Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom review

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM: 

JASON MOMOA’S CHARISMA KEEPS AVERAGE SUPERHERO SEQUEL FROM SINKING! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** ½ out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Jason Momoa is back in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

 

            Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones, Dune: Parts 1 and 2, Fast X) returns as the King of Atlantis in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the final installment of the DC Extended Universe and follow-up to 2018’s Aquaman. I already did a full review of the first movie back when it first came out, but I’ll give my thoughts on it really quick. 

            I like the first Aquaman, it isn’t perfect and even compared to other superhero movies it’s not one of my favorites. But, it had an engaging-enough story, the action is exciting, the world of Atlantis itself is dazzling and filled with eye-candy, and Jason Momoa gives an enjoyably charismatic performance as the titular character to make it an entertaining superhero film. 

            After earning fairly positive reviews from critics and becoming the only DCEU film in its entire run to gross over $1 billion, it makes sense to continue Arthur Curry’s legacy and expand on the world-building of Atlantis. That’s where Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom comes in with many of the original cast members returning and James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring franchise, Furious 7) back in the director’s chair. 

             Well, after several ups and downs during the DCEU’s bumpy history before James Gunn and Peter Safran reboot the DC Universe soon with Superman: Legacy, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is…an okay movie but a rather disappointing final note for the DCEU to go out on. I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as what most critics are saying, but I don’t think it’s very good either. 

            The film follows Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Momoa) who has since become a father with his wife, Mera (Amber Heard-Drive Angry, The Rum Diary, Magic Mike XXL) and is keeping both the land world and underwater world at peace. But when Arthur’s old nemesis, David Kane/Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II-The Trial of the Chicago 7, Candyman (2021), The Matrix Resurrections) reemerges with a powerful trident of his own known as the Black Trident, Arthur must forge an alliance with his brother and former king of Atlantis, Orm (Patrick Wilson-Watchmen,Insidious franchise, The Conjuring franchise) in order to protect their kingdom and save the world from irreversible destruction. 

            The film also stars Randall Park (The Interview, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shortcomings) reprising his role as Dr. Stephen Shin, Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV, Masters of the Universe, Creed II) reprising his role as Nereus, Temuera Morrison (Star Wars: Episodes II and III, Green Lantern, Moana) reprising his role as Tom Curry, Martin Short (Three Amigos, Mars Attacks!, Treasure Planet) as the voice of Kingfish, and Nicole Kidman (Far and Away, Batman Forever, The Northman) reprising her role as Atlanna. 

            Overall, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has entertaining aspects and Jason Momoa once again is giving his all, sadly they aren’t quite enough to make up for its indifferent, often overstuffed plot, inconsistent tone, and bare-minimum character development (Mainly with the side characters). Again, I don’t think this movie is necessarily bad as there were a handful of moments I genuinely enjoyed, but many of the issues I just mentioned were very noticeable and took me out of the movie. 

            I don’t know if the movie had a bunch of rewrites or a troubled production history, but it seemed like it was trying too hard to jumble as much as it could without fully developing the ideas it had. You will have characters that show up without much of an introduction and stay around for the rest of the film’s duration or ideas that were built up throughout the movie only to have an anticlimactic payoff in the end. 

            The most glaring example of that is with the original owner of the Black Trident, this big, Atlantean God man who’s constantly tempting Black Manta to set him free throughout the movie. When he finally is unleashed, he leaves just as soon as he arrives with likely zero chances of him coming back (I’m not just saying that because this is the last DCEU movie), this honestly makes Venom’s screen-time in Spider-Man 3 look plentiful by comparison, at least there was a fight between him and Spider-Man and a little bit of time devoted to him. 

            The story doesn’t really do much new and not just in terms of Aquaman, but superhero movies in general. A powerful threat comes to destroy the hero’s world and the hero must team up with his trickster brother who was the villain of the previous movie in order to stop it…we’ve never seen that before in a superhero movie and don’t worry, the Thor and Loki comparisons don’t stop there. 

            While some of Arthur and Orm’s banter can be humorous when they’re together, most of it sounds like unused Thor and Loki banter from the MCU. Aquaman even compares his brother to Loki once in case you didn’t know where they got this idea from. 

            I wouldn’t mind the reused plot elements if they added their own flavor to them, but I guess because it worked well with Thor and Loki, just copy what Marvel did. 

            It also doesn’t help that the tone is all over the place, sometimes it wants to be comedic and other times it wants to be dramatic and mean something, next it wants to be badass and cool. It really felt like the filmmakers were throwing everything at the screen and seeing what sticks rather than being consistent. 

            Despite all that, there is a fair amount of things I like in the movie like the underwater scenes which are once again gorgeous to look at and worth seeing on IMAX. The action scenes are fun and creative with my favorite being this ship chase in Atlantis that’s reminiscent of a space shooting sequence and most of the acting is solid though part of me missed Patrick Wilson’s hammy dialogue from the first movie. 

            It may sound like I hate or dislike this movie and I really don’t as there was just enough enjoyable aspects that made it worth watching at least once. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is a serviceable superhero sequel that doesn’t break any grounds and might pass for decent popcorn entertainment if you don’t think too much about it, personally it’s another pale reminder of post-Avengers: Endgame live-action comic book movies continuing to tread the same shallow waters rather than innovate and experiment…with a few exceptions, but not the majority like it used to be.