---
title: "Meg 2: The Trench"
year: 2023
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/meg-2-the-trench"
fi1m_id: "meg-2-the-trench"
imdb_id: "tt9224104"
tmdb_id: 615656
wikidata_id: "Q110842446"
fi1m_score: 48
critics_score: 44
critics_reviews: 21
published: "2026-09-10"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:38:05.702039+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

Directed by Ben Wheatley · 1h 56m · MPA PG-13 · Action, Science Fiction, Horror

## Identity

Meg 2: The Trench

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/meg-2-the-trench
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** meg-2-the-trench
- **IMDb ID:** tt9224104
- **TMDB ID:** 615656
- **Wikidata ID:** Q110842446
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9224104/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/615656, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110842446

**Fi1m score: 48** · Critics 44 from 21 reviews

*In a sentence:* The sharks are the size of a submarine and the film still takes an hour to find them

> Ben Wheatley spends an hour in the dark on a mining conspiracy before remembering he was hired to let sharks loose. The last half hour is the silly, cheerful film everyone came for; the rest is a long swim to reach it.

## Synopsis

Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) now boards ships that dump waste at sea and deals with the crews personally. On land he helps raise Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai), whose uncle Jiuming Zhang (Wu Jing) runs the ocean research station and has quietly raised a megalodon of his own in captivity. A dive to the deepest part of the trench goes wrong when the team finds an illegal mining operation already down there, run by a mercenary called Montes (Sergio Peris-Mencheta). Their submersibles are wrecked, the only way out is a walk across the sea floor in pressure suits, and something large has followed them down. Mac (Cliff Curtis) and DJ (Page Kennedy) wait on the surface.

## Review

Ben Wheatley made [*Kill List*](https://film.one/film/kill-list) and *Sightseers* for almost nothing, and here he has been given 116 minutes and a shark the size of a submarine. *The Meg*, from 2018, was a holiday film: bright water, a big fish, Jason Statham looking put out. This one opens with a prologue in the Cretaceous, in which the megalodon establishes its place at the top of the menu, and then goes down into the dark and stays there for the better part of an hour. It is talking, mostly, about mining.

Jonas Taylor (Statham) has become a freelance environmental enforcer, boarding ships that dump waste and beating up the crews. His partner in this is Jiuming Zhang (Wu Jing), who runs the research station and has raised a megalodon of his own in a tank. A dive into the trench finds a mining operation already down there, run by Montes (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), and the submersibles are wrecked. The crew have to walk. Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber and Dean Georgaris then spend forty minutes on pressure suits, oxygen counts, a leak in the station and a lot of people at control panels saying that something is wrong.

Haris Zambarloukos shoots the sea floor in a brown-black murk lit by helmet torches, and the figures in identical suits cannot be told apart. When one of them is taken we had to wait for the survivors to tell us who it was. Jonathan Amos cuts between the trench, the station above and Montes’s rig, and none of the three strands builds any pressure, because each cut lets the air out of the last. We were bored, and then we were annoyed about being bored, because the film kept reminding us that three prehistoric sharks were loose somewhere in the dark and kept cutting away to a man reading a gauge.

Statham does what he does. He delivers lines as if leaving a pub, and there is a quiet pleasure in watching him refuse to be impressed by anything, including a shark longer than his boat. Wu Jing is better than that, because he seems to know what film he is in. He grins, he climbs things, he treats the giant shark as a pet that has let him down, and when the two men are put together the film has something like a pulse. Cliff Curtis and Page Kennedy are back as Mac and DJ, and Kennedy gets the only jokes in the first hour that land.

The second half goes where the trailer promised, and we will not describe it except to say it is the film everyone paid to see. Wheatley finally gets to the black comedy he was hired for, and Statham finally gets something to hit. We laughed, out loud and without shame, more than once in the last half hour, and then wondered why it had taken ninety minutes to get there. Harry Gregson-Williams’s brass, which has been marking time, at last has something to play over.

The 12A keeps the blood off the screen, so the deaths are quick and dry, a splash and a gap where a person was. Chris Lowe’s production design gives the station clean grey corridors and everything above the waterline a cheerful, flimsy look that exists to be smashed. The sharks themselves are shiny and weightless. Lindsay Pugh dresses the mercenaries in the black gear that tells you they are mercenaries and leaves Statham in a wetsuit, which is all anyone wanted.

