Aquaman
And The Lost Kingdom 4K
(2023/DC Comics/Warner 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Sound: B+ Extras: C Film: C
Years
ago, the Aquaman character was being treated as a joke, some of which
is too odd to go into here, but DC Comics overcame the joke in the
series Entourage
where a fictitious feature film (directed by James Cameron?) was a
hit, delivering a hit film that was decent with Jason Momoa (who was
already decent as Conan The Barbarian) becoming the title character
and they had a hit. Directed by a so-so horror moviemaker, it worked
pretty well and everyone liked it and fans were happy. James
Wan's Aquaman
And The Lost Kingdom 4K
(2023) is much of everything bad we thought the first film would be,
and more unnecessarily so. Guess that means Wan is bored too.
It
is now
apparent what Wan did was a fluke, though the supporting cast (most
returning from the last film) that includes Patrick Wilson, Amber
Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Kidman Randall Park, Temuera
Morrison, Dolph Lundgren and Martin Short is still winning, but they
look a little bored and the energy they had in the last film is
almost as gone and the energy in the film itself, which has very
little. Here, Black Manta is going to kill the baby of Aquaman and
Mera, but someone killed the script first, though did not kill the
film itself.
There
is also some lost ancient power (which has already been done to death
in both the superhero and fantasy genres) is part of all this, but in
the end, we've seen all of this before. I try to avoid most promo on
any film before I see it if I can so I can be surprised later, but in
this case, I saw a few things and some of those did not make it into
the final cut here and I should have made a list of them. Instead of
taking better inspiration from the history of the character, its just
a flat, dull mess and there is sadly little the actors could so about
it, while the studio just wanted to put this out there and get it out
of the way before relaunching the entire DC gallery of heroes and
stories. In all this, they forgot the basics and the audience, so be
sure to have patience and not operate any heavy machinery or do
anything else important while you try to watch. Once will be more
than enough for most.
The
2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.78 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD
Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image has some
money in it and has some good shots in 4K, but the generic digital
work makes the ''lost kingdom'' of the title look like every other
kingdom in DC Comics and is such a disappointment, you will wish they
would lose that kingdom for good. No wonder it was lost!
Because
Disney owns Industrial Light & Magic (via LucasFilm) they have
better CGI visual tech than just about anyone and even their digital
work is lacking, but Warner/DC is at least a generation behind (and
both at least another versus the best upscale videogames) with the
only saving grace sometimes being a better use of full color range.
Here, it is just forgettable and the digital waterways look too fake
for their own good, even fakers than the digital in the actual James
Cameron film The Abyss (1988) and when you add the generic and
dull, overly talky scenes (too many to want to think about) it just
makes this visually inferior to the first film, which was not without
its issues.
The
Dolby Atmos 11.1 (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for older systems) also
has some good sonic moments, but they are few and far between and in
between the dull, talky ones, so expect very few sonic highlights
despite the fact that surrounds are consistent and constant enough.
The combination somehow feels like a step backwards form the first
film, though reshoots might have hurt too. Sad.
Extras
include Digital Movie Code, while the
discs (per the press release) add...
Finding
the Lost Kingdom
Aquaman:
Worlds Above and Below
It's
a Manta World
Necrus,
The Lost Black City
Ages
ago the great battle for the earth took place here, in this
legendary lost Atlantean city. Discover how the filmmakers created
the Black City from its ''surface city'' concept and its
inhabitants: Undead Necrusians (Zombies), to its execution.
Escape
from the Deserter World
From
idea to execution, explore how the filmmakers created this barren
desert landscape and the Deserter Prison, how its creatures and
inhabitants were brought to life, and how they planned and executed
the daring Orm ''breakout'' sequence.
Brawling
at Kingfish's Lair
The
Citadel is the last frontier of the ocean, a deep trench filled with
sunken old ships, stacked high like a rusty city. From concept to
completion, discover Kingfish's Lair, a bar within, where the worst
of the worst hang out.
And
Oh TOPO!
In
the meantime, I'll wait for the old Filmation 1967 animated series to
get restored and reissued on Blu-ray the way their Batman series was.
In the meantime, it is sad that Mamoa is ending his time as the hero
because he was a great match for it. It is bad for him and the
audience, but these last few DC Comics movies have been bad to
hideous, so hopefully, this elongated and unnecessary nightmare for
fans (especially child fans who have been hurt and confused the most
by this nonsense) is finally coming to an end. Now, if they bring
back Aquaman, how can they recast better than Momoa? They cannot, so
that is why this is all the more a awful film.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
