There are two reasons why one would go watch Meg 2: The Trench. One is to see scenes like Jason Statham on a yellow jet ski, taking on three megalodons. The other is to immerse yourself for two hours in a bonkers movie and just forget your stresses of the week. While Meg 2 does serve up quite a few moments for the former, it seems to hate the fact that the audience could want to destress by watching something this ridiculous and makes it so over-the-top that it tips into preposterous.

As someone who really enjoyed The Meg — who wouldn’t enjoy The Stath punching a massive shark?! — and all the Fast and Furious movies, I feel judged. Because director Ben Wheatley seems to think I don’t deserve more than leaden dialogues and half-hearted jumpscares and characters I don’t care about. Because of all the people who became sea monster chums, I cared about the only ones who were there from the first film — the Stath as Jonas Taylor, of course, Mac (Cliff Curtis) and Taylor’s now ward (?) Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai).

Meg 2 starts off a few years after the events of The Meg and finds The Stath on a James Bond-esque mission to save earth from polluting “scums”. A great point for a green James Bond spin-off starring The Stath (yippee!); there is no reason for it to be included otherwise. Suyin Zhang (Li Bingbing) has been killed off screen — no explanation given as to how or why — and Jonas seems to have become the de facto parent to a 14-year-old Meiying, along with Suyin’s brother Jiuming (martial arts superstar Wu Jing), who now leads the project on Mana One.

There is a megalodon cub that has been grown in captivity and, of course, it breaks free just as two teams dive into the Mariana Trench to explore new territory. Chaos ensues as the divers realise that unlike what they believed, megalodons are not solitary and are getting ready to breed.

And there is a giant octopus. Plus there are raptor-like amphibians and beautiful-looking luminous creatures that turn deadly. Yep, the creatures just keep on coming and after a while lose their impact on the audience even as bodies keep dropping, mostly off screen. Gives The Stath plenty to do though, including one scene in which he has to take water into his sinuses so that he can swim (under 25,000 ft, mind you) to a hatch to rescue the others, while the megalodons are swarming about. To add to things that The Stath can do, they even bring in human baddies for him to punch, pummel and throw to the sharks.

Of course the threat, animal and human kind, are not confined to the trench, because how will innocent bystanders be chomped otherwise? So we have a fun island, 70 km from the trench, which looks like Barbie Land with people in colourful summer clothes splashing around in water, oblivious to the threats racing towards them. Then the third act begins and instead of being scary, it is like you are meant to rejoice in all the carnage.

One particular shot where we see people just disappearing into the massive CGI jaws is particularly gleeful but not at all gory. Then there is the giant octopus, grabbing people and helicopters willy-nilly. The action rapidly cuts from The Stath to Wu Jing (who unfortunately doesn’t get much to do to show off his skills), making it difficult to enjoy any of it.

Then comes the most Stath moments of the film — Jason Statham fending off a shark with his legs, on a yellow jet ski with crudely made harpoon bombs outracing the sharks and then blowing them up. And my favourite: The Stath using a helicopter blade to impale the meg. But that’s all the good parts of Meg 2, which leaves an opening for a third with the captivity-bred megalodon escaping and probably pregnant. But one is forced to wonder if the third will happen, given that this one has probably sounded a death knell on the franchise.

There is always the green James Bond angle of course and I am definitely ready for The Stath to take that on.