Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: Film Review
The original Aquaman was one of my favourite DCEU outings so it’s a real shame (but not a surprise) that the sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the final instalment in the current DCEU, is bad.
Jason Momoa is back as Arthur Curry/Aquaman, who is now married to Mera (Amber Heard) and they have a baby boy. David Kane/Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), the villain from the original, is still hellbent on killing Arthur to avenge his dead father. During his quest, he discovers a black trident that possesses him with evil forces. The only way to defeat Manta is for Arthur to team up with his evil half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson).
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has been delayed many times and endured many leadership changes at Warner Bros. From watching the finished product, I can only assume that there were too many cooks in the mix and it was edited and re-edited constantly because the film is an incoherent mess and the pacing is all over the place. The first 30 minutes are painfully slow, flitting between Arthur and Manta’s stories, and lacking in clarity and momentum. Also, the fight scenes are heavily chopped up so there is no flow to them. There are a handful of cool moments but no standout sequence.
The narrative improves with the arrival of Wilson. It was a good idea to have Orm and Arthur reluctantly working together after violently despising each other in the first film. It brings a fresh perspective to their relationship and it is fun watching them explore their differences, with Arthur being cool and cultured and Orm being uptight and clueless outside of Atlantis. The film shines with their banter and familial bickering so I wish there was more of that energy throughout and less clutter getting in the way of the central bro storyline.
The first film was fun, light-hearted and a welcome change of tone from the rest of the DCEU at the time. So it’s a shame this sequel takes itself so seriously. Momoa gets some funny lines and he really tries to inject some charm, levity and pizzazz into it but hardly anyone else gets that opportunity (except Wilson and Randall Park occasionally). I laughed a few times but that was it. It needed more comedy!
The script was pretty weak overall. Outside of the few comedy moments, the dialogue is ripped right out of the superhero/action movie manual. There is a lot of clunky exposition or clichéd fighting talk and it feels outdated and cringeworthy (especially coming out of Nicole Kidman‘s mouth, she deserves better). Abdul-Mateen II was burdened with laughably bad villain lines while Heard barely said anything of note (although she was in it more than I expected). I appreciated its anti-climate change message but it was very heavy-handed.
I know the whole point of Aquaman is that it’s based underwater but I actually preferred the scenes in the ‘surface world’. This was mostly for visual reasons – the CGI in Atlantis was really poor. It’s very hard to make an underwater kingdom look realistic when you’re shooting in a dry environment but I seriously disliked how fake it all looked.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has some decent ideas and cool moments but it doesn’t really amount to much. I’ve forgotten most of it already. I’m so ready to see where James Gunn and Peter Safran take the DCEU after this!
In cinemas from Thursday 21st December