August 15, 2023
It has been five years after the events of the last movie, Dr. Suyin Zhang had passed away and her teenage daughter Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) is being raised by her husband Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham). Her brother Jiuming (Wu Jing) has taken over her leadership of underwater research facility Mana One. Jiuming had actually raised a young female Meg he called Haiqi, and believed he had trained it to follow his commands via sonic signals.
One day, Jonas and Jiuming led a team to explore the Mariana Trench, and Meiying stowed away on their craft. At an underwater station, they discovered that there had been illegal mining activities being undertaken by traitors from within Mana One. A reckless undersea explosion set off by the bad guys released not only the Megs, but more killer monsters from the trench, like the carnivorous dinosaur-like Snappers, and a tentacled giant Kraken.
This sequel basically followed the same formula of the first film. During scientific explorations into the deeper parts of the Marianas Trench, a breach of the thermocline caused the release of deadly prehistoric monsters to attack a popular beach resort. From only 2 Megs in the first film. we now have more voracious killers, not only Megs and Kraken from the sea, but also Snappers on land -- a mix of "Jaws," "Tentacles" and "Jurassic Park."
The acting is very tongue-in-cheek from everyone in the cast, especially from Chinese actors. Wu Jing (also known as Jacky Wu) tends to have a comical expression on his face in his action scenes, coming off like a younger Jackie Chan. In contrast, Jason Statham is always in all-action hero mode as expected from him. The other actor who catches attention is Page Kennedy as Mana One engineer DJ, because of his wisecracks and emergency bag.
There really is not much to expect in this movie except for shallow action entertainment. There were many people killed left and right by the Megs and the other creatures, and those can be a lot of morbid fun to watch for a film like this. The situations with the Kraken and Snappers were all quite preposterous and over-the-top, done with a comic flavor. Of course, Statham can certainly pull off those impossible jetski and Meg-harpooning stunts very credibly. 5/10.
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