The film deliberately prioritizes spectacle over realism.

The climax features Taylor fighting the Meg in the water, ultimately impaling it on the broken bow of a sunken ship. The film ends with the team recovering and hinting at a second Megalodon still alive.

Five years later, the vessel discovers the Megalodon—a 75-foot, 50-ton prehistoric shark believed extinct—after accidentally breaching a thermocline layer in the Mariana Trench. The shark escapes to the surface, attacking a crowded beach in Sanya Bay, China. Taylor, along with Zhang’s daughter Suyin (Li Bingbing) and her young daughter Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai), must stop the creature before it reaches a packed tourist resort.