The crumbling DCEU remains behind the eight ball and continues to do a bang-up job by presenting this forgettable, waterlogged sequel. It's four years later and even though numerous atrocities continue above water, Arthur Curry has become a domesticated husband and father, and oh yeah he finally has a job: king of Atlantis--a position that's not all it's cracked up to be as his mostly surface-dwelling sensibilities clash with the traditional ways of the Atlantean council. Meanwhile in other, unsurprising news: David Kane now Black Manta will stop at nothing to destroy the half-breed honcho and his aquatic domain, forcing Arthur to team up with long-imprisoned little brother Orm, their relationship which is the equivalent of oil and water. Momoa is his usual, unflappable self and while some of the petty bickering between him and debased Wilson produces a few chuckles, the rest of the returning characters are wasted, any new characters are superfluous, visual effects are second-rate, and the story never does anything exciting or memorable. Scuttlebutt is that this was a post-production nightmare due to all of the extensive cuts and reshoots, making it curious what was originally intended, but all we get here is a trivial, two-hour excursion. They say everybody is good at something, just too bad the producers weren't good at making a worthwhile sequel. **
Review of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
