Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Review: A Little Better Than Thor a Little Worse Than A Well-Written Film
Cast: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Randall Park, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison, Martin Short Pilou Asbaek, Nicole Kidman, John Rhys-Davies
Director: James Wan
Where We Watched: In Theaters
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars)
There’s no point in denying it, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is one of those films that, even before its release, allowed fans and enthusiasts to reflect and hypothesize about its weight and role within a larger plan than many they would just like to forget. Adding further gravitas were also the postponements and declarations that over time accompanied a project that seemed to necessarily have to transform and be reworked as best as possible to communicate with a loyal audience tired of waiting. On December 21, 2023, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom finally arrives at worldwide cinemas, embracing a definitive form with a clear objective: to conclude a story with relatively broad strokes, playing with what we have seen so far and with what has been anticipated from the narrative bases in the first chapter.
Aquaman was the top-grosser of the now-defunct (no regrets) DC Extended Universe. It was released in 2019 (here on the first day of the year) and grossed more than a billion dollars, marking an epochal event for the Warner Bros. Pictures film version also thanks to the achievement of a couple of records. There wasn’t even any need to talk about a sequel, so much so that the thing that made the news and aroused the greatest curiosity was the announcement of a spinoff centered on Black Manta. It seemed like the film recovery, at least from the point of view of the numbers, because putting the data aside, the film directed by James Wan still presented the usual problems, nuanced by more interesting imagery and a more centered protagonist. But it’s the numbers that count in this type of operation, we know it and we move forward.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Review: The Story Plot
The events of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom resume shortly after the ending of the film giving rise to the world and the protagonist himself. Following the defeat of Orm Marius (played by Patrick Wilson), Arthur (Jason Momoa) finally takes his place on his family’s throne, acquiring all the powers and responsibilities that come with it. The choice to lead the people of the sea, however, must also deal with his life on land, together with his father Thomas (Temuera Morrison), his partner Mera (Amber Heard), and their child. The clear distinction between family and empire, between the personal dimension and that of enormous moral and political responsibilities, has a considerable weight on Arthur’s life who, unlike the first film, has to deal with all the obligations of adulthood, expanded by an obviously out of the ordinary situation.
The growth of the protagonist, however, is evident compared to the past, building a narrative in which we see him extricate himself from a series of personal obligations that distinguish him, without however putting aside that particular brazen rebellion typical of his character. While life on the throne and at home pushes him to a series of instinctive choices, in the shadow of a story that has been dormant for centuries something plots revenge, binding itself to a strong bitterness that has already clashed with Arthur and his people in the past. Four years have passed since the events of the first film (as in reality when the sequel was supposed to be released at the end of 2022), and Arthur Curry is not in top form: during the day he is underwater, bored with all the administrative hassles that compete as ruler of Atlantis; in the evening.
Having returned home, he must take care of his son Arthur Jr., with the help of his wife Mera (also forced to commute between the human and Atlantean worlds) and his father Thomas. Then, one day, David Kane, aka Black Manta, shows up again, whose father died – indirectly – at the hands of Aquaman years ago. Manta wants revenge, and with a mystical instrument – a black trident linked to the darkest legends of Atlantis – he could destroy not only the underwater kingdom but much of planet Earth in general. To stop him, Arthur must turn to a former ally of the mercenary: his half-brother Marius, imprisoned after almost causing a war between the aquatic peoples and the surface world. Can they resolve their differences before an ancient threat resurfaces?
At the center of everything is the relationship between the two brothers, with Jason Momoa – also the scriptwriter for this round – and Patrick Wilson who delve deeper into what was already introduced in the first film, partly along the lines of the bond between Thor and Loki in the Marvel films ( an artistic kinship explicitly acknowledged by the authors, with Arthur using the name of the Asgardian god of mischief as a nickname for Orm). Almost the entire supporting cast of the progenitor was gathered around them: Amber Heard, Nicole Kidman, Temuera Morrison, Dolph Lundgren, John Rhys-Davies (the voice of the crustacean king), Randall Park, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, this the last one is even more intense and disturbing as Black Manta, aided by a ghostly presence played by Danish actor Pilou Asbaek. Comedian Martin Short contributes one of the film’s lighter moments as an underwater gangster, sort of like Atlantis’ Jabba the Hutt. As in the first chapter, there are no cameos from other DC heroes, including the mid-credits scene.
