Fellmans Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers 

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is the sequel to the 2018 superhero film Aquaman. It has more of a buddy cop feel to it than the first movie does. With a lot of comedy and jokes being interjected more often than before. And even though it fared successfully at the box office, the reviews were generally poor from both critics and fans alike. I didn’t think it was that bad of a movie. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it to someone. It’s the kind of movie that, if you’re somewhere, and it’s on, fair enough. But I wouldn’t take a date to go see it or anything… 

What’s it about? Four years after defeating his half-brother Orm and becoming the King of Atlantis, Arthur Curry AKA Aquaman, married Mera and had a son. He then began splitting his time in between the surface world and Atlantis, raising Arthur jr. And running the kingdom. Which, it turns out, he doesn’t enjoy doing. Meanwhile, David Kane/Black Manta is working with Dr. Stephen Shin to find Atlantean technology to fix his Black Manta suit so that he can get revenge on Aquaman. While doing so, they find a hollow cavern in Antarctica where David finds a black trident that gives him a vision when he touches it and promises to help him get his revenge on Aquaman if he frees the captured voice in the vision. David gains information from the trident and they begin to collect a resource called Orichalcum from all over the planet. David and Shin begin burning the Orichalcum, causing the temperature of the planet to rise. In order to find out why this is happening, Arthur needs to break his brother Orm out of jail from the fisherman kingdom. After doing that, Orm takes him to a pirate haven called The Sunken Citidel where they meet Kingfish, a crime boss who tells them where they can find Manta’s location. This takes them to a volcanic island where the burning Orichalcum has mutated the plants and animals on the island into gigantic versions of themselves, causing Arthur and Orm to flee for their lives. They get into Manta’s base where Orm touches the black trident himself and has the same vision that Manta had. It’s the Lost Kingdom of Necrus and their King, Kordax. The black trident was forged with blood magic from Atlan’s blood, the first King of Atlantis and used to seal Kordax in a cell. They realize that Arthur Jr is in danger and go back to the lighthouse that Arthur’s father lives in to find it on fire and Arthur Jr missing. Manta and Shin are taking Arthur Jr to Antarctica to sacrifice him on an altar to release Kordax from his prison. Manta tells Shin to hand him Arthur Jr, when Shin hands him a package and turns away. The package turns out to be a bomb and Manta quickly tosses it into the air as Shin is going to run and try and save the baby. As Manta electrocutes Shin and is about to sacrifice Arthur Jr, Aquaman shows up to save the child and Mera takes him and runs away when Manta throws the black trident at her, but Orm catches it before it hit her in the face. When he does, the spirit of Kordax leaves Manta for Orm, making Orm extra powerful. He then punches Arthur, making him bleed on the alter, releasing Kordax from his prison. Arthur then convinces Orm to let go of the black trident so he can defeat Kordax and end the battle, but he throws it at Kordax too late and Kordax catches it. Then Orm throws Arthur his trident, which he throws at Kordax, making him explode, along with the rest of the tower. Everyone escapes, including Shin, and they decide to tell everyone that Orm died in the battle so that he can remain hidden on the surface. Atlantis then makes contact with the people on the surface to help reverse the effects of global warming.   

What’s good? It has a certain buddy film feel to it if you’re into that sort of thing. They’re always cracking jokes with each other and making sarcastic comments while doing the action sequences and playing to the crowd it was written for. 

What’s bad? That doesn’t mean it’s the best writing. It’s snappy for a comic book movie. But it’s still a comic book movie. Don’t be expecting stand-up comedian style observational humor. It’s more like puns with the word “fish” in them and when Arthur tricked Orm into eating a cockroach… 

The acting? Just like the last one, everyone is emoting WAY too hard, all the time. Manta is literally glaring at everybody, at all times. Orm reacts to that spear like he just stuck his finger in an electrical socket. And when Aquaman yells “Get away from my son!!!” you can practically see the frame with the speech bubbles in it.” 

The effects? They were done by Industrial Light and Magic, so they’re gonna be top of the line, as usual. You really shouldn’t be expecting anything less. It’s the industry standard nowadays. 

How can he talk to fish when he can’t talk? How is the baby talking to fish when he can’t even talk himself? He doesn’t even know what he’s saying. How can he tell the fish what to do? How can he tell them to swim in a circle? He doesn’t know what a circle is. He doesn’t know what a fish is. If you cover his eyes, he’ll think you disappeared… 

When he says “we’re standing on it” I would leave immediately. When the assistant says “we’re standing on it.” I would’ve started running, immediately. Because what happened, like, seconds later? The ground started shaking, and a hole opened up. Yeah. Scientific anomalies are usually a sign that something’s wrong… 

They’re lucky that tank didn’t land on them. They were super close to having that tank land on them. It’s a good thing they weren’t like 15 feet in the other direction, so that, you know, TANK didn’t land on them… 

Shin didn’t have much of a chance against the monster. His assistant yelled “help me!” like Shin could’ve done anything anyway. He’s kind of out of his league against that giant monster. What’s he supposed to do? Ask nicely? I don’t think it’s going to work. 

