Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
DC Studios’ second Atlantean pulp fantasy prizes noise over nuance to deliver a laboured exercise in excess.
Water-logged: Jason Momoa wields his trident
Apparently there are seven kingdoms concealed beneath the waves of the world’s five oceans. So we can expect more of the same, particularly as the first Aquaman happened to gross $1.152 billion. The king of Atlantis (Jason Momoa) is certainly full of himself, having snatched the Atlantean crown from his half-brother Orm Marius (Patrick Wilson), the latter who had little interest in sparing the lives of those who lived on land. At the outset, Aquaman tells us that, “everybody is good at something. I talk to fish – and am good at breaking heads.” The frenetic, CGI-powered prologue turns out to be an embodiment of the story our hero is telling his son, Arthur Jr., while bashing together the heads of Aquaman© figurines. There’s nothing like indoctrinating a world of violence into the very young, particularly when they’re still in nappies.
There is a lot of violence in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, accompanied by ear-splitting sound effects, multiple explosions and endless face-offs against hideous monsters of the deep, all proving to be completely exhausting before the fifteen-minute mark. Unfortunately, the movie refuses to stop there, parading its insanely bloated budget ($205 million) between snatches of terrible dialogue. Thus various dispensable characters say things like, “doctor, power up the sonic battery!” or, “watch out for the civilians!” or, “I hate it when that happens…” Superhero movies don’t have to be dumb, but dumb this sequel most certainly is, its unrelenting tsunami of set-pieces becoming more wearisome by the explosion.
Yet the premise at the heart of the story is not uninteresting – it is the execution that is at fault. As Aquaman dotes on his baby boy, news programmes talk of “some of the wildest weather we’ve ever seen” alongside footage of environmental chaos. But even as mankind braces itself for more floods, wildfires and the extinction of more species, it is completely unaware of the destruction of worlds it hasn’t even discovered yet. Beneath the waves there are untold realms that we know nothing of – and the acidity and plastic in our oceans is wiping out these eco-systems that are still beyond our comprehension. And while the shortsightedness of giant corporations continues to blight the planet, another threat emerges in the form of Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who is heating up the sea by exploiting an ancient power source for his own ends, the side effects of which quickly prove to be catastrophic.
Cherry-picking elements from countless other sci-fi films, director James Wan hurls everything at the screen in an effort to bludgeon his audience into some kind of mindless submission. But the familiarity of the octopoid machines and marine life, and Rupert Gregson-Williams’s thundering music, merely produces a sense of overkill. Jason Momoa – who suggested much of the premise himself – attempts to inject some humour, but the result remains a CGI- and testosterone-heavy shambles that is incessantly predictable and formulaic. Not good.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Randall Park, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison, the voice of Martin Short, with Nicole Kidman, Pilou Asbæk, Indya Moore, Vincent Regan, Jani Zhao, and the voice of John Rhys-Davies.
Dir James Wan, Pro Peter Safran, James Wan and Rob Cowan, Screenplay David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, from a story by James Wan, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, Jason Momoa and Thomas Pa'a Sibbett, Ph Don Burgess, Pro Des Sahby Mehalla, Ed Kirk Morri, Music Rupert Gregson-Williams, Costumes Richard Sale, Sound Peter Brown, Stephen P. Robinson and Harry Cohen.
DC Studios/Atomic Monster/The Safran Company/Domain Entertainment-Warner Bros.
124 mins. USA/UK/Australia/Canada/Iceland. 2023. UK Rel: 21 December 2023. US Rel: 22 December 2023. Cert. 12A.
