On the extreme end, we have some one-star reviews of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” including one from The Telegraph critic Robbie Collin that doesn’t pull its punches:
“Some films are so stupid you can swear individual brain cells are dying as you watch them. Then there is ‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,’ during which it felt like entire clumps of grey matter were giving up the gig in disgust and abseiling out of my ears.”
The Independent reviewer Clarisse Loughrey also gave the sequel one star. She notes that while a movie so “nakedly terrible” could have had the potential to be celebrated as so-bad-it’s-good, the over-saturation of superhero movies over the last decade has sucked the joy out of even the bad ones:
“It is yet another reminder that cinema is locked in a corporate chokehold, robbing artists of the ability even to flail about in style anymore […] It’d be nice to say the [DC Extended Universe] franchise will be remembered for its occasional triumphs (it’s rare to find a comic book film as good as 2020’s ‘Birds of Prey’) but ‘The Lost Kingdom’ speaks too fluently to its failures to not feel like a damning indictment on its legacy.”
A recurring theme in the reviews is that “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” despite having no shortage of ridiculous moments, is ultimately pretty formulaic and predictable. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman writes:
“They spend most of their time fighting: face to face, spear to spindly CGI monster, trident to trident […] The movie, with all that combat, is staged on an impressively grand scale by the returning director, James Wan, but at the same time there’s something glumly standard about it.”