{"id":3742,"date":"2024-08-29T03:41:13","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T03:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3742"},"modified":"2024-10-14T00:26:32","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T04:26:32","slug":"aquaman-and-the-lost-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/29\/aquaman-and-the-lost-kingdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/strong> (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sci-fi violence and some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Wan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rupert Gregson-Williams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Don Burgess\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 22, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Randall Park, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison, Martin Short, Nicole Kidman, Vincent Regan, Jani Zhao, Indya Moore, Pilou Asbaek, \u00a0John Rhys-Davies.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0Many of you already know that Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/strong> is the final film in the DC Extended Universe, a franchise that has seen its ups and downs since Man of Steel flew into cinemas ten years ago. It\u2019s also the last superhero movie we\u2019ll see for a while with Marvel pushing their major upcoming films to 2025 and James Gunn\u2019s DC reboot premiering the same year with Superman: Legacy. I\u2019m genuinely not sorry to see the DCEU come to an end. While I\u2019ve enjoyed a few of the movies (The Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman and Blue Beetle), I was never all that impressed with it. The movies tend to be dark and too overly reliant on CGI. In the words of my buddy Bill (last name, Shakespeare), they\u2019re a whole lot of \u201csound and fury, signifying nothing\u201d. It seems fitting then for the DCEU to go out not with a bang or a whimper, but a thud that can be heard and felt throughout the multiplex.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I liked the first Aquaman movie well enough that I went back and saw it again in 3D. I feel absolutely no desire to do a repeat with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/strong>. This is definitely a one-off movie. It shows all the classic signs of post-production tinkering. It\u2019s a mess both visually and narratively. It clunks along with the subtlety of an 18-wheeler with a broken axle. Now here\u2019s the miraculous part (hey, it is the season of miracles, right?). It still manages to be a bore. Combined with the utter indifference with which this water-logged dud was obviously made, it\u2019s the most unbearable movie of the season.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot, such as it is, involves bad guy David Kane aka Black Manta (Mateen, Candyman) executing a revenge plot against Arthur Curry\/Aquaman (Momoa, Fast X) for the death of his father in the first movie. His quest leads him to the fabled lost Atlantean kingdom of the title where he finds a magical object called \u201cThe Black Trident\u201d. It takes him over, promising to give him the power to destroy Aquaman\u2019s family which now includes a wife (Heard, The Danish Girl) and baby. In exchange, he\u2019s to help bring about the complete annihilation of the surface world. It\u2019s solely on Aquaman to stop him. Well, not exactly. He\u2019s going to need help from his imprisoned half-brother Orm (Wilson, The Conjuring), the last person in both worlds he trusts. After breaking him out of his desert prison, they (reluctantly) team up to find Kane and take him down.<\/p>\n

\u00a0By definition, superhero movies should be fun. The Marvel movies, up to and including Avengers: Endgame (as well a few post-Endgame titles), were a lot of fun. Now I could go into a whole diatribe about the DCEU and how they took all the fun out of the genre, but I won\u2019t. Instead, I\u2019ll simply say Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/strong> is no fun at all. I really wanted to enjoy the ride, but when I found myself forcing myself to come up with positive things to say about it afterwards, I knew I had to come clean and say how I really felt about it. It\u2019s a slog. It\u2019s lazy and it feels forced. As usual, it\u2019s extra-heavy on the CGI, none of which looks good. The effects range from video game graphics to the cinematic equivalent of \u201cmeatball surgery\u201d (i.e. last-minute rush job FX). The colors look washed out which isn\u2019t good even in a movie that takes place mostly underwater. Far from eye-popping, the visual palette is more likely to make your eyeballs retreat into their sockets.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s been a lot of scuttlebutt about the producers reducing Amber Heard\u2019s role in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/strong> due to the situation with Johnny Depp last year. I don\u2019t know for sure what\u2019s true and what\u2019s not, but they might as well have cut her out altogether for what little she adds to the movie. Her character doesn\u2019t really do anything. On top of that, her performance is terrible, the worst in a film filled with bored, indifferent performances. Nicole Kidman, playing Aquaman\u2019s Atlantean mom, looks like she can\u2019t wait to get back to the empty AMC theater she\u2019s been hanging out in for the past couple of years (yes, the ad\u2019s been running that long!). Dolph Lundgren (The Expendables) mostly scowls and glowers as his father-in-law and fellow underwater king. Really, the only one that looks like he\u2019s having fun is Momoa and he wears thin after a while. His co-stars clearly want to be anywhere but there.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Director James Wan can do, has done better. Look at Saw, Death Sentence, The Conjuring 1 & 2 and Malignant. He also did the first Aquaman. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/strong> is not one of his better efforts. I\u2019d call it a big black mark. To be fair, it\u2019s not entirely his fault the movie sucks. There\u2019s enough blame to go around. However, I don\u2019t know how much of it can be attributed to writer David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. The plot is weak and convoluted, but I\u2019m sure the many rewrites and reshoots play a part in the film\u2019s failure. Either way, it\u2019s poorly written.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You know what? I\u2019m just going to cut right to the chase. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom<\/strong> SUCKS! It\u2019s lazy in every which way. Even the action scenes feel tired. It\u2019s like they weren\u2019t even trying. The sole motivator for this lame sequel is $$$. The sad thing is it will probably bomb at the box office. I can\u2019t think of a more fitting send-off for a franchise that was flawed from the start. Here\u2019s hoping Gunn\u2019s reboot brings DC to life. He should look to the first two OG Superman films (starring the late Christopher Reeve) for inspiration. They got it exactly right!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sci-fi violence and some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Wan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rupert Gregson-Williams\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Don Burgess\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 22, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Randall Park, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison, Martin Short, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-fi-fantasy","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Aquaman-and-the-Lost-Kingdo.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3742"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4463,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3742\/revisions\/4463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}