“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” Review
Jason Mamoa returns to the sea as the Aquaman in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom”, the final entry in the DC Extended Universe.
In just ten years, the DC Extended Universe has simultaneously shown us the highs and lows of the modern superhero genre. While some of Marvel’s projects haven’t been well-received, I would say that the entire MCU as a whole has been consistently good. With DC, you had no idea whether the film was going to be good or not but, usually, the best films the franchise had to offer were the ones that gave filmmakers freedom instead of being tinkered with by a committee of studio executives. There’s no greater example of this than by comparing the original 2017 cut of “Justice League” to Zack Snyder’s director’s cut which was only released after massive fan pressure.
With the series officially coming to an end (as the events of “The Flash” have rebooted the series which will now be known as the DC Universe) with the release of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom”, it’s important to look back on this series that gave us such spectacular films like “Man of Steel”, “Wonder Woman” and “The Suicide Squad” as well as colossal flops like “Black Adam” and “Suicide Squad”. While I had my hopes for “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom”, I honestly feel that it is one of the worst entries in the whole franchise. Not only because of its lifeless quality but also because it was the sequel to a film that I truly enjoyed.
Years after the events of the first film, Arthur Curry (Jason Mamoa) continues to serve as both the King of Atlantis and the heroic superhero The Aquaman. He’s now married to Mera (Amber Heard), has a son named Arthur Jr. and seems to have a decent grip on life as a family man while struggling with bypassing the bureaucracy of Atlantis. However, Arthur’s world is completely upended by the ruthless Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who seeks revenge on Aquaman for killing Manta’s father and now is more powerful than ever thanks to the evils of the magical Black Trident. Armed with ancient Atlantean technology and being persuaded by a mysterious evil long thought to be defeated, Manta wages a ruthless war against Atlantis, leaving Aquaman no choice but to team up with his half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) who he had to force from the throne of Atlantis in the first film before he could destroy the surface world. With this unlikely partnership, the pair must hunt down Manta before the entire planet, land and sea, is thrown into irreversible chaos.
Back in 2018, I really enjoyed the first “Aquaman” film and, five years later, I found that it held up pretty well. The film not only fully introduces us to the world of Atlantis without serving as an origin story, but also served as a strange yet exciting adventure that I could get behind. Jason Mamoa was quite likable as the badass aquatic hero and director James Wan proved that “Furious 7” wasn’t just a one-off from his history as a horror filmmaker. It’s not a particularly groundbreaking comic book film but it doesn’t need to be. It just needed to be epic and cool and “Aquaman” certainly succeeded. The sequel on the other hand had none of that charm and instead felt like every guy in a suit at Warner Bros. Discovery had their hands on it.
Most of the film’s positive elements feel completely wasted on a dull script like the screen presence of Jason Mamoa. Not only is he a great choice as Aquaman and has proven himself in the role multiple times but he’s also extended his talents to several other great projects like “See”, “Game of Thrones” and “Dune”. But all the likability and investment that I’ve had for this character feels sucked away in “The Lost Kingdom”.
The biggest offender as to why this film doesn’t work is the script which is strange since David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick has written other exciting films for James Wan to direct like “The Conjuring 2” and the first “Aquaman”. To be honest, the entire film feels like it either needed to get away from studio interference or to just have a few more drafts because “The Lost Kingdom’s” ideas are interesting, but the film never goes all the way with them.
The talents of both Patrick Wilson and Jason Mamoa feel squandered in this terribly dull sequel.
Having Arthur and Orm work together in this uneasy alliance sounds like a good idea and the chemistry between Mamoa and Wilson is there but you don’t care what they’re fighting for because the film doesn’t bother to address the serious implications of Manta’s plot. Instead, we get a script that tries way too hard to be funny and comedically falls flat all the time. It’s like every comic book film is trying to copy Marvel’s quippy humor that, to be fair, even Marvel fans are starting to get tired of.
It’s a strange choice to have a more comedic slant since “Aquaman” wasn’t really that funny. It was more focused on character and being an epic adventure. Whatever laughs were had were based on natural character interaction and didn’t take away from the main objective. To give you an idea of what the humor in the film is like, here’s one joke from the first ten minutes. Arthur has to change his baby’s diaper and I don’t even have to tell you what happens. You already know because nearly every film with this scenario has done this joke. It’s not funny. It will never be funny. Stop trying to make this joke work. But this film is so proud of that joke that it actually comes back again. Because it was so funny the first time.
James Wan’s direction, who has been proven to handle suspense and action quite well, feels so empty with most of the fight sequences being completely dull, especially in the film’s climax. Even though, like in the last film, the special effects are pretty good at making you feel like you’re underwater and also being immersed in this world, the climax is a step down from the first film in both a spectacle and emotional sense. The first film had massive armies of aquatic creatures killing each other in an epic battle to see if the sea would conquer the land.
This film has the opportunity to do something similar, only even better now that Black Manta (one of Aquaman’s biggest villains in the comics) has taken center stage, and decides to pull out at the last minute. Instead of Orm and Arthur taking on Manta while legions clash in the background, we just have our principle characters. “The Lost Kingdom’s” finale reminded me so much of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” where the climax could have been this massive fleet of pirate ships fighting another massive fleet of ships from the East India Trading company but instead all we got were the main two ships fighting in a whirlpool. That’s fine and all but why build up this massive battle if you don’t give us the goods?
If the lack of improvement to the characters, world and storytelling isn’t infuriating enough, the ending of this film also has the nerve to rip off the ending of “Black Panther”. “The Lost Kingdom” couldn’t just be a bad comic book movie on its own, it had to steal from one that was nominated for Best Picture. I don’t know if this was in the original script or a change to the ending at the behest of an executive but can we all agree that, if you have no idea how to make a film and can only order others to make one, you have no business in the industry whatsoever.
2023 hasn’t been great for superhero movies with many of them coming up short with box office numbers and reception being just as unkind. While I can’t say that many of the comic book adaptations this year have been that bad, they certainly have been middling with notable examples being “The Marvels”, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods”. Others have been hated like the “Secret Invasion” series on Disney+. But there have been some dazzling bright spots like “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3” and the second season of “Loki” as well as more adult oriented series like “Gen. V” and the second season of “Invincible”. And how can we forget the incredible majesty of “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse”?
My hope is that studios don’t look at the dismal results for superhero films this year and take that as a sign that they need to stop making them. It’s not that audiences don’t want to see superhero films. I love the genre and to be able to see these characters I grew up with and continue to read about come to life on the big screen is a dream come true. We just want to see good ones that have a definitive voice behind the camera as opposed to what feels like a bunch of mediocre studio executives who keep trying to make a lesser copy of what’s come before.
I have no idea what’s coming from James Gunn’s new DC Universe. Maybe it will be great or maybe it will be as consistent as the DCEU. I have my faith in Gunn since he’s made several amazing comic adaptations in recent years but I, at least, take comfort in knowing that he’s a filmmaker who knows what he’s doing. All I know is that if none of the upcoming DC films are as dull as “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom”, we’re going to be just fine.