Wheatley’s *Free Fire* kept a dozen people in one warehouse for ninety minutes and never once lost track of who was standing where. Here he loses six people on a sea floor within ten minutes. The last act is plainly the work of a man having a good time. Everything before it is a hired job that looks like one.

Most critics have landed near where we have, mixed and a little tired, and we can see why the reviews run from a shrug to a scowl. Watch it at home, do something else for the first eighty minutes, and come back for the last half hour. You will have missed nothing the film itself seems to have cared about.

*Fi1m score 48, published 10 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews are mostly negative and the spread is wide, running from warm to withering. Most critics agree on the shape of the thing: a slow, self-serious first hour spent on submersibles and a drilling operation rather than sharks, then a final third that lets loose.

Whether that finale is worth the wait is the dividing line. The New York Times and Sight and Sound think it is, finding the sequel gorier, funnier and more stylish than the original under Ben Wheatley. The larger group finds the plotting convoluted, the characters thin and the effects shoddy, and several call it plainly boring. Jason Statham’s dry line readings draw goodwill from nearly everyone, and the Los Angeles Times singles out Wu Jing as the liveliest presence on screen. A recurring regret is that Wheatley’s hand is hard to detect; the Telegraph would rather he were making something smaller and stranger.

## Straight answers

**Is Meg 2: The Trench worth watching?**

*Meg 2: The Trench* is only worth watching for the last half hour, when the sharks finally get loose, and we scored it 48. The first hour is spent in the dark on a mining conspiracy, with pressure suits, oxygen counts and people reading gauges. If you want Statham hitting things, skip ahead; the film will not mind.

**How long is Meg 2: The Trench, and what is it rated?**

*Meg 2: The Trench* runs 1h 56m and is rated PG-13 by the MPA in the US. It is an action and science fiction film.

**Where can I watch Meg 2: The Trench in the US?**

*Meg 2: The Trench* is streaming on HBO Max, Hulu, The Roku Channel and Amazon Prime Video in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV from $4.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is Meg 2: The Trench, and is it suitable for children?**

*Meg 2: The Trench* is a UK 12A, and the certificate keeps the blood off the screen, so the deaths are quick and dry, a splash and a gap where a person was. The long stretch on the sea floor is dark and murky rather than frightening. Older children used to action films should cope; younger ones may be more bored than scared.

**Is Meg 2: The Trench based on a true story or a book?**

*Meg 2: The Trench* is not a true story; it is based on a novel by Steve Alten, and prehistoric sharks the size of submarines are not a documentary subject. Our review says nothing about how closely the film follows the book. You do not need to have read it, or seen the first film, to follow what happens.

**What should I watch after Meg 2: The Trench?**

After *Meg 2: The Trench*, try [*Wolf Warrior 2*](https://film.one/film/wolf-warrior-2) (2017, Fi1m 71): Wu Jing directs himself; if Jiuming was the best thing here, this is why. Then [*The Abyss*](https://film.one/film/the-abyss) (1989, Fi1m 71): James Cameron’s deep-sea rig thriller, proof the trench can actually frighten.

