Director James Wan‘s first Aquaman movie was fresh and colorful, and it ended up being the DC Movie that I’ve seen the most. For such a blockbuster the cast is relatively small, Jason Momoa (Dune) is back in the titular role, with Amber Heard (JL, The Stand, The Danish Girl), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Watchmen), Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison (The Flash), Vincent Regan (One Piece) and Randall Park returning. With Jani Zhao, Indya Moore (Nimona, Pose), and Pilou Asbæk (The Absent One) joining.

Premise: Black Manta, still driven by the need to avenge his father’s death and wielding the power of the mythic Black Trident, will stop at nothing to take Aquaman down once and for all. To defeat him, Aquaman must turn to his imprisoned brother Orm, the former King of Atlantis, to forge an unlikely alliance in order to save the world from irreversible destruction.

Review: The first thing I noticed about this movie is that it skews to a younger audience. There are a bit more jokes and a lighter tone, it’s not to an outrageous degree but enough to be noticeable. The story might be the weakest part of the movie, the exposition dialogue is obvious as hell, yet it does the job even if it’s not the most original idea, and there are little to no surprises.

However, The Lost Kingdom is still a fun and entertaining movie. I laughed a little, chuckled a lot, and even shed a few tears. The action is good and present throughout the movie with nice visuals. The VFX are well done, not excellent but not distractingly bad. The underwater world is as beautiful and developed as it was in the first movie but it’s the visuals of the surface world that are not as good. There is a whole sequence that has a Journey To The Center of the Earth vibe to it – at least from my recollection of that movie – to be fair the first movie had that too but better. There are also a bunch of other movie references – Star Wars, Loki/Asgard, Iron Man to name a few – that work well enough but some – especially the Star Wars one – didn’t need to be there.

When it comes to the cast, it’s Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II‘s movie. The first two are the heart of the movie and the other has a strong supporting role, but everybody else is just supporting and are in on the action. Black Manta is menacing and used very well in this movie. Wilson does a great job of balancing his comedic scenes with his character’s backstabbing urges. Moama is more himself here than before but it works, he’s a bit of a bro but it humanizes Aquaman.

Overall, this is a good time, it has quirks but holds up. It’s not as good as the first but my rating reflects the fact that I would watch this movie again.

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