Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023) Warner Bros./Action-Adventure RT: 124 minutes Rated PG-13 (sci-fi violence and some language) Director: James Wan Screenplay: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick Music: Rupert Gregson-Williams Cinematography: Don Burgess Release date: December 22, 2023 (US) Cast: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Randall Park, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison, Martin Short, Nicole Kidman, Vincent Regan, Jani Zhao, Indya Moore, Pilou Asbaek, John Rhys-Davies.
Rating: *
Many of you already know that Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is the final film in the DC Extended Universe, a franchise that has seen its ups and downs since Man of Steel flew into cinemas ten years ago. It’s also the last superhero movie we’ll see for a while with Marvel pushing their major upcoming films to 2025 and James Gunn’s DC reboot premiering the same year with Superman: Legacy. I’m genuinely not sorry to see the DCEU come to an end. While I’ve enjoyed a few of the movies (The Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman and Blue Beetle), I was never all that impressed with it. The movies tend to be dark and too overly reliant on CGI. In the words of my buddy Bill (last name, Shakespeare), they’re a whole lot of “sound and fury, signifying nothing”. It seems fitting then for the DCEU to go out not with a bang or a whimper, but a thud that can be heard and felt throughout the multiplex.
I liked the first Aquaman movie well enough that I went back and saw it again in 3D. I feel absolutely no desire to do a repeat with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. This is definitely a one-off movie. It shows all the classic signs of post-production tinkering. It’s a mess both visually and narratively. It clunks along with the subtlety of an 18-wheeler with a broken axle. Now here’s the miraculous part (hey, it is the season of miracles, right?). It still manages to be a bore. Combined with the utter indifference with which this water-logged dud was obviously made, it’s the most unbearable movie of the season.
The plot, such as it is, involves bad guy David Kane aka Black Manta (Mateen, Candyman) executing a revenge plot against Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Momoa, Fast X) for the death of his father in the first movie. His quest leads him to the fabled lost Atlantean kingdom of the title where he finds a magical object called “The Black Trident”. It takes him over, promising to give him the power to destroy Aquaman’s family which now includes a wife (Heard, The Danish Girl) and baby. In exchange, he’s to help bring about the complete annihilation of the surface world. It’s solely on Aquaman to stop him. Well, not exactly. He’s going to need help from his imprisoned half-brother Orm (Wilson, The Conjuring), the last person in both worlds he trusts. After breaking him out of his desert prison, they (reluctantly) team up to find Kane and take him down.
By definition, superhero movies should be fun. The Marvel movies, up to and including Avengers: Endgame (as well a few post-Endgame titles), were a lot of fun. Now I could go into a whole diatribe about the DCEU and how they took all the fun out of the genre, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll simply say Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is no fun at all. I really wanted to enjoy the ride, but when I found myself forcing myself to come up with positive things to say about it afterwards, I knew I had to come clean and say how I really felt about it. It’s a slog. It’s lazy and it feels forced. As usual, it’s extra-heavy on the CGI, none of which looks good. The effects range from video game graphics to the cinematic equivalent of “meatball surgery” (i.e. last-minute rush job FX). The colors look washed out which isn’t good even in a movie that takes place mostly underwater. Far from eye-popping, the visual palette is more likely to make your eyeballs retreat into their sockets.
There’s been a lot of scuttlebutt about the producers reducing Amber Heard’s role in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom due to the situation with Johnny Depp last year. I don’t know for sure what’s true and what’s not, but they might as well have cut her out altogether for what little she adds to the movie. Her character doesn’t really do anything. On top of that, her performance is terrible, the worst in a film filled with bored, indifferent performances. Nicole Kidman, playing Aquaman’s Atlantean mom, looks like she can’t wait to get back to the empty AMC theater she’s been hanging out in for the past couple of years (yes, the ad’s been running that long!). Dolph Lundgren (The Expendables) mostly scowls and glowers as his father-in-law and fellow underwater king. Really, the only one that looks like he’s having fun is Momoa and he wears thin after a while. His co-stars clearly want to be anywhere but there.
Director James Wan can do, has done better. Look at Saw, Death Sentence, The Conjuring 1 & 2 and Malignant. He also did the first Aquaman. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is not one of his better efforts. I’d call it a big black mark. To be fair, it’s not entirely his fault the movie sucks. There’s enough blame to go around. However, I don’t know how much of it can be attributed to writer David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. The plot is weak and convoluted, but I’m sure the many rewrites and reshoots play a part in the film’s failure. Either way, it’s poorly written.
You know what? I’m just going to cut right to the chase. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom SUCKS! It’s lazy in every which way. Even the action scenes feel tired. It’s like they weren’t even trying. The sole motivator for this lame sequel is $$$. The sad thing is it will probably bomb at the box office. I can’t think of a more fitting send-off for a franchise that was flawed from the start. Here’s hoping Gunn’s reboot brings DC to life. He should look to the first two OG Superman films (starring the late Christopher Reeve) for inspiration. They got it exactly right!