### Reviews we read (25)

- **Sight and Sound** (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the film an enjoyable, over-the-top sharky schlock that serves up more fun than the original thanks to Wheatley's handling of the absurdity, ensemble cast and black humour. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/meg-2-trench-enjoyable-over-top-sharky-schlock)
- **The New York Times**, Calum Marsh (75/100, inferred): The lively sequel greatly improves on the predecessor by getting gorier, funnier and more stylish under Wheatley's direction. The critic praises creative ways of depicting carnage despite the PG-13 rating, including an effective POV shot from inside a shark's mouth. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/movies/meg-2-the-trench-review.html)
- **Empire**, Ben Travis (70/100, inferred): Ben Wheatley delivers a fun, knowingly silly summer blockbuster sequel with crunchy action and playful pulpiness, though it is let down by a waterlogged script and some murky underwater sequences. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/meg-2-the-trench/)
- **The AV Club**, Mark Keizer (C+): The film is better than the first thanks to Wheatley's direction and willingness to embrace its B-movie cheese, but it still lacks drive and imagination. It is awfully fun in spots when it leans into the ridiculous action and humor. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-meg-2-the-trench-movie-review-jason-statham-1850697450)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Katie Walsh (60/100, inferred): The first half is dire straits and self-serious, but the film eventually gets in on the joke with fun creature-feature action on the surface. Wheatley loosens up in the second half, and Wu Jing's charismatic wild-man performance stands out as a highlight. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-08-04/review-meg-2-the-trench-jason-statham-wu-jing)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, David Rooney (45/100, inferred): The sequel delivers only scattershot pleasures despite Statham's rugged charm and self-irony. It struggles to balance suspense with monster-movie silliness and feels tonally uncertain. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/meg-2-the-trench-review-jason-statham-ben-wheatley-1235550391/)
- **Radio Times**, Patrick Cremona (2/5): The action is generic with some surface pleasures, but the slapdash plotting, thinly drawn characters, shoddy CGI and clunky lines make the sequel easy to forget. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-ek8ws9/meg-2-the-trench/)
- **Variety**, Owen Gleiberman (40/100, inferred): The over-the-top sequel is trivial big-budget junk that sounds like it was written by AI and remains numbingly formulaic overall. Wheatley scales up effectively in the shamelessly diverting third act, though the film makes Godzilla look deep by comparison. [Read](https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/the-meg-2-the-trench-review-jason-statham-1235685957/)
- **Vulture**, Bilge Ebiri (40/100, inferred): The movie is extremely stupid but fails to deliver consistent entertainment or basic storytelling clarity. It misses opportunities for more over-the-top fun with its giant creatures and action set pieces. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/meg-2-the-trench-review-this-should-have-been-stupider.html)
- **Screen Daily** (35/100, inferred): Lacking killer instinct, the film lumbers as neither a gripping thriller nor campy escapism; Wheatley fails to replicate the original's scares and silliness, with a frustratingly complicated plot undermining the mindless carnage. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/meg-2-the-trench-review/5184599.article)
- **The Independent**, Clarisse Loughrey (30/100, inferred): The film spends too long on po-faced submersible sequences before delivering chaotic fun in the final third, but the overall result is a stinker of a sequel that is dead in the water. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/meg-2-review-jason-statham-b2387710.html)
- **Evening Standard**, Charlotte O'Sullivan (25/100, inferred): The sequel lacks focus and suspense despite some laughs in the second half; the director is ultimately being eaten alive by the franchise's weaknesses. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/meg-2-the-trench-jason-statham-ben-wheatley-review-b1098634.html)
- **Slant Magazine** (1/4): The film improves by dialing up the camp factor in its second half with absurd action sequences. It owns the ridiculous premise after a dour start, making for a more entertaining if still flawed monster movie. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/meg-2-the-trench-review-jason-statham-ben-wheatley/)
- **RogerEbert.com**, Brian Tallerico (20/100, inferred): The critic finds the film dismally boring and one of the dullest of the year, with Wheatley phoning it in until a chaotic final half-hour. The underwater sequences are poorly executed and the story prioritizes an evil drilling operation over the sharks. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/meg-2-the-trench-movie-review-2023)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw: The sequel treads water and fails to settle on an identity, mixing ideas from Jaws, Jurassic Park, Alien and Sharknado with little success. Statham occasionally raises a droll smile with his line readings amid the multiplicity of threats. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/aug/04/meg-2-the-trench-review-jason-statham-ben-wheatley)
- **The Telegraph**: Two great British talents bring plenty of prehistoric monsters but little panache to a numbing wash of shiny visual effects and multinational mugging that is mostly palatable only to undemanding audiences. The glossy setting makes one wish Wheatley was making a lower-budget Wheatley film. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/meg-2-the-trench-review-jason-statham-wu-jing/)
- **The Times** (★☆☆☆☆): The film drags narrative incompetence to new depths with an entire first hour focused on lowlights of Eighties straight-to-video action hokum rather than sharks, before a triple meg attack arrives far too late. It is an execrable sequel. [Read](https://thetimes.com/culture/film/article/meg-2-the-trench-review-plumbing-the-depths-of-eighties-action-films-k3xkf8gvj)
- **Collider**, Marco Vito Oddo (C+): The critic finds that while the horror sections create tension through fear of the unknown, the film is bloated with too many plot threads, leading to a convoluted and boring third act with poorly written villains and hard-to-follow action. [Read](https://collider.com/meg-2-the-trench-review/)
- **The Playlist**, Nick Allen (C): Calls it a big amateurish mess, frustrating with rushed set pieces and lack of wit, though the third act delivers some dumb fun. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/meg-2-the-trench-review-ben-wheatleys-sequel-is-a-big-amateurish-mess-20230804/)
- **Den of Geek**, Don Kaye (2.5/5): The film is a tedious, generic sequel that fails to deliver subversion or excitement despite its director's pedigree, ultimately sinking under a convoluted plot and weak CG creatures. Statham remains a welcome presence, and the finale offers some entertaining deaths and heroic moments. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/meg-2-the-trench-review-no-bite/)
- **/Film**, Chris Evangelista (4/10): Finds the film boring despite its silly premise, criticizing the dull script and lack of shark action in the first hour, though the climax has some fun moments. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/1357158/meg-2-review/)
- **Polygon**, Jesse Hassenger (30/100, inferred): The critic notes that the film lacks horror nerve and a sense of terror or wonder in the trench, with shoddy effects and editing in the climax, though Statham is a reliable presence; overall, it drowns in silliness without contributing meaningfully to the shark movie genre. [Read](https://www.polygon.com/reviews/23818566/meg-2-trench-review)
- **Deadline**, Todd McCarthy (20/100, inferred): The critic finds the sequel tedious and lacking the original's bite, turning into a repetitive and implausible joke. They single out the conventional plotting involving bad guys and the absurd action sequences for complaint. [Read](https://deadline.com/2023/08/meg-2-the-trench-review-jason-statham-sequel-1235454121/)
- **The Wrap** (15/100, inferred): The review calls it a dull sequel that plunges into boredom with bad CGI and poor writing. It singles out the shameless borrowings from other films and laughable CGI for criticism. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/meg-2-the-trench-review-jason-statham/)
- **Film Stories**, Lauren Miles: The critic notes the uneven sequel with a forgettable first two acts focused on business politics instead of shark action, but praises the exciting third act with Statham fighting sharks on Fun Island. [Read](https://filmstories.co.uk/reviews/meg-2-the-trench-review-statham-vs-more-sharks/)

