‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’ Review: Jason Momoa in a Sequel That’s 3D but Flat, With Less Screensaver Fun and More ‘Dark’ Action
21.12.2023 - 15:53
/ variety.com
Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Starting in the 2000s, for a little over a decade, 3D was sold as a value-added feature of moviegoing, even though, with rare exceptions (e.g., the “Avatar” films), it never worked too well or added very much. (I would argue that it subtracted.) In most cases, 3D was a rip-off — a carny-barker way for studios to jack up ticket prices.
That’s why the fad mostly faded away. It’s been a while since I was handed 3D glasses before walking into a movie screening, so when that happened before the media showing of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” it was hard not to wonder: Why are they gilding this sea lily? As it turns out, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” benefits from 3D significantly less than the first “Aquaman” (2018) would have.
That movie was mostly a boilerplate DC origin story, but it wasn’t badly told, and the underwater sequences — the heart of the film — had a luminescent screensaver eye-candy-ness. It was fun to hang out in the ocean world of Atlantis, with its glowing creatures and ships shaped like manta rays, and to see Arthur Curry, a.k.a.
Aquaman (Jason Momoa), claim his royal destiny as its supreme leader, even as he had to face off against his treacherous half-brother, King Orm, played by Patrick Wilson in slick blond hair that gave him the androgynous look and aura of an angry Katy Perry. In “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” Arthur, in his gleaming copper fish-scale muscle armor, is now the king of Atlantis, with the golden Lost Trident in his hand.
Yet he seems to spend most of his time avoiding the place. He and the flaming-haired Mera — played, once again, by Amber Heard, who after her run in the tabloid spotlight is still very much in the franchise — are married now, with
.