Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, directed by James Wan, was an entertaining but unmemorable sequel that left me feeling little to no difference from when I walked into the theater. This movie, while stacked with some really cool visuals and bright colors, left a lot to be desired in terms of storytelling and important emotional arcs.  This movie was entertaining and pretty fun to watch with Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) bringing a lot of great screen presence to the table, but in the end, I don’t know that it was enough to save the movie.

Let’s start with the positives, the visuals, and the humor. The CGI in this movie was very well done, and the unique character and world design helped to immerse you into the story. Furthermore, I saw this movie in 3D, and it was one of the better-done 3D movies I’ve ever seen, with the bright colors and big set pieces working heavily to its advantage. If you do plan on seeing this movie I definitely would recommend it in 3D. 

The comedy in this movie was not lacking. With a joke being made every 5 to 10 minutes, the tone was kept light-hearted and goofy. Jason Mamoa has a great line delivery for most jokes and he keeps that same type of presence throughout the film. His character is portrayed more as a happy silly guy in this movie, that is, until it’s time to fight and its full-on serious mode. In all honesty, most of the jokes in the film I didn’t laugh at, which was a first for me. However, my theater seemed to think they were all funny and each one got a decent reaction.

The negatives in this movie seem to go a little deeper than the surface-level positives, the most prominent being the scenes themselves. The plot of this movie is simple enough and easy to grasp, however, the way certain important beats are conveyed feels very rushed. This especially came into play at the end of the second act. In almost all (super-hero) movies there’s a consistent story structure: The first act sets up the hero, their life as it is, and then the villain and their goal. The second act shows the hero figuring out the villain’s plan and trying to stop it, and this act usually ends with some sort of loss or big obstacle that the hero must overcome in the next act. In the third act, the hero has to move past the loss or obstacle and usually defeat the villain. The problem with this movie for me, is it spent a lot of time in act two, with action and jokes, and then crammed the loss in at the very end. In this emotional scene that should have hit harder and lasted a lot longer, it was just edited choppy and slapped in. However, this movie does have some excuses.

Because of the trial last year, Amber Heard is not someone the public eye favors very much. With that in mind, they had to cut a lot of her scenes in the movie out, so that more people would be ok watching the movie. But, this poses an issue for the movie. This movies core is about family and fighting together, and so when Aquaman’s own wife (a big part of his family) had to have most of her scenes cut, it resulted in some of that emotion or connection in the important scenes being severed.

On top of this issue, another downfall of this movie was the action. Don’t get me wrong, there were some very cool, very entertaining fights in this movie, but they all moved very fast. Because of the underwater nature of most of the movie, it was often hard to me to tell exactly what was going on in the fight scenes. Multiple times during fight scenes I would find myself wondering how the characters even got in the location they were fighting. All in all, this wasn’t a huge issue, but it was slightly annoying. That being said, I will say the final climactic fight was well choreographed and very easy to follow and it was by far my favorite of the film.

Overall, I would have to give this movie a 2 out of 5. It’s a fun movie the whole family can enjoy and be entertained by, but I don’t think I would ever seek it out to watch it again, or recommend it to a friend over some of the other movies that are out right now.