AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM - Mark Reviews Movies

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Warner Bros. Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 21, 2023

Arthur Curry, aka Aquaman, knows that some people see his unique superpower, the ability to talk to fish, as a joke. That doesn't matter to him, because Arthur is now married, has a baby, has saved countless lives over the course of his superhero career, and is the king of the hidden underwater city of Atlantis. He's also played by Jason Momoa, so it's not as if anyone is going to laugh in his face about his calling card.

Momoa remains the right choice for this role, if only because everything about his screen persona stands in such stark, hulking contrast to the fact that, yes, Aquaman has been a joke among his superhero pals and colleagues, likely since the character's comic-book debut in the early 1940s. The actor made the fish-talker cool in the public conscious for the first time, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom continues the trend of filmmakers not taking advantage of either the weird possibilities of this character and his world or the easy charm Momoa brings to the part.

It's also a waste of a solid title, particularly since it brings to mind those old adventure serials in which, by the way, a lot of superheroes, such as the here-absent Superman and Batman, got their start at the movies. Who doesn't want to see Aquaman exploring the deepest reaches of the seas, searching the depths of the ocean, and finding some mysterious, mythical realm filled with who knows what?

Since the character's hasty introduction in this franchise, this variation of Aquaman has been defined by his devil-may-care attitude, his hard-drinking way, and his almost giddy reactions to being involved in all sorts of action on land and underwater. He's an adventurer, really, in a certain prototypical way, so why does this movie, along with its predecessor, seem so intent on draining the potential fun out of his adventures?

Yes, that probably seems like a bold statement considering how inherently silly Aquaman's first official movie appeared, with its collection of occasionally strange characters (a race of crab people) and sights (a drum-playing octopus), but looks can be as distracting as they can be deceiving. Director James Wan, who returns for the sequel with screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, played the material too seriously for the silliness to work on its own merits.

That brings us to the follow-up, which is in quite a rush to establish Aquaman's new statuses as Atlantean monarch and family man, to bring back a couple of old threats, and to get to a plot that simply transplants a villain with world-dominating motives underwater and gives the potentially destructive peril a direct real-world parallel. The main baddie is an ancient ruler of one of the underwater kingdoms, who used dark magic to transform himself and his subjects into undead monstrosities, and the threat is a type of fuel that releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. There are ways to bring attention to the crisis of climate change, and then, there's using it as a cheap plot device.

From there, the rushing never relents. Previous villains Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who accidentally channels that ancient evil while seeking revenge, and Orm (Patrick Wilson), Aquaman's half-brother who's in a desert prison for trying to start an unnecessary war with the surface world, return, too.

The only differences are those new powers, which make Manta a physical threat without a super-suit (He and his minions also have upgraded from high-powered squirt guns to lasers, and honestly, it's not an improvement), and Aquaman forming an uneasy alliance with Orm for reasons that don't really matter to the plot. A throwaway reference to that other superhero cinematic universe is more likely the cynical, copycat motive on Johnson-McGoldrick's part. Even with this incarnation of the DC franchise apparently coming to an end, it's still chasing after the competition.

Everyone else from the previous movie is pretty much tossed aside (Amber Heard's Mera, Aquaman's wife, and Nicole Kidman's Atlanna, Aquaman and Orm's mother, receive the equivalent of glorified cameos spread out over a few scenes). The undersea realms remain visually busy but, this time around, lack the goofy details. The basic plotting is once again a scavenger hunt of sorts, as Aquaman and Orm bicker and banter while tracking Manta, the source of the fuel, and the ancient villain for a series of routine action sequences.

Whether or not we'll see Momoa in this role again is an open question. It would be a shame if Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is his last go at the character, but this thoroughly bland installment would serve as a fitting, final reminder of how much this franchise has wasted the potential of both Aquaman and the actor who gave an unlikely spark of life to him.

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