This year's cultural revival of domestic films can be said, and various high-scoring films are frequent, and in comparison, the advantages of Hollywood blockbusters seem to be less prominent......
Is it?
Wen Ziren is here again with his "Aquaman 2".
The previous work "Aquaman" broke the box office record of Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" after its release in 2018, with a global revenue of more than 1 billion US dollars, and attracted more than 2 billion yuan in China, becoming the highest-grossing film in DC history, making director Wen Ziren, starring Jason Momoa, and Amber Heard enter the ranks of first-line filmmakers, so this year's "Aquaman 2" can be said to be a strong return.
I have to say that in addition to the unbridled imagination and breathtaking special effects scenes, the story and core of this time have changed a lot compared with the previous work, but the plot is still bold and amazing, all kinds of wonders are overwhelming, and the strong immersive experience is simply immersive to feel an alternative adventure underwater.
Different from the "dark" sense presented by Hollywood blockbusters in recent years, "Aquaman 2" "goes sideways" on the screen- Highlight a bright, high brightness, but also beautiful enough, after all, more than 200 million dollars have been spent on color and special effects, which can be called an inhumane investment to create a unique aesthetic completely different from other marine element movies, and the weaknesses of the seabed visual elements that are easy to be messy and dazzling have become an advantage, and they become just right with the blessing of strong art, making people feel like they are in the universe at the bottom of the sea, and the free and extensive open space makes the fight scenes and the big scenes of thousands of troops have been reflected to the greatest extent, and there is an immersive sense of winter swimming from a 3D perspective。
The whales and swimming fish seem to pass by the audience, without blindly seeking "beauty", and the overlap of light and shadow even adds some sense of oppression from the depths of the ocean to the whole.
The night market full of jellyfish lamps has a lively fireworks, and the underwater wonders full of cyberpunk style have a unique view, which is better than the night market of many ancient puppet shows now, and the imagination of the set design is really vivid.
And this is just a few fragments of the movie that are almost fleeting and "the years are quiet", the fight scenes full of realism are even more with a rushing impact, the giant beast of the abyss almost opens its bloody mouth in front of the audience, from the bottom of the sea to the land, armored aircraft combat to hand-to-hand combat, the big screen + surround sound effect is indeed a plus.
The movie not only stays at the deep blue seabed, but also follows Aquaman's perspective through a world with magnificent colors and even a hint of trickery, and every battle almost breaks out in front of you, which is a refreshing visual crit.
Of course, all kinds of strange creatures are also quite "evil", the slimy blue octopus crawling in the desert, the deep-sea war horse with an exposed backbone and reliable reins, like a mascot designed by AI under some casually said command, almost different elements of reproductive isolation are mixed and matched at will, and they are presented inexplicably, and the underworld is just right, it feels like it is indeed Wen Ziren's forte.
Although the scene is more flying than the first part, Aquaman himself unexpectedly "fell back into the world", I thought that the end of the first part of the family carnival would bring "the prince and princess happily together", but sure enough, life is different from a fairy tale, and Arthur in this part faces more helplessness and fragmentation of life.
One second he was still passing through the baby shorts drying on the balcony, yawning and sighing "I have a job too", and the next second he muttered "I am the king of Atlantis" - what if it was Aquaman, he still had to run for life, or he had to be a social animal, or he was groveling for life.
Even Aquaman has to have a meeting - the kind that dozes off, and his idea has to face repeated rejections.
As Wen Ziren said, he was more "self" in the previous work, but now that he has a family, children and even the entire people of Atlantis, he will think more about the overall situation, and will even "rob the prison" to save his younger brother Orm for the sake of the overall situation. In order to fight against the black bat, the once tense Sea King brothers abandoned their old hatred and grudges to fight side by side, and truly changed from "killing each other" to "loving each other".
And the combination of these brothers is also a highlight of this film: the brother of the E person and the brother of the cold-faced I person who have a full score of force value do not forget to gag in this thrilling adventure, bickering all the way, the younger brother refuses to call him "younger brother", and the elder brother also debits the younger brother for ridiculing that his strength is not as good as himself, Wen Ziren understands the mode of getting along between brothers very well, and it is difficult to escape the "male competition" between relatives.
However, perhaps because of the cold face of his younger brother Aum, the elder brother is even more silly and cute, and he is indeed always a teenager - especially by his younger brother's side.
From the subtle separation, complaining and contempt between the two, they gradually accepted each other, and the eternal tolerance and companionship that almost only family members have is also particularly moving.
Especially Aquaman's sentence "No one can beat my brother, except me", is simply the resonance of every family or group, no matter how "infighting" there is between family members, outsiders don't want to provoke it.
In addition, the two muscular men's solo near and far are too eye-catching, and the last time I saw this kind of pectoral muscle was a proton group trained by Wu Ershan himself.
Especially Patrick, under the lens of Wen Ziren, the elegant and cold, ruthless yuppie uncle, a really gentle man.
In addition to the big and small complaints about the two gossip boys who love and kill each other throughout, the supporting roles in this film are also very outstanding, and the more you look back, the more obvious the character characteristics are, ruthless enough, and extreme enough.
Black Manta Ray incarnated as a big boss this time, relying on the mysterious ancient power of the trident to directly confront the Sea King, ordinary people secretly armed themselves under the drive of hatred, and with the body of a mortal, they actually stirred up all the big guys behind Atlantis to dress up. And this hatred almost swallowed him up into an extreme personality in the real sense, and at the last moment, even if he had a chance to live, he would rather die than accept the hand stretched out by his old enemy, and this year's annual screen crazy criticism added another member.
Dr. Shen, an Asian doctor next to him, looks timid and cowardly on the surface, but the black-hearted thing he did in the black manta ray with Jun Ruban finally made it difficult for him to face the torture of conscience, and he almost faced a situation similar to Oppenheimer, but in the end he was openly rebellious, quite literati, so it looks quite Chinese.
To the audience's surprise, behind these conflicts of hatred are environmental issues related to the world: extreme weather, climate change, resource scarcity, etc., the original fantasy and distant worldview has been silkily pulled back to reality.
It looks outrageous, but if you think about it carefully, this theme is actually the same as the underlying logic of this film. Aquaman and Orm are a family, they could have worked together to defend their homeland, and they really did abandon their hatred, and looking at the world, regardless of the combination of the two world races in the film, the last line of the film points out: people are different races, and they are very different from each other, but if we overcome our prejudices, we can become stronger.
In the weather of more than ten degrees below zero, choosing to find a theater to "go to the sea" will definitely give you a different feeling, in the words of the king of the sea:
PS: Be sure to see the end, the easter eggs are so interesting.