originally thought that the film market in December would still be divided by a few ordinary but not unsuccessful domestic films, but unexpectedly, a "King of the Abyss: Lost Empire" appeared and immediately grabbed nearly half of the box office.
In just two days after its release, it has exceeded 40 million, and the platform expects its total box office in the mainland to rush to 260 million. However, in fact, this film has already announced the mistake of "King of the Abyss 2" in advance, although it seemed to have no opponent at the time.
It is an indisputable fact that the quality of domestic films needs to be improved. But this sequel to "King of the Abyss", which was once unfavored, but came later, is highly anticipated, with huge investment and high expectations, but the box office is still sluggish, which has its own internal reasons.
*The overwhelming criticism after its release directly revealed the failure of "King of the Abyss 2", not that the audience has lost interest in it.
The overall story of King of the Abyss 2 presents the feeling of a node in the east and a node in the west. For example, the focus is on the two sides of the Abyss King's identity, and he can't skillfully balance the two, but what he actually shows the audience is the conflict between bloodline and race. If you take it as the main line and connect the core crisis, perhaps the plot is more compelling. However, the film focuses on the revenge of the black manta ray for his father, which has no direct connection with the contradiction at the beginning of the film.
It can be seen that creators want to present more content, but because of their limited talents, they are hungry for too much, and they integrate a large number of elements into it, and the result is that they are greedy and chewy.
Therefore, the overall plot has added a lot compared to the previous work, and the complexity has been greatly increased. However, the sequel's pursuit of innovation and change is not as good as continuing the boilerplate plot of the previous work, with a direct and concise storyline, even if it has a slight assembly line flavor, it is more brilliant than the current scattered highlights, lack of connection and logic.
The film focuses on highlighting the fact that the King of the Abyss has put a lot of effort into creating a powerful villain, but with little success, and is still an instrumental character. In addition to manipulating the black manta ray and instigating him to do evil, it actually has no substantive effect. is defined as a villain, just because the choreographer and director waved a clever pen to make him have the ambition to destroy the world.
This is a common problem in superhero movies, and the villain must have a grand goal, otherwise it cannot be called the ultimate boss. If you don't want to destroy the world, it doesn't seem to be noticeable enough to harm others, but it turns out that the character falls into a brainless routine.
In addition to the duel of positive and negative angles, another main line of the film is the dispute between the King of the Abyss and his brother. Prior to this, in view of the successful use of the "hammer and the base" brotherhood in other superhero films, the director imitated it, and finally the two reconciled. But if the audience has already done the previous work, they will be puzzled by the previous differences between the two on land and sea issues.
In the end, the sublimation of values in the film feels cliché, turning the conflict between land and sea into reconciliation between land and sea, allowing Atlantis to accept humanity.
This kind of ending is lackluster, and most of the audience foresees it. However, the quality of the first work is of a high standard, which makes people look forward to the sequel continuing the previous work, but unexpectedly, "King of the Abyss 2" has too much pace, missed many plots of the first part, and even mixed too many other storylines.
Human nature**, family and career balance attempts, the exercise of royal power, environmental protection, etc., from the point of view, "King of the Abyss 2" is like a word count**, the surface is neat and beautiful, but in fact, each subtitle is independent, and even inappropriate with the theme.
Superhero movies like King of the Abyss 2 also have one thing in common, that is, to make the protagonist absolutely positive, even the Virgin. Although the black manta ray has done evil and repeatedly threatened the family of the King of the Abyss, the King of the Abyss wants to slap him to death with one palm in the early stage, but later he wants to save the other party, which is incomprehensible.
In order to increase the viewing point, the film also added a large number of action scenes. Although the action design is somewhat naïve and devoid of highlights, the choreographer still tries to convince the audience that they are extremely combative, so they always fight with their bare hands.
This is in stark contrast to the new high-tech confrontations used in science fiction movies, where the combat effectiveness of these protagonists is sometimes high and low, and the difference in strength between friend and foe is huge, and sometimes a man can take the initiative to knock the villain down.
No matter how the director modifies the parameters of the pros and cons according to his personal preferences, the final result is still the same, and the King of the Abyss still deserves the title. This method of forcibly instilling content makes people feel like covering the audience's mouth.
Moreover, the special effects at the level of online blockbusters are also quite prohibitive. Not to mention the funny shapes of the characters who look like flies, this underworld green filter is more like the sense of déjà vu that used inferior techniques to create light and shadow effects 20 years ago, when special effects technology was not yet developed.
This underworld green filter has completely failed to make people feel the post-production investment, but seems too rough and perfunctory. Obviously, the investment in the sequel is larger, but the picture effect is disappointing, as if I found a small workshop to save money!
Superhero movies have long been in decline, not only DC, but Marvel has also exposed the lack of creativity of directors and screenwriters. It's a pity that the IP of "King of the Abyss", when the audience expects to find a different superhero story in this movie, director Wen Ziren misunderstands the expectation and regards it as an indication of arbitrary modification. The result is that the film feels like the sequel is out of tune with its predecessor.