2023 - AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM, it's not good, it's not bad it's just what it is.

Coming in at the tail end of the superhero comic book cycle, this film was a big financial flop.  This was attributed to what is now called "superhero film fatigue," the audience was finally burning out on this genre.  The reality of this failure may be a little more complicated.  

The film slavishly followed the usual superhero formula.  A superhero takes on a really powerful bad guy as usual.  First he kind of whips the bad guys butt, then the bad guy comes back and really whips the superhero's butt and finally the superhero gets even more super and really really whips the bad guys butt.  Lots of butt whipping.

As usual the superhero is a wise cracking guy with a joke or a smart ass line for every dangerous occasion.  At times it seems like he would be at home doing stand up at a Los Angeles comedy club.  There's the usual female eye candy girlfriend and the action scenes are completely improbable since they have been created in a computer by probably dozens if not hundreds of computer nerds.  Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom slavishly follows this formula.

  

Jason Momoa is Aquaman and he handles the jokes fairly well, he certainly is pumped up either the result of an exercise regime or computer enhancement who can say?  The film is colorful enough since it's set under the sea and has lots of pretty colors of fish and coral reefs and stuff.

 

This film really isn't the disaster that the majority of the critics said it was, it's just unnecessary.  Looking back over all of these superhero movies from the last ten years or so it's pretty clear their lack of plot or interesting stories were covered up by lots of action and fast ADHD editing.  I watched this film as I was counting coins in my spare change jar and I can report at no time did I have trouble following the narrative since there is basically no narrative to speak of.  The film is for the most part competently made.

The film was written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick but five people take story credit which includes Jason Momoa and the director James Wan,  always a bad sign.  The running time is an overlong 124 minutes.