The first Aquaman film in 2018 with actor Jason Momoa made a better comeback this year with the second film, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. 

In the first production of the franchise, the story unfolds with Atlanna, the queen of Atlantis, stumbling upon her future lover on Earth’s shore, Aquaman.

He soon became a father with the birth of the human-born heir to the kingdom of Atlantis. This underwater kingdom is ruled by the person who seeks the most power, Aquaman’s brother, King Orm. 

During his reign, he planned on taking full control of the oceanic people and the surface world. To his demise, Aquaman stood in Orm’s way because he was the true heir to the throne and the rightful king of Atlantis. 

He is assisted by royal counsel, Vulko, to which they must retrieve the Trident of Atlan and embrace the deeper way of the ocean to accomplish his destiny. 

Coming to the closing of the first movie, Aquaman rightfully takes the throne of Atlantis with his mother and Mera who is the former Queen of Dimension Aqua, Queen of Atlantis, and wife of DC Comics superhero Aquaman by his side.

But there’s a new film that has been released on December 22, 2023, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. This is based on the DC comics with the character Aquaman. 

The film is directed by James Wan and written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. 

After the Black Manta fails to defeat Aquaman the first time for seeking revenge for his dad he goes and tries to discover the power of the black mythic trident feining for power. 

Aquaman decides to put the differences between his imprisoned half-brother Orm aside who 

was the former king. They join forces to protect Atlantis and save the world from destruction. 

Arthur Curry is married to Mera and they have a son named Arthur jr. which they split his life between land. 

He lives in the lighthouse of his father and then does his duties underwater which he finds boring and always encounters a conflict with the council, which they are opposed to Arthur’s intent to make Atlantis get in contact with the surface world. 

David Kane then follows the scientist Stephan Shin to discover some artifacts from Atlantis and once he is in the ruins of Atlantean he discovers a black trident.

This trident possesses him and they make a deal that if David recovers back from their tribe they will give him the power to destroy Aquaman, his family, and his kingdom. 

Within months later the surface world is facing extreme weather conditions and disease in the sea population. 

Black Manta attacks Atlantis and takes their orichalcum reserves to power his machines restored by shin he injures Mera and proves himself capable of fighting Arthur. 

Reunifying with his mother Atlanna and Mera’s father Arthur discovers that David is behind the rising temperatures as he goes to go find the reserves. 

Aquaman decides to find the way to where the black manta is hiding and goes after one of his allies which was Arthur half half-brother Orm.

He breaks Orm out of prison and finds out David is on the South Pacific volcanic island. When he makes it to the island Arthur and Orm discover a monstrous fauna and Flora that had been mutated by an orichalcum furnace where the black manta has his base located. 

Before Atlantis comes and destroys the island orm gets a hold of the black trident and has visions of Kordax his creator. 

Given that the seal was created by Atlan with blood magic the blood of any descendent could release Kordax leading David to attack Tom Curry’s lighthouse and then kidnap Arthur Jr., who is Arthur’s kid before heading to the Necrus hiding place.

Arthur attacks David to further hurt his child and David almost defeats him but Orm comes and gets ahold of the trident which leads the spirit of Kordax to leave David and go for Orm. 

Orm continues to fight Aquaman and uses his blood to thaw the ice imprisoning the body of Kordax. 

Freeing his half brother Arthur throws his trident at the black trident to destroy it and defeat the kordax. Making the Kordax magic disappear Necrus starts to collapse and as Arthur tries to help David he denies it and jumps to his death. 

The Atlenanians and the shins escape to safety and Arthur and Mera decide that uniting Atlantis on land is a great idea and the sea is necessary to fight against climate change and then reveal Atlantis to the human world through an announcement.

To the United Nations with the intent of making the underwater kingdom, Atlantis, a member state.

This movie premiered at a fan event at the Gove in Los Angeles California on December 19 2023 and it was released in the United States on the 22. 

Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom received many negative reviews from critics and has made 398 million dollars worldwide.

If you want to watch this movie, it is excellent, but others suggest that the movie isn’t as much hype as the first one. 

One review said,” This is a fun movie, but not anywhere near a great one. It lacks the go-for-broke bigness of the original, with its flagrantly melodramatic” 

There are negative reviews and there are positive ones. Different feelings towards the movie because of the DC fanbase some think it isn’t as good as others.

This is the final film in the DCEU before an impending hard reboot cheered by James Gunn and Peter Safran. 

I think this movie is a great movie and many people will enjoy it because different people find interest in something and some do not but I recommend going to watch this movie in theaters.