For the last week of April’s movies, I was “stuck” with Meg 2: The Trench (2023). This is a movie I normally would not choose to watch for a movie night, as I am not typically into Hollywood Action Flicks. I went into this one with no expectations whatsoever. And to be entirely honest, I had a good time. Much like Maxwell’s review of Rampage (2018), I will not be really analyzing this one as a “film” but rather as a “Hollywood Production” that was supposed to sell tickets and fill seats in theaters across the country. Jason Statham (Jonas Taylor) is a well liked action star. He has been in many big Hollywood successes in his career, movies that aren’t great, but that do well and are well received by the general public.

Meg 2: The Trench is one of these movies. With a budget of $129,000,000, and a worldwide gross of $398,500,000, this movie was a success in terms of what it set out to do. Nothing that happens in this movie is deep (get it? DEEP like the ocean?) or meaningful and I won’t be pondering it for long after finishing this review, but it did achieve its goal of being a hit Hollywood Blockbuster that filled seats. 

The story is extremely cheesy and over the top, like most of Jason Statham’s movies. I did not see the first one, but in this one, they are setting out to build an underwater research station at the thermocline, a super cold, dense layer of water in the Marina Trench that acts as a barrier keeping Megalodons and other prehistoric creatures trapped in the deep waters. A terrorist organization is attacking this research facility, wanting to take it over to do not quite illegal mining of that area for hydrogen sulphide, which is rampant in this region. Of course, this causes issues for the main cast who want to protect the ocean wildlife and study the Megs.

The production quality in this one was impressive. The effects and action sequences were visually appealing and held my attention well. I am not trying to be pretentious but I was surprised that I actually enjoyed watching this one. The CGI for the Megs was not cheesy at all like I expected it to be. Jurassic Park levels of CGI beasts. I think there was one single scene that wasn’t done well featuring them, when they are showing the resort on the island and one of the Megs sinks a boat with resort guests on it. They did a faraway shot and didn’t actually show anything, rather using a quick cut to a faraway shot showing the boat had already disappeared under the water. I skipped this scene back to try and see what had actually taken place here, and was disappointed with the quick cut showing us nothing. This was the only cheesy use of the effects in the entire movie though. 

There is really not much substance to this movie. I’ve basically summarized the entire story in the first half of this review, and I am finding it difficult to write more to be honest. Big action movie that had a great return on investment. The dialogue isn’t bad either, as one would expect from a big Hollywood Blockbuster Action flick. The acting is solid, the characters are fine. As Maxwell said in his Rampage (2018) review, he was looking forward to the end of this era of filmmaking, but I don’t think we’re there yet, or anywhere close to it. Meg 2: The Trench was made five years after Rampage, and and even still, seven years after Rampage, and three after Meg 2: The Trench, we are still seeing films of this genre being made and filling seats, i.e. Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) which had a budget of $180,000,000 and made roughly $870,000,000 worldwide. I haven’t seen Jurassic World: Rebirth, but I have heard many people’s criticisms of it. Yet, it sold out theaters around the world. The return on investment for these kinds of movies is typically through the roof, and it’s honestly a marvel of Hollywood filmmaking. (Marvel, get it?)

The first movie in this series, which again, I have not seen, is from the same year as Rampage. In 2018, it had a budget of $130,000,000 and a return of $529,000,000 worldwide. These kinds of movies will always be around (sorry Maxwell) and they will always fill seats for the general public, a group that I know Maxwell and myself like to believe we are not a part of, despite that not being the case. There are rumors of a third Meg movie being made, not yet confirmed however. If they do make a third one, you can expect it will be bigger and better and even more action packed than the first two. 

Overall, this movie is just fine. The effects are good, the action sequences are fun, and the story is just enough to be ever so slightly interesting. And this movie did achieve its goal of being a Hollywood Action Blockbuster.

-2 mallards/5

-Seann

“Ain’t no bitches gonna catch no ghosts.”

Yes, this was the last pick of our draft for the month, and it’s no secret why. As a brief recap, this was a pretty controversial movie upon its announcement and release. Remaking a beloved 80’s movie with a devoted following using an ALL-FEMALE cast? They’re ruining my childhood (is what people online said). Of course, for all of the detractors of the idea there were ardent defenders. Many discounted the film outright, which made many others upset. It became quite the political discussion, and anyone critiquing the movie had to walk on eggshells lest they find themselves on trial in the court of public opinion. Luckily, I’m a nobody, so I can say whatever I want without fear of public humiliation. 

