Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

This weekend, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the final film in the DCEU releases in theaters. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom follows Arthur Curry in his new life as king of Atlantis. When a threat to the whole world emerges Arthur must team up with his estranged brother to save the world. I had a fun time with the first Aquaman film and was hoping this one would just be more of that.

This movie was exactly what I expected and I had a lot of fun with it. This movie essentially takes what worked in the first film and just does it again. It is unashamedly campy and goofy but is just nonstop excitement from beginning to end. Just like the first movie, it is very action-packed with lots of fun sequences throughout the film. I also found the movie to be very vibrant and colorful with so many big CGI scenes with all sorts of color and explosions. The movie was also very funny. Most of the characters have some very goofy moments that made me laugh out loud. Just like in the first film, Jason Mamoa is just as much fun as Aquaman. He just has the perfect amount of goofiness and totally has fun in this role. The biggest difference between this film and the original is the whole brother dynamic and storyline between Arthur and Orn. While the last movie was more of a rom-com between Arthur and Mera, this one is a buddy comedy between Arthur and Orn. They have so many funny moments where they are just bickering and actually make a pretty entertaining team.

While this movie is very colorful and entertaining, the plot itself is deeply flawed. The story is clunky at best with a very thin plot connecting the different scenes together. Instead of naturally trying to share exposition the movie stops what it is doing and dumps a bunch of exposition on us. I also found the CGI to be a bit iffy at times. Sometimes it is just so colorful that it works but other times it looks really bad. Finally, this movie is not trying to be a send-off to the DCEU and definitely does not lead up to that potential.

Overall, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is a very entertaining dumb fun type of movie. It is by no means a good send-off to the DCEU, but as a stand-alone Aquaman movie, it is a lot of fun.

Score: 7/10 Grade: B Recommendation: Check it out if you liked the first movie.