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Update: December 20, 2023
Dragonlord’s Review of AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM (No Spoiler)
Bottom Line: Serving as the last film for the DCEU, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is not a good movie but it’s nonetheless dumb, cheesy fun thanks to the buddy comedy dynamic between Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson.
In Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) has to join forces with his estranged half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) in order to stop Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who has acquired new mysterious powers capable of destroying both the surface and underwater worlds.
James Wan’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is not a good movie but I did manage to enjoy some aspects of it due to going in and having no expectations and thanks in large part to the buddy comedy road trip facet of the film. Arthur’s boisterous broski personality blends well with Orm’s straight man, fish-out-of-water character. I would go as far to say that Orm was the best part of the sequel as he had many comedic moments that connected with me.
Aquaman’s disposition has drastically changed in this film. He’s less gruff and more cheerful thanks to being a husband and a father. I’m not sure if this was a wise decision as it kinda downgraded the DC superhero and made him less cool. Objectively, Momoa casting as Aquaman is fine but I still have a hard time accepting it as it doesn’t fit with the image and the personality of the comic book character that I grew up with. Every time Momoa is dressed in the yellow and green costume, he just seemed to bulky for the role for me. In fact, Patrick Wilson in here looked and acted more like the traditional Arthur Curry.
There has been a lot of commotion during the Depp v Heard trial regarding Amber Heard’s role being drastically reduced in the sequel. Maybe I was just expecting she would get 3-5 minute screen time, but Heard’s Mera has a sizable role in here. And more surprisingly, I liked her in here. She was strictly a supporting character that didn’t try to upstage the main character. Same goes with Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna.
Rounding up on my take on the film: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was wasted in here. He exuded a very intense aura with his performance but the character was just not written well. There’s a brisk pacing that works against the film as they never give much gravity or grave importance to the threats to the world. With a 124 minute run time, the film was focused too much on spotlighting the action and quickly going from the next big set piece rather than trying to tell a good story. With that said, the visuals was good and it was still fun to see more of the underwater world and the introduction of strange new creatures. The dialogue is terrible with some going into cringeworthy territory. Same with the first film, Wan still likes to jump scare the audience with abrupt explosions. Wan is no Gunn as the needle drops are bad with their use of common, uninspired and overplayed songs (well to me anyway). There’s only one mid-credits scene.
And so with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hitting theaters this weekend, we bid farewell to the DCEU – a cinematic universe that had its equal share of hits and misses but was never to fully reach its potential due to overall bad decisions by studio execs and questionable creative direction by filmmakers (cough Zack Snyder cough). The first Aquaman grossed $1.1 billion worldwide. But that was a different era where superhero movies was at an all-time high with quality films like Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Wonder Woman, Logan, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse were just released. As they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. Unfortunately it has been a perpetual low tide for the past three years thanks to the poor quality of comic book movies which has resulted in superhero fatigue. With that said, this Aquaman sequel will for sure not reach a billion dollars and might not even reach $400 million worldwide.
Rating: 6/10
(Please leave a Like if you appreciate my reviews. Thanks.)
Dragonlord’s Review of AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM (No Spoiler)
Bottom Line: Serving as the last film for the DCEU, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is not a good movie but it’s nonetheless dumb, cheesy fun thanks to the buddy comedy dynamic between Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson.
In Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) has to join forces with his estranged half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) in order to stop Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who has acquired new mysterious powers capable of destroying both the surface and underwater worlds.
James Wan’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is not a good movie but I did manage to enjoy some aspects of it due to going in and having no expectations and thanks in large part to the buddy comedy road trip facet of the film. Arthur’s boisterous broski personality blends well with Orm’s straight man, fish-out-of-water character. I would go as far to say that Orm was the best part of the sequel as he had many comedic moments that connected with me.
Aquaman’s disposition has drastically changed in this film. He’s less gruff and more cheerful thanks to being a husband and a father. I’m not sure if this was a wise decision as it kinda downgraded the DC superhero and made him less cool. Objectively, Momoa casting as Aquaman is fine but I still have a hard time accepting it as it doesn’t fit with the image and the personality of the comic book character that I grew up with. Every time Momoa is dressed in the yellow and green costume, he just seemed to bulky for the role for me. In fact, Patrick Wilson in here looked and acted more like the traditional Arthur Curry.
There has been a lot of commotion during the Depp v Heard trial regarding Amber Heard’s role being drastically reduced in the sequel. Maybe I was just expecting she would get 3-5 minute screen time, but Heard’s Mera has a sizable role in here. And more surprisingly, I liked her in here. She was strictly a supporting character that didn’t try to upstage the main character. Same goes with Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna.
Rounding up on my take on the film: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was wasted in here. He exuded a very intense aura with his performance but the character was just not written well. There’s a brisk pacing that works against the film as they never give much gravity or grave importance to the threats to the world. With a 124 minute run time, the film was focused too much on spotlighting the action and quickly going from the next big set piece rather than trying to tell a good story. With that said, the visuals was good and it was still fun to see more of the underwater world and the introduction of strange new creatures. The dialogue is terrible with some going into cringeworthy territory. Same with the first film, Wan still likes to jump scare the audience with abrupt explosions. Wan is no Gunn as the needle drops are bad with their use of common, uninspired and overplayed songs (well to me anyway). There’s only one mid-credits scene.
And so with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hitting theaters this weekend, we bid farewell to the DCEU – a cinematic universe that had its equal share of hits and misses but was never to fully reach its potential due to overall bad decisions by studio execs and questionable creative direction by filmmakers (cough Zack Snyder cough). The first Aquaman grossed $1.1 billion worldwide. But that was a different era where superhero movies was at an all-time high with quality films like Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Wonder Woman, Logan, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse were just released. As they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. Unfortunately it has been a perpetual low tide for the past three years thanks to the poor quality of comic book movies which has resulted in superhero fatigue. With that said, this Aquaman sequel will for sure not reach a billion dollars and might not even reach $400 million worldwide.
Rating: 6/10
(Please leave a Like if you appreciate my reviews. Thanks.)
