While the 2020 "The Legend of Mermaid" movie wasn't exactly a masterpiece by any standards, I still opted to sit down and watch this 2021 sequel from returning director Cui Yan-Long, as I had the opportunity to do so. And I also believe in giving a movie a fair chance, and thus it was with "The Legend of Mermaid 2".
This 2021 sequel was even worse than the predecessor, believe it or not. Sure, "The Legend of Mermaid 2" actually had more of a constructed storyline and narrative, whereas the first movie came off as being erratic and random. However, the storyline in "The Legend of Mermaid 2" just didn't have any drive or particular punch to it, and that made for a dull viewing experience.
And it didn't really help much that the character gallery in "The Legend of Mermaid 2" had about as much appeal as a piece of flotsam. I didn't care one bit about the characters, and most of them you don't even get to know the names of, so why even bother?
It is hard to fathom why something like this came to fruition and actually saw the light of day. Even more hard to fathom is the 6.6 IMDb rating that the movie has, as of this moment whilst writing my review.
Sure, there were some fair enough special effects in the movie, but it was hardly near enough to even start to make up for all the shortcomings of the movie.
Director Cuy Yan-Long failed to bring anything to the table that outmatched the 2020 movie, and "The Legend of Mermaid 2" isn't really worth the time, money or effort.
My rating of "The Legend of Mermaid 2" lands on a three out of ten stars.
