Aquaman: The lost cause of the DCEU

I’ve never officially reviewed the first Aquaman movie, but there are things that I’ll be mentioning since, in a way, these two films are focusing on a larger arc. I give the first one a two out of five.

Is this a negative review for the “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” movie? Absolutely not. You’ll realize how much I love Aquaman once you read the rest of this review, which, for very necessary reasons, contains spoilers.

SPOILER WARNING

The two stars I awarded for the first film were for good visuals and action. I absolutely hated the costumes in the first one, but seeing them here, I feel they were a great improvement. Manta doesn’t feel like a laughable cartoon in this one, and all the Atlantean royal suits were great as well, including Aquaman’s. 

The film has a very similar visual language compared to the first one, which I appreciate a lot, and it looks stunning visually. Although it would’ve really benefited to have a longer runtime, there could’ve been more to explore visually. Nonetheless, for all the scenes we do get to experience, Don Burgess cinematography really shines. The music was great, and the sound design overall worked really well for me. The action choreography was great, but it was really, really low on screentime. 

Diving deeper into the Lost Kingdom

Now let’s get to the core of everything, starting with the writing. Firstly, the entire James Wan Director part of the Aquaman (Jason Momoa) story should’ve felt like a two-part film since the villain for the sequel was established in the first film and that the arc’s entire motive was surrounded by a global meltdown and care for nature and underwater life.

And about the global meltdown, it’s important because it directly impacted the motives of the characters. Orm (Patrick Wilson), Aquaman’s brother and the villain of the first film, might be wrong in his ways, but he had a reason to not reason with humans. The first installment shamelessly ignored the entire motive of the story, trying to make it all about a heroic battle where the hero beats the villain, kisses the love interest, gives a cheesy closing monologue, and calls it a day.

Orm’s reasoning for his existence was sidelined throughout the course of the two films, even though he was not the one with the wrong motive. At least under him, the kingdom was protected in the ways that truly mattered. And I appreciate the fact that they layered him in such a way that he had business even with the outlaws and criminals.

He can easily defeat that system, but using it to his advantage is a brilliant strategic move because, that way, he has more control over the scenario. I do not accept James Wan’s Arthur as king simply because he’s a half-breed. He is undeserving and has made zero progress throughout the course of two movies. But it would kind of make sense since he is coming straight out of Joss Whedon’s Justice League. I do not respect immature heroism because it feels uncooked and pretentious. 

The entire meltdown arc feels like a forceful addition that the team made simply so they could have some random nonsense to talk about during the press junkets. Sorry, it did not work. You don’t simply let a dude out of nowhere be the king when he literally doesn’t care. The entire motive for the first film was Orm going to war because the oceans were being destroyed. Why did it take Arthur until the end of the second film to talk about the problems? This confrontation with the surface world should’ve happened right in the first film itself. 

Arthur’s arc felt like such a character assassination for a character with so much potential. The pretentious attempt to make him go from being a king to feeling like a drunk idiot dude simply does not work. This guy is more Jason Momoa and less Arthur. This is a classic example of improvisation gone wrong. Arthur’s end speech could’ve had an impact on me as a viewer if he wasn’t trying to be Momoa. They should’ve learned from Black Adam that making the characters’ entire personalities like themselves isn’t a good move. 

And what’s up with Wan’s obsession with making characters drink urine? It was not funny in the first one when that Atlantean guard tried to stay alive by drowning himself in a commode, and it’s not funny in here while Arthur drinks Arthur Jr.’s urine. Twice. Even the prequel comic that was released to give an excuse as to why William Dafoe has scheduling conflicts and couldn’t join the film treats Aquaman as an embarrassment. 

“It wasn’t Superman or Batman who beat our asses. When it comes down to it, it wasn’t even Flash or Wonder Woman. IT WAS! THE GUY! WHO TALKS! TO FISH!” 

Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom Prequel One Shot Comic

They made the king of Atlantis feel even lower than The Deep from “The Boys”.How do you expect to recover from this big joke? It doesn’t matter if you cry out loud in the film, making Jason Momoa say dialogues like “I know people think I’m a joke, but I don’t care!” Nobody cares that he doesn’t care. But they do care that such an embarrassment line was made in the sequel to a film that had reactions saying, “James Wan finally saved Aquaman from his reputation as a joke for years!”. I now understand why Zack Snyder chose to remove the “I heard you can talk to fish!” joke from the Snyder Cut. Joke at the expense of the character is something I’d never appreciate.

I was expecting a lot out of Alan Moore Orm in this film, but it feels like they wanted to go there and hit the right spots, but by the time they got there, they just called it off. It’s painful how no one tried to understand Orm’s character. Patrick Wilson, though, does an amazing job at portraying the material given to him. Also, there was literally no need for the entire cockroach burger arc. Why waste time on that? 

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Manta felt like a jackass in the first one, but I was kind of excited to see how they would move forward with his arc, and for a large part, it was going well as he was granted free power-ups and that he knowingly was making a deal with the devil, but when it came to the final showdown, they really just let that random skeleton dude take over, who evidently got destroyed in the most embarrassing way. And what made the makers think we’d buy the scene with him attaching the broken trident into pieces out of nowhere? But yeah, acting wise, great job, Yahya! You deserved better. 

You guys know those special power-ups in a game that appear when your energy bar is full? Amber Heard’s Mera felt like she was written that way. Although She and Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna really did steal every scene they were in, I wish we had more Mera in the film present as one of the main characters rather than a side extra. 

The writing was plain bad, and it impacted the half-baked motives in the film, which, at this point, can’t be hidden. I refuse to believe this film was written by the same person who wrote Orphan. The story needed so much work; it’s shocking how much this felt like ChatGPT gave the plot for it. We’ve already seen the common employee guy working closely with the villain grow a spine and act heroic so many times, with it being as recent as the very last film that came out in the DCEU Beetle! That was just so unnecessarily cliché! And dialogues like “Stay away from my wife/ son” just doesn’t have the impact they think it does.

The one thing about DC that interested me the most is how a storyteller comes in, has a certain arc for a character, takes the character seriously, treats them with respect, and ends up making a film that sets global standards. And then, somehow, someone in charge felt that making Christmas movies for children was a step in the right direction and that the majority wants to see their heroes chill out and eat some random crap so they can go all around social media yelling nonsense like “OMGGG, this hero is so relatable!! Just like me, frfr!!!!” 

Zack Snyder made the character feel like a king and a man who has emotions that he feels like he needs to address, and the entire setup was ruined in the two solo films. And I blame it more on the writing. Who thought it was a good idea to make the King of Xebel utter crap like “Hell yeah, let’s go, baby!!!”? Why would you destroy the entire aesthetic of a monarch’s representation? Who are you? Taika Waititi? I’m glad Willaim Dafoe’s Vulko wasn’t in the film after the horrible dialogue provided to him in the first film. He felt like someone from a line of royals in Snyder’s one scene. You don’t waste a talent like Dafoe in films like Aquaman! He literally felt like a dudebro in Aquaman (2018), trying sassy callbacks for dramatic effects. 

Arthur’s end speech could’ve had an impact on me as a viewer if he wasn’t trying to be Momoa. They should’ve learned from Black Adam that making the characters’ entire personalities like themselves isn’t a good move. 

Why is DC so hellbent on becoming a parody? First the horrible cameos in “The Flash,” and now this. I feel ashamed to even rate this film at this point. For such a directionless cinematic universe that shares its origin from DC and Joss Whedon’s epic “artistry” that goes infamously by the name “Josstice League,” a film like “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” deserves no more than the rating below.