Directed by: James Wan
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Discovery
Written by Alexander Reams
22/100
“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” feels like it was 3 different movies, and by all accounts it was. There was first the rumor of Michael Keaton returning as Batman, during the days when “Batgirl” wasn’t a symbol of the evil and greed within Warner Bros, and was instead an anticipated return for Keaton, as well as another stop on the “Bren-assiance” for Brendan Fraser. This was scrapped after the film was deleted from existence, and Ben Affleck stepped in as the film’s Batman. When all is said and done, “Lost Kingdom” has no Bat-people, and instead portrays Jason Momoa’s Aquaman as a “single” father raising his son with his father, Thomas Curry (Temuera Morrison). Before we see any of this, Momoa leads us on a meaningless Voiceover that is implemented to move the story forward in the laziest way possible. Instead of being shown events like the world getting warmer because of Black Manta (Yahoo Abdul-Mateen II) is we simply hear it narrated, the development of Aquaman and Mera is all but cut to shreds, but that isn’t exactly missed.
Five months goes by in five minutes and soon we’re thrust into a sequence with Dr. Stephen Shin (Randall Park) exploring ice caves for unexplained purposes. Manta shows up and chaos ensues with an unidentified creature. All of which leads to him being thrown and he conveniently lands next to the Black Trident, the MacGuffin of the film. It glows pretty colors and gives the hero something to chase after, even if its purpose is never fully explained besides “ruling the world.” Vague, lazy, and definitely not something that feels like a James Wan film. The early elements, especially the sequence with Park in an ice cavern feel like they were wholly crafted by Wan, but then there’s the over-animated action sequences that have Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna and Amber Heard’s Mera jumping around in what’s clearly unfinished CGI. It looks goofy, and it’s all too reminiscent of Yoda vs. Count Dooku in “Attack of the Clones.”
In the time between the two “Aquaman” films, another heavily CGI-based film set in an aqua environment came out and raised the bar for any and all CGI henceforth, and that was James Cameron’s masterwork “Avatar: The Way of Water.” “Lost Kingdom” can’t hold a candle to a single frame of that film and it really should considering it had a comparable budget, but like the entirety of the film, it’s a massive disappointment. The silver lining is that James Wan is now free to make the films he wants to and isn’t beholden to Supreme Overlord Zaslav. And like that the DCEU ends with a whimper.
“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” Trailer
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