I must admit that I largely stayed out of the discussions a decade ago, because I didn’t feel really passionately one way or the other. I like the original Ghostbusters (1984) as much as the next guy. I’m a pretty big Bill Murray fan, especially his work with director Wes Anderson, and the original movie does have a very nostalgic charm to it. I remember watching it at least a couple times with my mom. Anyway, I’m usually slightly on the side of anti-remakes because I think it’s just kind of intellectually lazy. This is especially true for remakes that aren’t significantly different than the original, like a different genre, or a different setting, etc. I mostly stayed out of this one due to the aforementioned controversies, and I had no dog in the fight. I’ve gone on record as not being a fan of Melissa McCarthy, but that’s about the extent of my interaction with this movie before watching it. 

Okay, with the social disclaimer out of the way, on to the actual review. Is this a good movie? To be honest, no, not really. Is it because it’s a female cast of main stars? I’d be absolutely lying if I said that did not have something to do with it, BUT that is not the biggest issue. There are some serious issues with this movie that go far beyond the casting or even the premise. 

This movie actually starts off pretty good. It’s honestly pretty funny – I audibly laughed or exhaled sharply through my nose multiple times in the first roughly 45 minutes. I was thinking of giving it as high as a 3.5 and I was honestly shocked at how much I was enjoying it. The Kristen Wiig character was pretty engaging and easy to root for. The special effects of the ghosts were cool in the opening scene, and it honestly had the hallmarks of a decent highly-polished modern blockbuster movie. 

As more characters are introduced, the quality remains pretty high. The Melissa McCarthy character, despite my proclivities against her, is somewhat entertaining, and I think the Kate McKinnon character might be my favorite of the whole film. The Leslie Jones character has a pretty good origin story and has moments of humor as well. The Chris Hemsworth character I didn’t care for, of course. 

Unfortunately there’s a scene that occurs after which the quality takes a nosedive, and this is the scene in which they first capture a ghost at a metal music festival. The scene itself was fine, but this is the point at which the film takes an abrupt turn from being about the teams’ efforts to try to capture a ghost for their own edification to being about trying to prove to the world that ghosts exist and that they’re not crazy. They become the center of an FBI conspiracy and cover-up and the entire thing devolves into a really cringe-inducing meta commentary on the backlash I mentioned early on in my review. 

It’s like they tried to shoehorn the reality of the internet complaints into the script of the movie. The women spend the entire second act trying to prove that they’re ‘not crazy’ and that they should be taken seriously. Why would the directors and producers go this route? Instead of putting so much effort into the movie in the form of trying to imitate real life events, why not prove the doubters wrong by making an actual good movie? I understand the allegory or metaphor they’re going for, but I just don’t care about it. I understand there are people who said the movie would be bad because of the cast. So what? Make a good movie. Choosing this route just plays into the hands of those people and proves them right. 

It’s truly a baffling decision, and all it does is hurt the overall quality of the movie severely. By the end of the second act I stopped caring and started actively disliking the characters (except for McKinnon). If you’re trying to be taken seriously, there’s nothing worse that you can do than insist and beg and complain that people are not taking you seriously. The third act, like I said, is uninspiring, uninteresting, and I didn’t particularly care about the ghosts or whatever at that point. I mostly just wanted it to be over. 

So, yes, as stated in the intro, the fact that it has an all-female cast does contribute to the overall badness, but not BECAUSE the cast is all female, but because the entire plot of the movie is based around targeting and arguing against the people who said that the movie won’t be good because of the female cast. They essentially sealed their own fate. By going so far out of the way to prove that they can make the movie good with an all-female cast, they absolutely ruined any chance they had of making a good movie. I think this is peak irony. If you replaced the cast of this movie with the original cast, kept all dialogue and everything the same, it would still be a bad movie. 

Ghostbusters (2016) has a score of 6.8 out of 10 on IMDB, a Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer score of 74%, and a score 2.3 out of 5 on Letterboxd. Again, I find myself closer to the Letterboxd review. This movie is just not very good, especially the second half of it. I couldn’t care less that the cast is all women – I wouldn’t have liked it no matter who was in it. Let the firestorm commence.

-2 mallards/5

-Maxwell