A Binge too Far #40: Ocean's Gigantic Thrills of The Meg duo (2018 - 2023)

Jason Statham in The Meg (2018)

The Meg (2018) poster

The Meg (2018)

 

A science research group is studying – on location – the Marianas Trench when they lose some of their crew to the deep and facing the sea’s biggest threat, namely the Megalodon. They have zero chance of surviving, until they bring the troubled diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham, no introduction needed) on board to save the day.

 

Based on Steve Alten’s ultra successful Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (1997) – one of the very few books I cherished as a young reader – the rights of which were already purchased by Disney in the late 1990s (the project was stuck in development hell until now), and turned into screenplay form by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber (it was directed by Jon Turteltaub), this is pure PG-13 fun, so don’t expect too much violence, as you can get much more of that on any regular SyFy shark movie, but what you’ll get is a lot more expensive action, with its $130 million. It went on to gross $530.2 million, so a sequel was inevitable, and we’ll have a look at that bellow.

 

The Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

The Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

 

Set a decade after the events of the first film (which was made a mere five years prior to this sequel), we join Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham, once again) as he fights organized crime with an emphasis on environmental pollution, until he is gathered by his old team to fight something literally bigger, a new oceanic threat.

 

Featuring inexplicably – for its massive $139 million budget – bad creature CGI effects, this sequel directed by Ben Wheatley is bombastic in terms of action, but is also as shallow as these things can get. It is popcorn entertainment though, and you can find many worse ways to kill a couple of hours. It grossed a stunning $397.7 million and discussions about another sequel are already happening.

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