Curtis) observe them from the Mana One. The subs are pursued by Haiqi, who has escaped captivity. The subs dive through the thermocline to escape, where they encounter two much larger Megs, a massive alpha male and a beta male, who mate with Haiqi. Jiuming realises that Haiqi had been acting oddly because it’s mating season – she was calling the other Megs to mate. The team also discovers an illegal mining operation captained by mercenary Montes (Sergio Peris Moncheta) who wants revenge against Jonas for his imprisonment some years earlier. Montes’ crew was hired by the (secretly) corrupt Driscoll to use Mana One’s access to the Trench to farm rare-earth minerals that could be worth billions. Montes kills his crew in an explosion to cover up their activities. This causes a rupture in the Trench and grounds the team’s ships. DJ, Mac and Mana One analyst Jess (Skyler Samuels) find that the rescue pod has been sabotaged, forcing the crew to use exosuits to walk toward Montes’ station. Only four of them survive the journey. Jess reveals that she is a traitor and attempts to remotely kill the four but they manage to escape in a submersible. When they surface they discover that the rupture from earlier has caused several Trench creatures, including the three Megs, along with lizard-like creatures known as Snappers and a giant octopus to escape to the surface. Jess is devoured by a Meg when it bites through a ‘Meg-proof’ window. Then Jonas’ team escapes to a nearby resort, Fun Island … The problem is it’s a Meg and you’re a snack. With tongue firmly in cheek, The Stath returns in this followup to 2018’s The Meg, adapted from Steve Alten’s 1999 novel The Trench with a screenplay by the same team – Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber and Dean Georgaris. As the publicity has it, the Meg is back for seconds. With a cosy setup featuring Jonas and his stepdaughter and her uncle, the good guys are pitted against the kind of villains we know from every film ever previously made making us crave the inevitable return of all the demonic sea monsters – who, in the case of the Megs, are just looking for some time and space to reproduce and for the most part don’t even star in their own film. There are a lot more creatures than them however, which makes this an underwater chase movie until the action turns to the surface – the penultimate sequence of which was trailed rather significantly in the theatres. Statham is well matched in the ensemble in the delivery of deadpan and the women get a lot of credit here for their cojones while a witty soundtrack caters to the Chinese audience which this is clearly serving. Picking out the references from Jaws to Sharknado adds to the pure popcorn fun. Directed by Ben Wheatley. Here’s to dolphins!
mondomovies 