Jason Statham movies serve a very specific purpose in the food chain. They don’t bring us subtle storytelling or a meditation on where our place is in the food chain; they bring us a bald man punching sharks in the face or shocking his heart with car batteries, right? Thankfully, this movie completely understands that assignment and gives us prehistoric monsters and jet skis.
Meg 2: The Trench has officially become one of Netflix’s biggest global hits, climbing the streamer’s worldwide Top 10. The 116-minute sci-fi action sequel has surged up the rankings alongside titles including F9, The Hustle, Regretting You, and Netflix’s Enola Holmes 3. Directed by Ben Wheatley, the sequel brings Statham back as rescue diver Jonas Taylor, who ends up part of an exploratory team heading down into the trench where the last movie’s megalodon came from. The expedition quickly goes spectacularly wrong after disturbing multiple Megalodons and several other prehistoric creatures that really should have been left alone. Before long, Jonas is battling enormous sharks, ruthless mercenaries and an ecosystem determined to remind humanity why the deepest parts of the ocean remain largely unexplored.
The film stars Wu Jing (The Wandering Earth) as Jiuming Zhang, Sophia Cai (Somewhere Only We Know) as Meiying Zhang, Cliff Curtis (Avatar: The Way of Water) as Mac, Page Kennedy (The Upshaws) as DJ, Sergio Peris-Mencheta (Rambo: Last Blood) as Montes, Skyler Samuels (The Gifted) as Jess, and Melissanthi Mahut (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey) as Rigas.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most honest thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
Was ‘The Meg 2’ Successful?
The sequel was not quite as commercially massive as 2018’s The Meg, which earned approximately $529 million worldwide, but that’s not to say it didn’t do well, finishing its run with $397.8 million globally against a $129 million production budget. Critics didn’t exactly love it, but this isn’t the kind of film made for critics, although we suspect Roger Ebert would have appreciated the value in Jason Statham punching a dinosaur shark. The film currently holds a 27% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, although audiences were far happier, awarding it a 72% Popcornmeter score.
Meg 2: The Trench is streaming now on Netflix.
Runtime
116 minutes
Writers
Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber
Producers
Belle Avery, E. Bennett Walsh, Gerald R. Molen, Jason Statham, Wu Jing, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Erik Howsam, Randy Greenberg, Cate Adams, Ying Xujun
