Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

 Count me as a fan of the first Aquaman movie, a ridiculous, exuberant, colorful movie that came closer to replicating the feel of 80's world-hopping adventure movies than things which mined that specific vein of nostalgia way more cynically (did Stranger things have a toboggan scene? Suck on that, Stranger Things).

 So now comes the inevitable sequel, under a cloud of both studio and behind-the-scenes drama, and at a time where the pendulum seems to finally be swinging away from the superhero reign over blockbusters. And... it's fine. It's OK. A decent time-waster.

 Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and his wife wife (Amber Heard) have settled into a sort of double life - on land they take care of their baby, while in the sea they rule over the kingdom of Atlantis. And in between he gets into random fights against pirates and polluters and whatnot.
 The movie starts with a fight on a cargo ship that highlights the film's main problem - the action this time around is really, really sloppy. At least the scene has a fun twist , as it turns out that Aquaman is recounting the fight to his baby son and the action alternates between the actual fight and Jason Momoa smashing action figures together. Cute.
 Not so cute: all the jokes about the baby peeing on his face. Come on, folks, you can do better than that hacky standup act crap.

 Meanwhile, Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is hunting down Atlantis tech so he can fix his suit and kill Aquaman/avenge his dad. Instead, he finds the black trident, a relic from a lost Atlantean kingdom. One that's all corrupt and evil and seems like it came out from a really mediocre D&D campaign; It's even called Necris, for fuck's sake. Anyhow, The old Necris king (a really goofy-looking lich-like thing) possesses Manta and gets him to start burning some ancient fuel to fuck up the environment.

 After some incidents Aquaman figures out Manta's up to no good again. To hunt him down, he decides he needs to team up with his brother (Patrick Wilson) - last seen trying to destroy the surface world, now imprisoned in a dusty jail by a bunch of undead critters who ride bony centipedes. Seriously, the D&D vibes in this movie are very noticeable.

Monstrous Compendium 3: Featuring Goofy Lich and its undead posse

 The meat of the movie is then a sort of a buddy movie as the odd couple hunt down leads and finally confronts Manta and the evil possessing him.

 It won't blow anyone away, but it's warm, likeable, pacey, has some cool bits, and doesn't take itself half seriously at any point. It also has a major asset in Jason Momoa, whose presence and charm, along with his character's folksy, irrepressible good nature, shouldn't be understated.

 But... But... Director James Wan can't prevent it from being kind of bland, especially when so many of its scenes compare unfavorably to the first movie. A lot of it can be blamed on a pretty lifeless script (by returning writer David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick), but the lion's share should go to a pretty huge downgrade on the spectacle department.
 The fights and most of the action, as mentioned above, are not particularly memorable; Hard to read and (mostly - there are some cool moves) poorly staged and choreographed. Jon Valera (a veteran stunt coordinator from 87Eleven veteran who worked on the fights on the first movie) is still on board, so not sure what's happened, but the difference in quality, especially in the larger brawls, is extremely noticeable.

 I'm not going to remark on plot holes or the dumbness of the script, because this is a movie where a seahorse actually makes whinnying horse sounds. Which is, of course, awesome.
 What concerns me more is that while the movie does land a few of its jokes, so many of them are so basic they barely register as attempts at humor; Martin Short turns up to deliver a terrific, Hammill-esque voice performance as a bargain bin Jabba the Hutt, for example, and he's given lame jokes that would make even Lucas cringe. 

 There's lots of dodgy CGI, but it's one of those movies where that isn't that big an issue as the visuals get so fantastic it might as well be wholly animated. What's important is the spectacle, and... well, it does a little better in that department than on the action, with some cool concepts like a city built out of sunken ships, a secret volcano lair, or the titular lost kingdom- but not that much. It gets the job done, barely.

 I suspect the film's getting dunked on by both people who hate/have gotten sick of superhero movies and by superhero movie fans who needed it to be that much better. It's a shame, and more than a little unfair, but to be honest the movie's not actually good or interesting enough to champion.