MEG 2: THE TRENCH

Name: MEG 2: THE TRENCH
Item: MEG 2: THE TRENCH
Author: Cooper Dowd

"Shark Bite, So Does the Dialogue"

Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

MEG 2: THE TRENCH picks up five years after the first MEG movie. In the new movie, rescue diver Jonas Taylor leads two small groups of researchers in two small exploration subs into a deep ocean trench. His stepdaughter stows away. When the subs get to the trench, they discover a rogue mining operation. A mercenary is piloting a larger submarine guarding the mining facility causes a landslide that strands the people on the small subs and unleashes prehistoric sea monsters. A series of crazy, dangerous adventures ensues.

MEG 2: THE TRENCH provides moviegoers corny fun and lots of action. There are multiple narrow escapes. However, some escapes are too outlandish. Also, some poorly written dialogue will probably elicit groans. That said, MEG 2 has a strong moral worldview with redemptive elements. It promotes family members taking care of one another, people stopping polluting the environment with radioactive waste, sacrifice, and doing the right thing. MEG 2 is marred, however, by some poor dialogue, a few outlandish situations, politically correct environmentalist attitudes, gratuitous foul language, scary human deaths, and not-so-scary human deaths.

Content:

(BB, C, PCPC, EE, ACap, Ev, LL, VV, S, M)

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview with some redemptive elements promote family members taking care of one another, people stopping pollution of the environment with radioactive waste, sacrifice, and doing the right thing, and one male hero wishes another male hero “Godspeed,” and a stepfather takes his parental duties seriously, marred by some politically correct environmentalism where mining on the ocean floor for profit is seen as bad, which seems to be a kneejerk reaction from a moral and biblical viewpoint, plus a depiction of dinosaurs living 65 million years ago, but the depiction is turns out to be not accurate

Foul Language:

18 obscenities (includes several “h” and several a** words, two “ah” words, a few “d” and “s” words, and an SOB) and three light profanities

Violence:

Strong, sometimes scary action violence includes giant prehistoric sharks and large prehistoric barracudas attack and kill people under water and above water, giant sharks swallow multiple people whole, gunfights between good guys and bad guys, people shoot at giant sharks and large barracudas (the barracudas are amphibious and have legs, so they can attack people on land), man harpoons one giant shark and impales another one, another marine animal explodes, giant octopus under pier grabs people with its tentacles, little dog bites one of the tentacles, little dog is in peril, young teenage girl is in peril, other children around resort pier are in peril, people attack giant octopus, people run from large barracudas with vicious teeth, giant sharks swim fast toward people, scary and not-so-scary human deaths, man comically but expertly defends himself using martial arts, and man lightly pokes another man in the stomach, and this causes the man to back into a button opening a garage door, which lets some large prehistoric barracudas in a garage to kill some bad guys with guns, etc.

Sex:

No sex scenes but one or two lewd comments

Nudity:

No nudity

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Deceit, greed and sabotage but rebuked.

More Detail:

MEG 2: THE TRENCH picks up five years after the first MEG movie left off, to show the research team from the first movie exploring a deep ocean trench and running into a secret rogue mining operation run by mercenaries, who leave members of the research team stranded and unleash some undersea monsters, including three giant prehistoric sharks. MEG 2: THE TRENCH provides corny fun and lots of action for moviegoers, with many narrow escapes and a strong morally uplifting worldview, but it’s marred by some bad dialogue, improbable and outlandish situations, politically correct environmentalist attitudes, some gratuitous foul language, and scary human deaths and not-so-scary human deaths.

As the movie opens, rescue diver Jonas Taylor is still working for Oceanic Institute, which operates a deep sea research platform, Mana One, off the coast of China. However, his wife has died, leaving him taking care of his stepdaughter Meiying by himself. Meiying’s uncle, Jiuming, her mother’s brother, has joined the staff as its leading scientist, so she has strong family support around her. Jiuming thinks he’s established a connection to a young orphaned megalodon shark the facility has been nursing and holding captive, but Jonas is doubtful.

Rounding out the main characters is Jonas’ old friend, Mac, the new manager of the Institute, the DJ, the lead engineer of Mana One, Jess, the new lead technician of Mana One, and two other Oceanic scientists.

Jonas and Jiuming lead two small submarines into the deep trench where they first discovered the megalodon shark. Jiuming has developed exo-suits for everyone, so they can leave the sub marines and explore. Jonas has told Meiying, his stepdaughter, to stay on board Mana One, but

halfway to the trench, he discovers she’s a stowaway on his sub. She tells Jonas not to worry because she’s brought her own exo-suit.

At the trench, they discover someone has built a secret mining operation there. The miners have their own submarine, which is being piloted by Montez, the leader of a group of mercenaries. The mercenaries are being financed by the wealthy woman who’s also been financing the Institute.

Montez sets off an explosion that triggers a landslide and incapacitates the sub carrying Jonas, DJ and Meiying and seems to bury Jiuming’s sub. Jonas decides they must put on the exo-suits and walk back to Mana One. However, Mana One is three kilometers away, and the suits only have two hours of oxygen.

Making matters worse, the explosion has poked a hole in the variable temperature level guarding the lower depths where the prehistoric sharks live. Three large prehistoric sharks have escaped, along with some large prehistoric, amphibious barracudas with legs.

What follows is a series of death-defying adventures with the prehistoric sharks, prehistoric barracudas and the human mercenaries. In addition, Mac and Jess discover there’s a saboteur on Mana One, who has incapacitated a third research and rescue sub.

MEG 2: THE TRENCH provides moviegoers corny fun and lots of action. There are multiple narrow escapes. However, some of the escapes are outlandish to the point of being preposterous. Also hurting the plot are some dialogue that will probably elicit some groans from moviegoers.

That said, MEG 2 has a strong morally uplifting worldview with redemptive elements. The movie promotes family members taking care of one another, people stopping pollution of the environment with radioactive waste, sacrifice, and doing the right thing. However, the movie has some politically correct environmentalism. For example, it implies that any mining on the ocean floor for profit is bad. MEG 2 also has gratuitous foul language (about 21 obscenities and profanities) and some scary human deaths and not-so-scary human deaths. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children and sensitive adults.