Double Review – ‘Meg 2: The Trench’, ‘The Last Voyage of the Demeter’

I’m a big advocate for the double feature, as I wrote about here. So this is a new semi-annual segment I’m starting where I’ll review two movies that are both currently in theatres individually, then review the experience as a double feature, and if they’d be better separate or together. The ocean is home to much we know and understand but that’s a small fraction of what it truly contains, and what monsters and horrors lie below we may only discover in time.

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Last Thursday, I had the chance to see two such takes on the horrors of the depths in André Øvredal’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Ben Wheatley’s The Meg II: The Trench. Make no mistake, these are very VERY different movies, made for entirely different audiences, but in a way, I think it’s interesting to analyze two extremely different approaches to a similar root idea. The first of that night was Last Voyage so that will get the first look over.

#1 Last Voyage Review

Last Voyage is a nautical horror movie taking on and expanding the chapter featuring the captain’s log of the Demeter from Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel. Last Voyage is certainly an ambitious movie, aiming to make Dracula less of a joke as a lot of modern media has made him whether intentional or not such as in Blade: Trinity, Hotel Transylvania, and this year’s Renfield.

The legendary lord of the unliving is portrayed less as a man and more as the film says, as a demon in the skin of a man, which creates this unsettling visage with how little he’s shown at first. A lot of how this movie functions and looks is reminiscent of the film’s primary inspiration, which according to director Øvredal was the 1979 Ridley Scott smash hit Alien.

While Dracula and the horrors he commits are beautifully executed, the characters surrounding them are less than compelling, with the exception of Corey Hawkins as Clemmons who shines, while there are a number of enjoyable and even excellent performances from the majority of the cast, Aisling Franciosi and David Dastmalchian especially are really good with the minimal material.

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The characters while not great are serviceable and their minimalist nature takes you into the feeling of horror of this month at sea. The acting, the cinematography, the use of classic vampire lore, and the sense of dread from top to bottom create a wholly unique experience, but not a flawless one.

It felt a little drawn out at points and rushed at others regarding the characters’ reaction to Dracula existing or not and how to handle that despite the good tension, there were strange issues regarding the pacing.

As admirable as the approach was to address racism in a movie set in the nineteenth century, especially using it to compare to a nature we don’t fully understand of men, like Dracula himself, it felt almost superfluous to the expedition at large short of one conversation between Clemmons and Petrovsky and then again between Clemmons and Wojchek.

Again, by no means is this a bad film, and I appreciate the ambition and scope it attempts for problems of then and now as related to gothic horror, but it doesn’t land in full. It’s worth the watch, and I’d more than like to see what this team works on next whether that be a similar reimagining of another literary monster or a direct sequel that picks up where this leaves off.

3.5 out of 5 stars

#2 Meg 2 Review

On the exact opposite end of the cinematic spectrum lies The Meg II: The Trench, a safe tepid and ultimately boring take on “turn your brain off” action movies such as The Fast and the Furious Franchise or The Crank Series, both of which star Jason Statham in similar cool as ice straight man to wacky scenario roles.

The problems with this movie start with the fact that the story of this goes so far removed from the Megs as a concept that it’s insane, at a certain point the movie devolves into “Scubamen vs Captain Planet Villains” as the Megs only appear as minor obstacles every once in a while, until the end of the third act when they suddenly appear as a threat on par with the human villains.

The plot, if you can call it that, is initiated by human villains, which is kind of the greatest sin for a movie like this. A concept such as The Meg or Godzilla vs Kong, for example, is driven by the spectacle promised in the title, not the attached human characters, as necessary as they are.

However, this movie is more so Jason Statham feat. Aqua Kaiju and Terrorists, which kind of misses the point of using humans to centre the spectacle when the humans end up taking over the story, the screen time, and the interesting changes.

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Heck, the action isn’t even that fun to look at half of the time, a lot of it is comprised of underwater set sequences which look uncanny in execution, which is a trend I’ve noticed apparent when only a head is cgi compared to the rest of a person. With as much malice as possible, the humour present in this movie is less akin to Nas lampshading taking a car to space in F9: The Fast Saga and more akin to the worst of Michael Bay’s filmography but with less bite to the material.

I will say this: there is one especially creative sequence where explosive harpoons are shot into the megs, but that’s at the very tail end. The other problem with the movie is that it can’t decide on a tone, is it going to be self-serious, is it a self-aware comedy, what’s it going for?

The problem I realize as I’m typing this is that they wrote half the characters as being in one genre, and the other half as another, and they never acknowledge this fact. The Meg II is a lazy excuse for comedy, action, and being a creature feature, it’s a 4/10, I’m not even mad, I’m just disappointed in this rejected SyFy movie.

2 out of 5 stars

Final Thoughts

As a double feature, these two movies couldn’t be more different, not thematically, not artistically, and certainly not creatively. If you’re to do it as a double feature, do it in the order I did. Last Voyage is ambitious and wild so take that in to start the night off, then watch The Meg 2 so you can really take in how lackluster it is as a movie.

As a double feature, despite the similarities in oceanic setting and the element of a monstrous creature, they share no commonality in either quality or content. The average of my two ratings for the movies is 5.5/10, it’s not the worst use of time but it isn’t great. In all honesty, this is one you shouldn’t do as a double feature, instead just go see The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

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