It’s never a good sign when the social and review embargo lifts just a day before the film opens. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” excels in its diversity casting, but fails in building believable and touching intimate moments, making this a stilted and too often awkward two-hour journey about two brothers forging connections of respect and friendship. Amber Heard haters, be forewarned: She may be just a blink-you-miss-her moment in the trailers, but she has a lot of screen time here.
Aside from the lack of chemistry between Heard as Mera and Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, there the question of does the DC Extended Universe know how to use the talent they have. I’ll write more on this later.
Aquaman Refresher
“Aquaman” was the origin story (written by Geoff Johns, Will Beall and director James Wan with screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Beall) and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is basically a buddy road story. For a quick refresher, in the 2018 “Aquaman,” a humble lighthouse keeper in Maine, Thomas Curry (Māori actor Temuera Morrison) saves the queen of Atlantis, Atlanna (Nicole Kidman). They fall in love and have a child who they name Arthur, but Atlanna must return to Atlantis and her arranged marriage with King Orvax, the ruler of Atlantis. Atlanna leaves her advisor Nuidis Vulko to teach and train her son. As he grows up, Arthur becomes known in the surface world as the meta human, Aquaman, and excels is fighting.
Some of his fighting includes saving a Russian sub from the pirates led by Jesse Kane (Michael Beach) and his son David (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). Aquaman leaves Jesse to die. Before he died, Jesse asks his son to avenge his death. To do so, David will find an ally in Atlantis: Aquaman’s brother.
Yet this isn’t what brings Aquaman to face his heritage and begin his path toward claiming the throne of Atlantis. It’s the threat to the surface world. Aquaman must fight his younger half-brother King Orm Marius (Patrick Wilson) who has united the kingdoms of the sea in war against the surface world to stop the pollution. In some murky plotting, after bearing a child to Orvax, Atlanna was sacrificed to the creatures of the Trench. Orm blames Arthur for his mother’s death.
Although Mera is betrothed to Orm, she aids and even saves Aquaman as he seeks the trident of Atlantis’ first king to give him the upper hand. Along the way, Aquaman finds his mother and brings her back to Atlantis. Once Aquaman beats his brother, he exiles his brother.
In a mid-credits scene, Dr. Stephen Shin (Randall Park), who was seen earlier in the film amid reports about the meta human Aquaman, rescues David. David agrees to lead Shin to Atlantis and help David kill Aquaman.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
The film begins with a fake out that I won’t spoil, but Arthur Curry has married Mera and they’ve had a son, Arthur Jr. They live in the lighthouse with Arthur’s father Tom, but they also find time to do boring stuff in Atlantis. Being kind isn’t all adventure and brawling and beer. There’s a lot of diplomatic and bureaucratic duties that go along with being a royal, especially now that the undersea kingdoms were united after the first film. While Aquaman wants to form diplomatic ties with the surface world, the council of the kingdoms are against it.
Elsewhere, marine biologist Dr. Stephen Shin (Randall Park) is exploring the Arctic, looking for evidence of Atlantis so that he will finally be taken seriously. Yet how seriously can you take a researcher who falls in league with a master villain? Global warming has caused ancient ice to melt. Something attacks his colleague. Although David Kane/Black Manta and his team rescues Shin, they continue to explore. Underneath the Arctic ice, David discovers a black trident and when he fits it together, he has strange visions and is given meta human powers and the promise that he will be helped in his plan to destroy Aquaman, his family and Atlantis.
In this lost kingdom, ancient Atlantean machines are discovered and Shin is able to restore them, Yet the machines are powered by orichalcum which emits high quantities of greenhouse gases. The denizens of the underwater world had abandoned this technology because it caused global warming. On the surface world the extreme weather pattern changes are being reported and for the citizens of the seas the orichalcum is causing outbreaks of diseases.
To find Black Manta, Aquaman goes undercover to free his brother from his prison in the Fisherman Kingdom because he is the only underwater dweller known to have dealt with Black Manta (previous film). Once freed from his prison, Orm leads Aquaman to a pirate lair but remember, even before he was king, Aquaman was a one-man anti-piracy force on the seas. Meeting with the crime lord Kingfish, they learn there’s a South Pacific volcanic island where David Kane is based.
