The Movie Guru: ‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’ dumb fun, while ‘The Iron Claw’ heartbreaking family tragedy

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (in theaters)

I’m all for keeping movies shorter, but not when they sacrifice the quality of the movies themselves.

“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” comes in at just over two hours, which is a relatively brisk time in today’s movie climate. Unfortunately, the entire first hour is told almost like a recap rather than the actual movie, with an immense amount of voiceover narration and potentially interesting scenes cut down to a series of excerpts. Though the second hour settles into dumb fun, particularly in the interplay between Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson, the first hour feels more like hearing the story told to you by a particularly uninteresting man at a party.

There’s also even more CGI in this one than there was in the original, and the quality hasn’t improved in the slightest. Avoid 3D screenings whenever you can and be grateful for the moments when the characters get to be surrounded by reality.

Still, there are things to like in the second half of the movie. The best of them is the unexpected comedy duo that is Momoa and Wilson, whose hatred from the first movie has mellowed into an exasperation that feels particularly sibling-like. Their characters have very different ways of doing pretty much everything, which means that making them work together leads to the most interesting sequences in the whole movie.

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In my dreams, Warner Brothers would drop them both in a streaming series where they have to do things like go to the grocery store and babysit Aquaman’s son. I would watch six seasons of it.

Grade: One and a half stars

The Iron Claw (in theaters)

Don’t watch “The Iron Claw” thinking you’re about to experience a fun movie about the history of wrestling.

Though wrestling is an inherent part of the story, “The Iron Claw” is actually one of those heartbreaking tragedies about a performing family chewed up and eventually destroyed by the ambition of one of the parents. Zac Efron will destroy you emotionally, despite his haircut, and Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons are all devastating in their own way. If you have any kind of fond feelings for your siblings, and possibly even if you have complicated feelings about your siblings, you will spend the end of the movie in tears.

Inspired by a true story, “The Iron Claw” follows Kevin Von Erich, a 1980s wrestler working a state circuit with his family. All he wants is to hang out with his brothers forever, but their father’s obsessive quest for the wrestling glory he was denied makes him push his sons into more and more stressful situations. When they can’t take it anymore, for one reason or another, he simply moves on to the next brother.

It’s not a perfect movie. Trimming a half hour or more from the length would make it even more devastating, and unless you’re a huge fan of buff men wearing only tighty-whiteys you will experience profound burnout by the end of the film. Efron’s haircut and hopefully fake tan will also be distracting until you get used to them.

Despite all that, “The Iron Claw” is an unexpectedly powerful tragedy.

Grade: Three and a half stars

Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society. Find her on Twitter at @wardellwriter or drop her a line at themovieguruslc@gmail.com.