Meanwhile Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is scouring the globe for lost Atlantean technology with which to build his dreams of conquest. When they stumble across a cache of artefacts older than even Atlantis a Black Trident calls out to him. No good will come of this.
This is an example of everything that's currently wrong with cinema.
They spent $200m+ on a movie and ended up with something so pedestrian and unimpressive for their money.
I have a kind of cognitive dissonance where looking at it the gut feeling is that they slapped together the story in an afternoon but I also know nobody lets you spend $200m+ unless it's been signed off on at every stage.
It's like the end result is nobody involved's fault, but also everyone's.
The Emperor's New Clothes but for movie making and with no child to call them on it at any point.
Then to make things even worse they'll then probably do it again because, generally, the numbers stack up. Creative works aren't a sausage factory where spending more money gets you a better product, I know that, but c'mon. There have always been disappointing movies but now it's like "too big to fail" also applies to movies because we just keep getting more and more stuff like this and nobody is willing to shout "enough".
There is just something rotten about the whole process that caused this to end up like this 4/10 avoid.