Aquaman 2 and Analysis
It’s the end of the DCEU world, then. But what was it? Imagine going to a sort of monographic exhibition, believing you are looking at works with a coherent style, and starting the exhibition with a Caravaggio and ending it with a Warhol or a Basquiat. These are examples that do not focus on the quality of the works but on the style. Starting with Man of Steel, the DCEU, launched by Zack Snyder, was supposed to be a darker, darker world, made of lights and shadows, adult and dramatic. Snyder’s operation on Superman had to resume, in his way, that of Nolan on Batman. But then everything was called into question several times. The Justice League film was entrusted to the director of the Avengers, to chase that format and those stories, without them having been prepared to be close to that world. And that film universe has changed course several times. And so, we arrived at this Aquaman, a point of arrival very far from the starting point. He is farcical, comical, then suddenly tragic, then comical again, without ever having a permanent cent of gravity. The DCEU has never had it in recent years.
It is a delegitimized world of heroes, even among the public, in the sense that, as happened in The Flash, you go to see these stories knowing that they are destined to stop, you go to see these heroes knowing that soon they will no longer be them, who somehow got fired. And in this world emptied of meanings James Wan tries to make sense of everything by inserting a strong environmentalist message, with that villain who suddenly raises the Earth’s temperature by several degrees, which isn’t science fiction: it’s what we’re already doing. But the new Aquaman, on the one hand, launches this theme, on the other trivializes it, because to make us see the negative effects of that fuel that is poisoning the world he puts in a sequence with giant ants, with carnivorous plants, and genetically modified bees and ends up making us smile and throwing away some of the heartache we had about this topic.
It is the moment in which the film becomes that adventure cinema of the Thirties and Forties, but in 4K and with very vivid colors. But it is throughout the film that the new Aquaman, who would not need to do so, chases other models. The fight with robots is Transformers, the Black Trident, which unleashes a dark force in whoever touches it is Lord of the Rings. That strange band playing is the one from the Mos Eisley tavern from Star Wars. The relationship between Aquaman and his brother is that between Thor and Loki: but this is an open game because it is Aquaman himself who calls him that a joke. And then, how can we not see in the final “I am Aquaman” that “I am Iron Man ” of rival Marvel? In conclusion, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is a derivative film. And at times even boring. Now we will start from scratch, with the heroes at a younger age, with James Gunn and Superman: Legacy. This story ends here.
Aquaman 2 begins and ends with two twin speeches, but which have practically opposite meanings, witness to the two souls of the film. The villain is Mantis (Abdul-Mateen II), who no longer has a family and therefore has decided to ruin Aquaman not only by killing him, but, thanks to the exhumation of a cursed trident which brings with it the will of the king of the Lost Kingdom (another excluded when it comes to domestic hearths) to destroy the world, or the extended family. To do this it must overheat the Earth, but this is needed for another fundamental theme. To foil the threat, he will have to make peace with his little brother Orm (Wilson), the man he had to defeat and then imprisoned in the previous chapter. So, let’s talk about reconstituting the family. In short, we are in line with the theme of the film, which is also that of cinema comics in the absolute sense.
Let’s move on to the second speech. The second speech is farewell. It is no longer understood in terms of the reconstruction of a story or imagery for the public, but an ironic and arrogant awareness (even a little bitter given the final wink) of a story belonging to a world that could have been idyllic and instead, it simply no longer exists. Now, the problem isn’t even how Aquaman 2 was conceived (or rethought during work), but rather the fact that the film seems to have been abandoned even by those who were supposed to give it dignity until the end. Two of its pillars, are Momoa and Wan, given that the actor is probably the most forgettable actor and character in the film, while the director became the protagonist of one of its weakest directions, unfortunately also in terms of visual solutions.
The idea of the scheme is that of a spy story similar to the second-generation Mission: Impossible, in which the plot moves around the world, trying to exploit the locations for a cinematographic concept that allows it to have both a semantic value and an entertaining value. This doesn’t happen here and not because of the copy and paste that the film does with other imaginaries (among other things, never hiding), but because of the dullness of the solutions it puts in place. Now, the problem isn’t even how Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom were conceived (or rethought during the course of work), but rather the fact that the film seems to have been abandoned even by those who were supposed to give it dignity until the end. The idea of transforming the film into a buddy movie keeps things going because it allows the film to enter into the perspective of the previous one, i.e. that of not taking itself seriously.