On that island, the orichalcum has caused the earth flora and fauna to mutate. Aquaman and Orm must work together to find and defeat Black Manta.
There are many problems with “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.” First, you might be able to lose a house in a tornado or a city in the jungle, but a whole kingdom? Secondly, you have to accept that Queen Mother Atlanna and the Queen Mera would go into battle. Then you have to accept that when the men of Atlantis go into battle they wear armor, or at least Aquaman as king always wears armor. In the previous film, you had to accept that Mera had no ladies-in-waiting and would not be burnt to a crisp in the desert sun like any other ginger and wear high-heel boots walking in the desert dunes and through ancient caves. Yet for most of the first film, Aquaman was wearing regular human clothes that somehow withstood super heroic feats. In this film, the disparity between what Atlanna and Mera wear and what Aquaman and Orm wear is more obvious.
Then there’s Dr. Shin who I thought was a marine biologist, but seems more like an anthropologist and, in this film, he has the knowledge and know-how to get ancient Atlantean technology to work.
Momoa’s characterization of Aquaman is a boisterous brawler who doesn’t feel any angst for the deaths he may have caused, including the death of Jesse Kane. That’s not a good quality in a king or superhero. In this film, he has added family to his concerns, but what about the lives lost behind that?
I remain unconvinced of the chemistry between Heard and Momoa and this film doesn’t build up the brotherly love-hate relationship well with the dialogue. Despite having a story by Jason Momoa, Thomas Pa’a Sibbett, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and director James Wan and a screenplay by Johnson-McGoldrick (“The Conjuring 2” and “Orphan”), the dialogue is only serviceable. What you hope for in a buddy-bonding road film, especially one where the two start out on bad terms, is witty dialogue. Rewatching the first film, I noticed how unremarkable the dialogue was and this film doesn’t offer an improvement there.
What makes this film so frustrating is that Momoa has more to give than just heroic posturing as his deliciously deliriously demonic villain in the Fast & Furious franchise demonstrated earlier this year. Wilson must be able to handle comedy as well: He was nominated for Tony Awards for “The Full Monty” in 2001 and “Oklahoma!” in 2002 for the lead characters. Most of the attempts at comedy in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” focused on Momoa’s Aquaman’s brawling beer-guzzling persona with Wilson’s Orm the straight man. Even then, the timing seemed off, but the timing seemed off elsewhere such as the scene where Aquaman offers to help Manta, holding on a beat too long.
There’s a lot of comedic gold that went unmined such as both Wilson’s Orm and Heard’s Mera adjusting to life on the surface world and even both Heard’s Mera and Kidman’s Atlanna adjusting to life with surface dwellers. I don’t think the prank Aquaman pulls on his brother helps. The ability to use the technology of the Lost Kingdom could have also been a source of humor, but Black Manta’s troops are all so seriously efficient and unwaveringly loyal in a way that local and potential toxic bosses and dangerous dictators could only envy.
Chinese-Malaysian Australian director Wan doesn’t handle the tonal changes well and this film can shift from the slapstick humor to the horror of death by big bugs. Even the tender fatherly moments between Aquaman and offspring sometimes abruptly slams into gross humor.
There are some beautiful moments, especially in the Lost Kingdom that draws from both the Wan and Johnson-McGoldrick’s background in horror. The world building of Atlantis and the other kingdoms is amazing. Much thought went into this, perhaps more than into the actual dialogue and more than dialogue there would be more nuanced performances. I do appreciate the theme of brothers in conflict, but that still remained underdeveloped.
Watching the credits, I was delightfully surprised that Martin Short voiced Kingfish. Overall, I felt there was a greater commitment to diversity in this film than in the latest installment of the MCU, “The Marvels,” although there was no strong Black woman figure that I can recall. I don’t think there needs to be even though one wonders what happened to David Kane’s mother.
Be sure to stay for the mid-credits scene on how Orm is doing.
“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” will be released on 22 December 2023. If you’re going to see it, see it in IMAX or 4XD. The press screening on Wednesday was in IMAX and despite the pouring rain and thunderstorm, the rain stopped long enough for the drive to and back. “Aquaman and the lost Kingdom” is not a total loss nor is it a total win for the troubled DC Extended Universe.
The Dragon Lady Files 