एक्वामैन एंड द लॉस्ट किंगडम

If this movie came out a long time ago it would have been great. But the superhero age is over and we are tired of the same old stuff. Aquaman requires Avatar level Graphics. You can't do aquaman on a budget because it looks cheesy and fake. Acting by Momoa is great as usual. The brother thing worked well. But like i said it's all been done a hundred times now. The worst part is that these studios aren't getting the point. You need a script that's original. CGI has to look real and good. There's no real audience for this stuff anymore. But the companies don't seem to get it, I guess they'll keep doing them until there bankrupt. Oh well.

The most accurate word I can think of to describe Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom is annoying. Where the first film was hardly a masterpiece of the genre I thought it was over the top in all the right ways and because of that I actually mostly enjoyed it. This movie just doubles down on the insanity in all the worst ways and I ended up finding it borderline insufferable.

For the first 15 minutes or so I thought I could enjoy it in a so bad it's good sort of way but it's too stupid to even enjoy in that way. The script just makes so many errors on the most basic level that if you think about any thing about this story for more than a minute it just collapses. Nothing that gets set up pays off in any meaningful way and most of the resolutions fell totally flat. It can't decide on a tone, it drags majorly and most of the humour made me cringe in all the worst ways.

The performances really suffer as a result cause they're pretty poor across the board. I've liked Jason Momoa as this character but he's just too campy in this movie to take anything he's doing seriously, even actors of Yahya Abdul-Manteen II and Nicole Kidman's calibre deliver their lines in the flattest way possible but with the material they're given I can hardly blame that on them. I'm happy that Willem Dafoe was spared from this mess at least.

The finale is the most bog standard CGI noise of a climax that we've seen so many times before that I was just totally bored watching it, at least the first film had some sense of spectacle to it. There's the odd fun action scene but the pretty dreadful visual effects just constantly took me out of it. The villain is terrible after a decent set up in the first film with the most generic motivations possible.

The Lost Kingdom ends the DCEU with the biggest thud imaginable. It's been up and down since the beginning but it deserved a better conclusion than the soulless slog that this movie turned out to be. This might be the worst movie they ever made because at least Justice League had a happy conclusion with the Snyder Cut. There's nothing in this movie you haven't seen 100 times before and I've never been more ready for a total reboot of this universe.

Amongst the fall of superhero movies, Aquaman 2 stands out as a completely average movie that actually doesn't stand out at all. The genre is really on its last legs at this point. Drained completely dry. It is a shame as the movie does have its qualities. The action and vfx are pretty on point, while very jarring, I think it fits the already ridiculous setting and plot.

Aquaman 2 knows exactly what it is, but it doesn't try to do anything to improve upon the first film. The writers especially didn't improve anything. Multiple times I was scratching my head at stupid inconsistencies within the script. In summary, the film has its ups and downs, there is fun too be had somewhere...5/10.

Rating: 5/10 Format: Regular Theatre

A script that doesn't have any story to hold it tight together. It's a very interesting story that discusses many aspects like family, brotherhood, fatherhood, and leadership. But, perhaps this was its core problem, that it was trying to be so many things at the same time. At times i didn't know where the story was heading which made the story jump from discussing topics like fatherhood to an adventure with two brothers who had beef in their past. The film is unfortunately a typical superhero film in terms of expecting what's coming next from events, and sequences.

On top of that and with all the chaos, the film re-discusses the villain's story which revolves around his revenge but it was so weak comparing to how it was in the first film. I didn't feel his presence nor i felt his evilness. He was suppose to be much stronger here but i barely felt him. The film also brings back old characters that just all of a sudden showed up in some sequences to save the day and be the superhero of the act which felt so weird because they came out of nowhere.

The film's CGI is okay at most times. It's defiantly not as good as the first one but it is for sure better than most of the MCU's latest projects this year like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023). The cinematography unfortunately got downgraded which is something that I was anticipated for especially after seeing the first part. But I felt like there was no room for that because of how messy the sequences and story was especially that we were jumping between the past and present a lot and from one place to another.

Not to mention, the whole last sequence of the film was so good in terms of the action sequences and grabbing the audience's attention. Really got me hooked and interested and wished if the rest was like that.

Aquaman 2 is a disappointment movie. The plot is so banal and predictable that you can understand practically the entire story from the first minutes of the film.

The story is full of clichés and repetitive situations.

The characters are even more banal than the plot. Aquaman is a generic hero and Orm is a two-dimensional villain.

The special effects are spectacular, but they're the only decent thing.

It's not a film I recommend. If you liked the first Aquaman, go and see this second film, but if you didn't like the first Aquaman film or didn't like it very much, then forget about Aquaman 2 too, because you won't even like this second film, this second film is inferior to the first film.