Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Willem Dafoe, Nicole Kidman, and others

Director: James Wan

What’s Good: Jason Momoa’s Sassy Act in a visually delightful film that could have been better than the first part.

What’s Bad: Badly edited scenes that instantly suck you out of the film to land you in Amber Heard Vs Johnny Depp’s chaotic drama unnecessarily!

Loo Break: Anywhere in the first half

Watch or Not?: With the holiday season around, it might be a yayy for a family date

Language: English

Available On: Theatrical release

Runtime: 162 Minutes

User Rating:

Jason Momoa returns as the King of Atlanta in what could have been the strongest DCEU film after its brilliant and trippy first part. In one of the scenes, Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) tells Dr. Stephen Shin (Randall Park) – “You chose the wrong day to grow a spine.” The line hit me hard as it describes the destiny of DCEU’s one of the most powerful superhero. Probably, they chose the wrong time and, in fact, the worst time to grow Aquaman as a franchise working on the sequel at the worst possible time ever.

Momoa returns with the sequel; as the King of the Sea, he is trying to balance his life as a regular man, Arthur Curry, with his father, Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison), and a newborn son. As Arthur tries ditching his son’s aims while changing diapers, he is unaware of the storm building in his kingdom deep down underwater.

Finally, the war for restoring the glory of the sea and saving the kingdoms begins as Arthur reunites with his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) in a world that is a treat to watch on the screen. But does it serve a good enough reason to serve as a potential winner? Read on to know.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Movie Review: Script Analysis

The main problem of Aquaman 2 starts right from the first scene, which is an underwhelmer. But you’ll want to give it a chance, and you keep up your spirit alive to watch a film that is dying with every frame, all thanks to David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall’s weak screenplay. While the story by Geoff Johns, James Wan, and Will Beall has it all – a superhero, a secret world at threat, brothers uniting, and a throne what it lacks is a banger adaptation of this story. You can’t point out the exact point where the film stops working or falls down like a pack of cards.

The beginning itself is a mood killer with loose jokes not landing anywhere and Momoa trying too hard to come across as a naturally funny superhero. While DC tries to model him on MCU’s Thor, and somewhere even achieves it in the first part, the humor and the film fall flat in this sequel.

There’s a lost premise in the film, and you cannot focus, but it’s not your fault. As your interest keeps losing after 10 minutes into the film, the team was probably equally disinterested in establishing any of the plots despite using many scientific terms in a globally dilapidating world. There is the good vs. bad war and the sea vs the human premise, but all get mixed up badly in reuniting the lost brother, dropping in some technical and scientific words but never tapping on them, and concentrating too much to not show Amber Heard‘s Mera (yes we’ve taken her name for the first time, just like the film dropped her out of the blue in a scene after a long wait).

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Movie Review: Star Performance

Jason Momoa is a star struggling to save his superhero, and it is visible on-screen. The effort he puts in as Aquaman translates into some really good scenes, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to save this dying franchise. Still, if you would want me to choose between Khal Drogo and Aquaman, I would simply go with the latter since he manages to create a quirky charm around his superhero who is convincingly believable and wants you to move into his kingdom of the sea at any given point of time.

Amber Heard’s Mera had just one job in the entire film – to emote for a powerful scene, which could be the highest point in the climax scene. But man, her acting chops are questionable.

Nicole Kidman had very little to offer, but she graciously took the backstage to push the film ahead. Patrick Wilson, as King Orm, leaves you wanting for more. Probably, he is the only character who deserves a much better arc and higher respect in the film.

Randall Park’s marine biologist Stephen Shin gets a poorly written part, which he tries to work on as hard as he can.

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Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Movie Review: Direction, Music

James Wan probably hit the lowest with this sequel, despite bringing to the table a visually appealing film that enchants you nonetheless with very strong VFX. But none of it has been rightly put to use. Even when you have faith in the film after a scattered first half since the second half promises redemption, but he fails to deliver the promises. Even for the climax, where one could have expected a great fight, which could have been the winning point for this film, he just slides away like a broken glacier that melts at a pace higher than you expected.

Rupert Gregson-Williams’ music could have been an interesting experiment if all the quirkiness and the action worked. But since the film falls, the music, for most of the time on screen, feels absolutely out of place.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Movie Review: The Last Word

The film could have been a saving grace to DCEU, but it turned into a heartbreaking dream. The one where you still want to sleep a little longer and wait for things to get right. However, this is a landslide destruction where the film just falls. Amber Heard’s badly edited scenes add misery to this falling tale. The film might have fallen prey to overexposure in gossip columns, but what could have been the saving grace was an effort to make the story work, which, by the way, had the perfect recipe for a wonderful film.

While this was not the farewell Jason Momoa’s Aquaman deserved, we’ll still call shots for trying too hard to save this crumbling piece of visual delight. Jason Momoa, meanwhile, is probably the best DCEU superhero in all probability, a wasted film & no, you can’t blame Amber Heard – Johnny Depp’s fiasco for James Wan’s clunker!

1.5 stars!

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Trailer

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, has released on 21st December, 2023.

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