Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom Review: 3 Ups & 7 Downs

Downs...

7. The Visual Effects Are A Hot Mess

It was often said that the first Aquaman managed to look both obscenely expensive and hilariously cheap all at the same time, and that's similarly true with this sequel.

Despite rocking a massive $205 million budget, this is a film that offers up occasionally impressive VFX-driven imagery interspersed with a wealth of deeply ugly, muddy aesthetics.

Much like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania earlier this year, it's a film that throws a lot at the viewer visually, yet so much of it is just garish, blurry, and not pleasant to look at.

Even accepting that Avatar: The Way of Water basically ruined underwater movies for audiences, the actors never seem at one with their digital environments, and yes, the floating hair looks just as bad as it did in the first film.

This is a film positively loaded with visual noise from start to finish, and yet so little of it musters any honest-to-God excitement whatsoever.