Movie Review: Aquaman 2- The Lost Kingdom

If I was being pithy, I’d say that the Lost Kingdom should’ve stayed lost! Jason Momoa becomes terribly typecast with his tattoos, wild hair and overall untamed look but there’s a shift from the Arthur Curry he played in the first standalone Aquaman movie to this one. He’s indolent, his acting is subpar and he’s just sleep walking his way through the entire movie. His chemistry is off with everyone- the female lead, the other supporting actors; the movie is just a mess that never should have been made.

After the events shown in the first movie, Arthur is now a husband (Amber Heard got herself another tattooed, bearded drinker who mouths off) and a father. He also falls asleep during the terribly important and utterly dull duties that have befallen the King of Atlantis. So while he moans and groans and whines his way through the council meetings, never does he think about conceding power to anyone else because he’s so damn hung up on duty.

Patrick Wilson is slightly more believable as the erstwhile powerful Ocean Master, now imprisoned for his hubris and crimes against Arthur and joining hands with Manta. But even then, an actor can only do so much with the role they are playing if the dialogues are hokey, cheesy, OTT and utterly predictable.

Amber Heard gets to show off her figure in the figure-hugging bodysuit but does little else because Aquaman is a boys’ movie all the way. She is incapacitated fairly early on in the movie and spends her time recovering and showing up in little cameos along with Nicole Kidman who also does justice to her bodysuit but not much else.

Yahya Abdul Mateen is wasted in the role of Black Manta. When a movie is being prepared for a sequel and the supervillain and the superhero will go head-to-head in what is surely going to be a fight-to-the-death kind of a situation, the action scenes, the dialogues and the overall vibe of the movie need to be on point! Which this movie sadly was not.

Aquaman 2 is droll and will appeal only to the die-hard fans of the superhero genre aka teenage boys and other less-discerning mortals. Save your money and wait for it to premier on an OTT platform. Watching it in the theaters and in 3D no less, isn’t worth wasting the money.