Film Review - Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom (2023)

And now, the end is near, and so we face the final curtain. As 2023 draws to a close and we reflect on the cinematic treats of a turbulent year, we still have a plethora of films to devour in between our turkey and present opening, one of which is another dip under the sea with DC’s favourite aquatic hero. Much has been said about the state of the superhero genre over the past twelve months and, for the most part, their dominance of the box office has been dwindling with The Marvels and The Flash, two of the last comic-book adventures, flopping quite substantially. The latter, of course, is one of the final threads of the soon-to-be-reset DCEU, but perhaps if anyone can help salvage some credibility – and some much-needed pennies – for the flailing heroes, surely it’s Jason Momoa and his underwater King? Well, sadly, not this time.

There’s still much more to be made of the bigger picture surrounding superheroes and Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom finds itself in the unfortunate position of being the final chapter (or nail) of the poorly executed expanded DC universe which, for the most part, has been a hugely disappointing endeavour which was more of a knee-jerk reaction to Marvel than an effort to craft an alluring, well-constructed property. Instead what we got was a doomed array of properties that never found their true potential and all seemingly managed – or mismanaged – from countless shenanigans in countless board rooms. Its sad journey is now at an end.

James Wan’s sequel had already been the subject of many rumours and rumblings during its shoot, reshoots, and external problems, and, for better or worse, it shows, reducing the film to the sum of our fears, a tedious, lazy, dull and arduous two-hour slog through the depths of the sea. The first film wasn’t up to much, either, but ended up being the highest-grosser of the franchise so the follow-up was a foregone conclusion. Its predecessor, however, highlights everything that’s wrong with the now-dead universe and the desperation that reeks from every morsel of the two-hour-long slog is impossible to ignore.

Wan, a hugely talented filmmaker known for outlandish but visually charismatic films, feels completely muted here, buried under mountains of endlessly horrid one-liners, tedious action set-pieces, sub-par themes of global warming, environmental issues, and polluting the globe, and an oversaturated, harsh colour palette that feels ripped from the pains of Joel Schumacher’s Batman films but without the whimsy or gaudy excess, or, indeed, the fun. Momoa, always an arresting watch, tries his best to overcome all that he’s up against but even he struggles to make his usual impact, as does Patrick Wilson, with both feeling awkward and uninspired, while Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, so impressive in Nia DaCosta’s Candyman reimagining, is given little to chew on with a poorly conceived villain turn that never feels neither villainous nor imposing.

When all is said and done, while Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom isn’t amongst the worst comic-book adaptations we have been treated to over the decades, but it perhaps feels worse given the extreme lack of vision, care, or indeed love for anything on show here. That’s partly down to the mess that surrounds it and the dwindling interest that sees it released into cinemas without anything remotely close to the usual hoopla surrounding such a film (the screening event itself was terribly muted, too). This is a sad, sorry, and extremely wet end to a comic-book universe that had so much promise but has ended up succumbing to its own poor decisions from top to bottom.