Shifting the focus with an awareness that always rewards because it allows the viewer to orient themselves within the film. You make a promise and keep it until the extreme consequences, trying to shift attention from an execrable direction in the dialogues and impalpable in the action scenes, from dialogues that are never credible or from fake sets. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is the sad end of the DCEU, which plays with punk to not care about his destiny and to also make fun of his rivals a bit, but who however tries to do his job until the end, leveraging on the classic and trying to bring to its extreme consequences also a discussion connected with the contemporary. From a formal point of view, despite the necessary limitations, James Wan once again creates a fairly convincing product as a whole, working the narrative material with a more “exuberant” direction than in the past, but still always functional to the proposed action.
The design of the setting and the general sensations are always quite positive, shaping a blockbuster aesthetic also seen in the first chapter. Inevitably, therefore, we immerse ourselves in some glimpses that, for sure, would certainly have deserved a more in-depth characterization beyond the shots offered. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom does what it has to do and that leads to an apparent conclusion, even Jason Momoa has spoken openly about this. By focusing on a plot with extremely classic features, the film proves to have its entertaining verve, alternating lighter phases with clashes which, unfortunately, end up being quite redundant in the long run. The performances of Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson, of all, certainly remain the most convincing and memorable, offering some moments of hilarious humor and sincere humanity.
The work done on set, however, is unable to hide the obvious limitations of the feature film (sketched and random developments, and elements outlined superficially, to give two examples). During viewing, it is impossible not to perceive an underlying rush that speeds up the events covered, leading to an ending that, contrary to all expectations, plays more with general introspection than with everything else. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, therefore, continue straight on its path, outlining a formal path that repeatedly cites masters of cinema such as Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, or James Cameron, taking home a path that seems to have no desire to look at itself backward. Taking advantage of the expressive imprint of a charismatic protagonist, Wan embarks on a primarily familiar superhero adventure, reflecting on the weight of personal and introspective growth that is much more interesting than the classic cinecomic fisticuffs that are always present.
The film is visually nice, but computer graphics are abused a little too much at times. You can see James Wan’s hand in some interesting camera movements, with some wide shots and wide-ranging shots, but the marine element is highlighted very little. The most visually successful thing is certainly Black Manta, while Aquaman‘s costume reconstructed on the computer is forgettable. On the editing side, the film could have lasted half an hour less by avoiding unnecessary passages, such as that of the carnivorous plants. The music is generally promoted but without peaks of excellence. The photography is discreet at times.
An entertaining film, but one that takes a lot of idle turns and takes a long time to get going. There are plot holes and unbelievable choices, including why attack Black Manta with the entire Atlantean force only at the end of the film? Despite everything it remains an entertaining film, but nothing more. In short, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is a sad swansong for the DCEU. Gunn has a clean slate from which to start again, but it won’t be easy to rebuild the trust of the average continually disappointed viewer.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Review: The Last Words
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is an entertaining film but with obvious flaws. A not very solid plot, too many issues thrown in the middle and a wrong cast were already a heavy burden on the film. Added to this were the controversial events linked to one of its protagonists and the failure of the DCEU, all elements that constituted an unsustainable sword of Damocles in the film. The result is the natural consequence of what has been said. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom closes the story of a character who certainly still has a lot to say to the passionate public. James Wan chooses to pursue his journey through a classic and light-hearted adventure, combining a story about a family with a journey with simple and curiously human hues. Some hasty development, and the superficiality of certain dynamics, inevitably affect the narrative material, moving hand in hand with a world that unfortunately never really dares to the end.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Review: A Little Better Than Thor a Little Worse Than A Well-Written Film - Filmyhype
Director: James Wan
Date Created: 2023-12-21 13:17
3.5
Pros
- The awareness with which he carries out his task.
- The dignity he seeks for himself, despite everything.
Cons
- Poorly written dialogue.
- Very lazy direction, both in the action and more dramatic moments.
- Jason Momoa forgettable like few other times.
- Creativity related to imagery is overall very sloppy.