A gigantic tentacled monster. I mean, it would be a really short movie if they didn’t, but it’s probably not a good idea to go diving into a deep pool of water with a giant tentacled monster. I’m just saying. In terms of self-preservation. The monster probably has the advantage down there… 

They’ve been heating the world for five months. So, they’ve just been burning this Orichalcum for no reason other than to release the greenhouse gases it emits to raise the temperature of the Earth for the past five months? That’s just a dick move. He didn’t even ask for anything. He just started ruining the planet for no reason. That’s a real supervillain, right there. 

We don’t know they’re there. Aquaman’s right when he says “how are they supposed to care about us when they don’t know we’re here?” It’s absolutely true. You wouldn’t hit your brakes in your car to stop from hitting an animal if you didn’t know the animal was there. Why would you? In your mind, there’s no animal there.  

Where did the minions get those snazzy new suits? Where did the minions get those snazzy new suits? And that hammerhead ship? Where did that come from? And those octopus pods that Manta is driving around in. Where’d they come from? Something seems… fishy… 

Where’s the knowledge coming from? Manta has to be getting told where to find this stuff. The knowledge has to be coming from somewhere. And I’d bet it’s that glowing green trident that he very protectively carries around with him. That seems like a good bet.  

They’re not being careful with the Orichalcum. He very specifically said to be careful with the Orichalcum and yet they keep slamming the tubes into the barge and dropping the tubes down onto the tanker. That’s not being very careful at all. 

He put Mera in more danger. Arthur really put Mera in a whole lot more danger by saying that she was his wife because that guy vowed revenge on him. She didn’t really have anything to do with this until he called her his wife. Now Manta’s got a grudge against her too. 

It’s tough being the good guy. Arthur had to let Manta go because he had to go save those people. It’s hard being the good guy, because sometimes you have to save people instead of doing other important things. Being the bad guy, you can throw somebody into danger to make your getaway. It’s a very common bad guy move… 

Octopuses can hold shape underwater. But they can’t hold their shape out of water. They’re just blobs. TOPO couldn’t move on the surface. He has no bones. He’d just be a squishy blob outside of water. And how would he open that door? He’s an octopus. 

How often are they beating Orm? Do they just randomly come in and beat Orm? How often does that happen? Is it on a schedule? “Alright Orm, time for your daily beating…” 

They stop for a shave and a haircut. After he breaks Orm out of prison, they stop for a shave and a haircut before they go to wherever it is they go next. That’s the next thing on their agenda. I guess I can kind of see it when you think about it… 

He tricks him into eating a cockroach. Arthur tricks Orm into eating a cockroach but he ends up liking it. He just didn’t think it was gross because he didn’t know what it was, and without the preconceived notion, he made his own decision. And it turns out he liked it. So, go ahead. Eat a cockroach. You never know… 

He’s gonna burn Aquaman’s kingdom to ash. Which would be pretty impressive, seeing as Aquaman’s kingdom is underwater. Burning his kingdom to ash would take several very intensive steps. 

The really long reaction time. When Arthur opened the door and the one minion just stood there and looked at him without saying anything for like three or four seconds, he could’ve alerted the rest of the minions before Arthur and Orm busted in the beat up all the other minions. If only that guy had made a noise or something instead of just standing there like an idiot. 

The explosion should’ve killed Shin. The fiery explosion that would’ve killed most people and blew both Aquaman and his half-brother out the front of control tower failed to kill the very fragile and very normal human Dr. Shin? Suspension of disbelief, here we go… 

A green glowing tube. Anything glowing green and contained in a tube is usually explosive. Just as a general rule of thumb. Especially a large, thick, metal tube. That’s an even more dangerous sign. Nothing benign comes in a large, thick, metal tube… 

They took the time to bring baby toys with them. They took the time to bring some baby toys with them when they kidnapped Arthur Jr. When they brought him to the hammerhead ship and into the octopus pods on the way to Antartica they had some baby toys with them. Just to keep him occupied so he doesn’t start crying. We’re not gonna sacrifice him or anything… 

The gun engine broke the ship. Why did the gun engine break the rest of the ship? Did the engine that charged the gun control the rest of the ship? I thought it just charged the gun? Why did the entire ship blow up? 

You already knew he switched them out. You kind of already knew he switched out the baby when Manta said “hand me the child.” And then he started slinking away, and you were like “there’s no baby in there…” 

The most comic book of comic book movies. It was nothing else if not predictable. You knew what was going to happen. As far as scripts go, it wasn’t written for originality. It was written to make money on the success of the first movie. When you have something as successful as the first Aquaman, from a financial standpoint, it’s stupid NOT to make a sequel.  

Why did Kordax explode? Why did Kordax explode? He just kind of exploded for no reason and then everything just kind of started to explode for no reason too. I’m not really sure why the end happened the way it did. I guess just basic comic book stuff, I suppose? They needed an action sequence? Why not make the bad guy explode? 

So, yeah. Go and see Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, I guess. You’re not missing much if you don’t. It’s a toss-up, really. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…