## Details

- **Director:** Ben Wheatley
- **Director:** Ben Wheatley
- **Screenplay:** Dean Georgaris, Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber
- **Novel:** Steve Alten
- **Cinematography:** Haris Zambarloukos
- **Editor:** Jonathan Amos
- **Music:** Harry Gregson-Williams
- **Production design:** Chris Lowe
- **Costume design:** Lindsay Pugh
- **Producer:** Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Belle Avery
- **Cast:** Jason Statham as Jonas Taylor; Wu Jing as Jiuming Zhang; Shuya Sophia Cai as Meiying; Page Kennedy as DJ; Sergio Peris-Mencheta as Montes; Sienna Guillory as Driscoll; Cliff Curtis as Mac; Skyler Samuels as Jess
- **Runtime:** 1h 56m
- **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13
- **Release (the US):** 4 August 2023
- **Genres:** Action, Science Fiction, Horror
- **Budget:** $129 million
- **Box office:** $399 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG91B3hHyY4

## Where to watch in the US

- HBO Max: streaming, uhd
- Hulu: add-on, hd
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, uhd
- Apple TV: rent $4.99, hd
- Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, uhd

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Deep Blue Sea* (1999): Renny Harlin’s clever-shark picture knows exactly when to stop being serious.
- *The Host* (2006): Bong Joon-ho’s river monster is funny, sad and frightening, often in one scene.
- *Free Fire* (2016): Wheatley at his own scale: one warehouse, a dozen idiots and no water.
- *Wolf Warrior 2* (2017), Fi1m 71: Wu Jing directs himself; if Jiuming was the best thing here, this is why. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/wolf-warrior-2.md)
- *The Abyss* (1989), Fi1m 71: James Cameron’s deep-sea rig thriller, proof the trench can actually frighten. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-abyss.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/meg-2-the-trench