After years of universe building struggles, cult like devotion to a singular director, and a whole swath of bad choices (some by way of this year) we come to the end of the road for the DCEU. Now firmly placed in the hands of DC Studios co-head James Gunn moving forward, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” was always destined to be a last ditch effort to empty the tank of their old film slate. Time will tell of the DC future. While the trust in Gunn is strong, the trust in Warner Bros. Pictures and its decisions makers (yeah, I’m calling out David Zaslav right up top) is shoddy at best.
“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” has had a rather rough go even before its ever shifting release date. Controversy, every headline being doom and gloom, reshoots and a general consensus of ‘why does this exists in the first place?’ The film doesn’t quite make a good case for existing; unfolding as a big giant mess of a movie with visuals that look somehow worse than its predecessor. But I will give it some credit for being a bit more fun and allowing itself to lean into its silliness. I don’t know if “Lost Kingdom” is a worthy send off to the DCEU, but I am glad to finally put it all behind us.
James Wan returns to the directors chair (in what I am sure is sigh of relief that he never has to return to the underwater world again). Screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick penned the script, based on a story conceived by Wan, Johnson-McGoldrick, Thomas Pa’a Sibbett, and star Jason Momoa. Picking up pretty much exactly where we left off, Arthur/Aquaman (Momoa) has married Mera (Amber Heard), and they share a son. Arthur splits his time between worlds, and has become pretty disenchanted with being a king. Of course, his enemies have not forgotten him, and Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) in his search for technology to fix his suit accidentally acquires the Black Trident. This cursed weapon begins to overtake Manta, and begins a plot to be set free while accelerating global warming both above and below the surface. With Aquaman’s kingship in jeopardy and the worlds on the brink of collapse if Manta succeeds in his final plan, he must seek help from the most unlikely of allies: his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson). Its a family reunion neither want, but they may discover they have more in common than they realize and become brothers while saving the world.
I know the DCEU has its defenders, and we will never truly rid the world of Snyderbros who insist all filmmaking begins and ends with Zack. But “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is all of the worst of the universe rolled into one; a zany, incoherent, tonally imbalanced and overstuffed mess posing as a superhero sequel. It’s bad, and not so bad it’s good kind of bad. The humor is oversaturated and misplaced, the sudden shifts to self serious tones are jarring, and the VFX are simply atrocious. “The Lost Kingdom” is certainly not sending the DCEU off with any kind of hopeful restoration or longing. It slams the nail in the coffin hard and sends it to eternal slumber like Korax himself. It is an obvious collection superhero tropes and cliches rehashed in a poorly constructed, visually appalling underwater world. For being its end, this film takes 0 risks and plays it as safe as it possibly can. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but this one is all of the place and feels like a fidgety kid that can’t sit still for 5 seconds to actually put something sensical together.
There’s a sense of laziness as the film putters about and meanders around trying to find its footing. You can feel the re-editing to limit Heard’s screen time, all but cutting her out entirely until it was near impossible to leave her off camera in the third act. That’s probably for the better, too. “The Lost Kingdom” has enough against it and the last thing it needs is putting yet another controversial performer front and center (man WB really just can’t get out of their own way here) or even as a prominent side character. She is essentially replaced with Orm, who is shockingly a breath of fresh air when he finally shows up. Momoa and Wilson actually have really great chemistry, this would work infinitely better if anchored the entirety of the film to them and their brotherly bickering. It does try, but it just has so much going on that we never really get as much as of it as we want or as much as the film itself deserves.
Also, side note and a personal sin “The Lost Kingdom” commits that really grinds my gears: can we stop ripping off the Star Wars Cantina? There has to be a thousand other ways to frame a criminal underworld, and this one has the most egregious rehash yet. Down to the underwater cantina band and a Jabba the Hut type character in the form of Kingfish, voiced inexplicably by Martin Short. I audibly laughed in shame and rolled my eyes so hard I thought they would be permanently stuck in the back of my head. I really just need this framing device to die. We just don’t need to do it anymore. Please. I’m begging you, stop this!
For all my grumbling about its messy narrative, horrible visual effects, incoherent script and an overstuffed adventure, it DOES actually lean into the fun of it all more than its predecessor. There’s not a whole lot that actually works. The humor feels tired and forced, but there is a sense of embracing its own ridiculous world that makes this one a bit more entertaining than before. It doesn’t make it better, but it IS classic empty calorie cinema. The kind of film that may make you smile once or twice, laugh at a joke or two, turn your mind off for a minute and enjoy the pretty colors then forget all about it before you get to your car to leave the theater. I know that sounds more like another slam than a compliment, but I mean it when I say this film is trying to have fun with its own absurdity. Though it can’t maintain this tone throughout, Wan and Johnson-McGoldrick seem to be in on the joke more than they were before, and that makes “The Lost Kingdom” tolerable for most of its over long runtime.
And you know what? For all my WB, DCEU, and “The Lost Kingdom” complaints, at the end of the day, isn’t that the least we can hope for? Just a fun, mindlessly entertaining movie that sure, crumbles under the slightest scrutiny but allows us to forget the world is on fire for a few hours? That’s kind of what “The Lost Kingdom” achieves, and maybe that’s all it really needs to do in the first place. It’s not going to leave you buzzing to see it again, but to sit here and tell you it’s not stupid, dumb fun would be me being critical for critic’s sake. There’s plenty to rip apart. I really only scratched the surface of everything wrong with this borderline disaster. But while its safety and horrendous visuals are a detriment overall, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t at least some fun to be had here.
Sometimes the bare minimum is all we really want from our movie, and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” serves up a big plate of unabashed insanity. Does it work as a film? No, not really. But it has more fun with itself than most of the entries in the DCEU, and for that I have to give it credit. Maybe we’re wrong to ask it shoulder the DCEU across the River Styx. We were never going to get a magnum opus of anything good still left in there. There’s almost no meat on any of those bones, “The Lost Kingdom” included, but shedding all of those expectations strangely allows a breathless movie to breath on its own for a second. It’s not a big breath and I can’t say that I actually liked the film, but I’ll be the first to relent if you come away from it feeling like it was exactly the kind inane movie going experience you needed.
This film may be lost at sea, but if the voyage itself doesn’t make sense and we’re happy to put this all behind us and start fresh, it is at least having fun as it stares its own death in the face.
And suddenly I’m craving a big greasy burger and a beer.
Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars
“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is now playing in theaters. You can watch the trailer below.
