Black Manta seeks revenge on Aquaman for his father's death. Wielding the Black Trident's power, he becomes a formidable foe. To defend Atlantis, Aquaman forges an alliance with his imprisoned brother. They must protect the kingdom.
27 Apr Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
A Lost Universe
You will read from others the multiple weaknesses in this film from a genre that normally tolerates them. There are few new things you can do with these films, and instead of attempting some, they reverted, seeming to emulate the most popular elements of other films.
The one thing this franchise had that others do not — even the Marvel Jungle Kingdom — is the opportunity for a wide variety of worlds. The number is daunting, including devices and architecture from as many as four entire universes, each with their own energy, science and magic. Among them, the ‘lost’ world is as invisible to the undersea world as that one is to the viewer’s world.
This is one film where it makes sense to parse out the contracts for the special effects. In films where I expect a common design throughout, this production shortcut almost always fails. You just can’t get two creative teams on different continents to unify their visions. So the potpourri is set up here.
There are in fact a lot of different designs here, imaginations from different worlds. But somehow they have obscured the uniqueness of these worlds by using the same colour palette throughout. Maybe they thought all of the other fragments in dramatic tone and story focus could be unified by the same drab music and colours.
Maybe it was simply a cost measure. But the fact remains that the only thing that could have kept our attention was our crew of heroes moving through different challenges in different worlds. And they lost that somehow.
Posted in 2024
Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
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