Jonah Naplan   December 21, 2023

“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” exists in a kind of in medias res. The film is basically one prolonged joke, stretched thin to feature length, and if you don’t understand/aren’t in on that joke from the very beginning, don’t count on riding the movie’s wavelength. The eccentric energy of the “Aquaman” movies has always been an acquired taste, and this sequel provides even more of that signature flavor that could really benefit from a volume button or whatever the remote control switch is for that thing Quicksilver does in the “X-Men” franchise when time suddenly slows and we see a moment unfold through his perspective.

The first “Aquaman” was an enjoyable romp on the tropes of superhero movies, including that of its own DCEU brethren, combining a set of palpable stakes with a sort of stoner comedy that matched poker-faced pulp with a criminal insanity driven by revenge. All that to say, it was a goofy old time at the movies. A lot has happened since then; Warner Bros. was acquired by Discovery Inc.; James Gunn, a former subsidiary of Marvel, took over DC, rebooting the entire franchise from square one; and the movie’s damsel in distress, Mera (Amber Heard) got herself involved in a trial with ex-husband Johnny Depp which landed her career in a ditch (a petition to scrap her role in this movie reportedly amassed over 4.5 million signatures).

All of those things—plus a couple release date delays not entirely worth mentioning—made the odds far from this movie’s favor, and, well, the resulting film is evidence of that fact. There’s little distinct new anywhere in this “Aquaman,” a disservice to the first that was so rich in ideas and concept. Returning director James Wan, working from a screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick does not summon up anything remotely notable this time around, and his shortcomings are proof of rushed storylines that feel of even less consequence now, either because we know this DCEU is going to waste anyway, or because we’re just so tired of superhero movies, as indicated by the box office flop of “The Marvels” last month.

In “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), the brawny, macho, and buff King of Atlantis, is the father of an infant son he had with Mera, taking a part-time job as a dad on top of his royalty duties. The secondary villain from the first movie is the primary villain in this one: David Kane, aka Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who has returned with the same thirst for vengeance against Aquaman after he left his father to die in the predecessor. Manta has acquired the Black Trident, a severe weapon forged by the hands of the seventh kingdom of Atlantis, a land long neglected by the common man that looks like the actual pits of hell in hallucinations. His plan is to snatch up pounds of a radioactive energy source called orichalcum, a substance so powerful that it can accelerate climate change by a few solid years. In doing so, Manta plays the role of God, Mother Earth, and Satan, treating his advisors with less warmth than we’d apply to a robot.

Randall Park plays Dr. Stephen Shin, a member of Manta’s Atlantic-scavenging committee, who’s having some serious second thoughts about signing on. His character is afforded the most intriguing narrative corners to occupy, and he fills them all well enough to seem worthwhile. Side runs from Park, as well as Nicole Kidman, who reprises her role as Arthur’s mother, Temuera Morrison as his father, and Dolph Lundgren as Mera’s father, King Nereus all prove competent, but the largest standout in regard to performance comes from the return of Patrick Wilson as Arthur’s brother Orm, the former oceanmaster of Atlantis who was Aquaman’s rival in the first movie.

The film takes great pleasure in pitting the two siblings against each other once again; even if they are technically working as a unit, their intense camaraderie shines through, a crucial dynamic that really lands thematically. There’s something to be said for how their two vastly different personalities are juxtaposed beside one another; Orm, the stoic straight-arrow who has no time for fun and games; and Arthur, the booze-drinking light worker who takes pride in accomplishing otherwise difficult tasks by using simple methods that double as efforts to make the carefully calculated Orm angry. Even so, there’s a much better version of this movie that continues further down that proverbial road, drawing upon the buddy comedies of the late 90s and early 2000s, many of which starred Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell and were funny beyond the beaten path because we could spot the humanity in the characters.

There’s little humanity to be found in either of these two leads because everything else around them is so transactional and dutifully processed by a content-generating machine. About three in every five scenes has some sort of big CGI distraction that drives the point home of how much “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is covering up in poor storytelling technique by shoving a large flashy object in front of our eyeballs. I felt at a frequent disconnect from the plot and characters because nothing felt exactly real. The whole movie doesn’t feel real.

When the story is this unreliable, little details and callbacks to other influential properties we know and love go unacknowledged. An underwater realm pulled right out of “Star Wars” has echoes of Tatooine, with amphibian creatures that can sing, dance, and bartend, including a sort of criminal king modeled on Jabba the Hut, who lounges around in various states of laziness, smugly intractable when interrogated. The world and people of Atlantis are so fascinating, and the first “Aquaman” did such a good job of setting that stuff up, that it’s a shame this sequel doesn’t really know what to do with it anymore. Manta receives the most unfortunate fate; his character is depicted with the type of maudlin lament that forces us to feel bad for him, even though we’re supposed to be rooting for Aquaman anyway. This is yet another tale of a man so blinded by the potential power of a MacGuffin that it starts controlling him more than he controls it.

There’s major tonal inconsistency in bouncing around with Aquaman et al. one moment, and then shifting to themes of revenge and retribution for grudges still held in another, a problem the DCEU has faced in the entire time it’s been churning out blockbusters. Parts of “Lost Kingdom” feel like a live-action cartoon (well, to the extent that the movie could actually be considered “live-action”), while others deal with heavy themes of grief, disparity, expectation and justice, perhaps some of the most mature concepts the studio has explored. In any given moment, the ensemble is always giving it their all—perhaps even more than they need to for this type of picture—whether the movie is leaning into the schlock value of riding on sharks and messenger octopi, or it’s dramatically accentuating emotional beats for maximum impact, even though—spoiler alert!—all of the good guys end up A-OK. It’s frustrating to think how a superior movie could have better demonstrated the talents of everyone involved, and not just the actors; even the cinematography by Don Burgess and the score by Rupert Gregson-Williams feels tamped down.

I wished early and often for some new revelation or intriguing avenue to shock more life into the bones of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” but while it has some amusing moments, it ultimately delivers on all the rudimentary fixings that comic book movies still have to work on, even ones they’ve been trying to get right for decades. It’s a mishmash of bloated ideas, noisy CGI fights, and dad jokes, or, as today’s youth would term it, it’s pretty mid.

Now playing in theaters.