The manspread of a king!

Aquaman and the Lost Art of Moviemaking.

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM finds Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) seeking to destroy the world with the aid of a black trident owned by a phantom king from a lost undersea kingdom. As a side-dish, Manta wants revenge on Aquaman (Jason Momoa) for killing his father. Aquaman saves the day with his ambiguous, undefined superpowers, the ability to talk to fish, and a thousand stupid quips.

What follows is one of the most unpleasurable superhero viewing experiences since superhero movies began. Formulaic beats, explosions to end dialogue scenes, one-dimensional characters, muzak-inspired soundtrack, eye-fatigue battle, and now what has become systematic bathos (misplaced levity during serious moments to keep the people happy who whined about MAN OF STEEL being too dark). Co-written and directed by veteran actioner James Wan (INSIDIOUS, CONJURING, FURIOUS 7), I didn’t expect him to cave so easily to sloppy formula. My foremost thought after being subjected to LOST KINGDOM: No wonder superhero movies are on the decline.

Aquaman/Arthur Curry narrates an opening montage: he is now balancing being bored as the king of Atlantis with the joy of being a family man and vigilante (they had to make him dislike royal duties or risk losing his Everyman appeal by becoming an elitist). Here the soundtrack encapsulates how bereft of ideas this movie is: as Aquaman rushes into a pirate skirmish, we hear Born To Be Wild… Beyond tacky, beyond cliché, it’s what some student director might needle-drop as a placeholder; it’s so far past unoriginal it has almost circled back around to being fresh.

As aid against Manta, Aquaman breaks out his imprisoned brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), whom Aquaman himself banished, so we get the “begrudging alliance” beat. Surprising that in only his second feature, the filmmakers already deem Aquaman not rizz enough to carry a movie solo, and give him a wisecracking sidekick.

But Jason Momoa is the only watchable thing here; he is masculinity and vitality and starstuff incarnate. In this whole DCEU debacle, we got the best Superman (Cavill), the best Batman (Affleck), the best Wonder Woman (Gadot), and the best Flash (Miller) committed to screen, yet those properties were already beloved; the character who had to overcome deep-rooted derision was Aquaman, universally panned with his yellow and green sea queen ethos. DC, Zack Snyder and Momoa did a monumental job overhauling Arthur Curry to this mighty rendition of manhood. It’s a tragedy that the DC universe going forward from 2025 has decreed all these actors persona non grata. We gained an Aquaman – and lost everything.

Johnny Depp’s domestic abuser and bed-shitter, Amber Heard, is Aquaman’s oddly-detached wife; oddly-detached because she has her share of basic scenes (especially in regards to their aqua-baby, Arthur Jr, who looks different in every cutaway), but there is no chemistry or even physical contact between her and Aquaman. After that highly-publicized trial against Depp (which featured more punchaboo than any given superhero movie), I’m sure Warner Bros. cut a lot of her scenes, probably inserting Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna instead…

Kidman is Aquaman’s mother, who also plays oddly-detached with her movie husband, Tom (Temuera Morrison). Arthur shares a few quiet moments with his father (and he gets to bust out some righteous Maori with him), but Atlanna barely gets within consoling distance when Tom is attacked by the villain. At this point, Nicole is just struggling to even speak through all her facial lifts – come to think of it, she was so plastic-looking, I honestly didn’t know whether she was CGI or not. Her first proper appearance in the movie is an action scene – we see an early montage of her patting Tom and helping Mera give birth, but there’s no real explanation of who or what she is (like a Marvel movie, you need to see the previous movies to understand the current one. If not, you need to write to DC and apologize) – suddenly she’s riding into battle on a shark with a frickin laser beam attached to its head.

Randall Park is Dr Shin, the BD Wong of this tale, unwillingly forced to lend his science to the bad guy. (What’s he doing here anyway? Isn’t he the FBI Guy in Marvel’s ANT MAN? Why is he crossing franchises and leaving a starving young actor out of work? Are there no more fucken actors?!)

Is it coincidence that Patrick Wilson actually resembles the traditional depiction of Aquaman?

Look, I’m a comics guy from way back, so I’m sympathetic to the representation of superpowers that look like magic to us mortals, but show a little consistency, moviemakers! In his first appearance in 2018’s AQUAMAN, Aquaman lifted a submarine to the surface of the ocean, against its engine straining to remain submerged. So when he punches someone, consider the power behind that punch. Yet baddies react to Aqua’s punches like they’re in a schoolyard dustup. Also: are all Atlanteans this strong? And why doesn’t Aqua STAY strong? – when Manta drops some boulders on him, he sinks while trying to hold up their weight. Are man-sized boulders heavier than full-sized submarines? Atlanna saves Aquaman by “levitating” boulders off him. Do ALL Atlanteans possess this levitation gene? Is that how Aqua “lifted” the submarine? Then why not these rocks?! Mera can manipulate water into shapes and missiles and golden showers – how come no one else can?

Orm is grabbed by an octopus robot and, instead of crushing Orm, the robot throws him like a Terminator. Then it tries to punch him over there—Didn’t you just have him in your claw? And if you couldn’t crush him because he’s too tough, how exactly are you going to punch him to death? And then Aquaman grabs a claw coming at Orm, supposedly saving him, as Orm grabs a gigantic anchor and swings it around to smash the octobot—wait, so he’s as strong as Aquaman?! (Well, how else could he have defeated Aquaman in the previous film?) Which means Aquaman “saving” Orm meant nothing – he could’ve done it himself.

They’re ALL super who cares fuck you.

what did you know, and when did you know it?

Ironically, water weight is a bitch…
(Jason Momoa on SNL, Nov 2023)

Did anyone else notice that Aquaman never gets his shirt off? And I don’t say this like a thirsty gym chick with her pants gripping the cave of her ass-cheeks, I’m just figuring that he’s probably out of shape, not like you or I, but not cut the way we’re used to seeing superheroes. Even Patrick Wilson goes shirtless for awhile, taunting us normies with his obviously spanktacular workout regimen. Momoa said jokingly, “I don’t touch a weight unless they’re paying me to do it.” Which is the correct way to approach the job. (You think that Henry Cavill and Hugh Jackman workout for fun and are cast as superheroes by coincidence? ALL their training hours and trainers are factored into the pre-production budget.)

In some of the junkets promoting this movie, Momoa got his shirt off and looked a tad puffy (because why would you go the extra water-deprivation mile just for SNL or Good Morning America?); he’s a kinetic action man in real life, so retains his v-shaped bulk, but I’m figuring the studio just didn’t want to bump him those extra workout dollars for maximum cut, so he looks puffier than he would have had he gone the extra mile during filming… which is another indication of how far back Warner executives knew they were going to scrap this timeline (i.e. why pay extra for topless scenes if this is the last DCEU movie with this raggedy-ass hulk? Instead, Aquaman is always covered head-to-toe in yellow and green sea queen…

ORICHALCUM – Black Manta powers his evil trident with this green glowy substance. He steals a motherlode from Atlantis, which leads Aquaman to pursue him (although one would think a pursuit of robbers would be beneath the duties of the King). Apparently, orichalcum is a real word for a mythical metal – derived from the Greek “mountain” and “copper,” the name was given to ancient metals that the Greeks found from earlier times, with Greek philosopher Plato attributing the metals’ origins to Atlantis.

After throwing around the word “black magic” in reference to the trident, Nicole’s Botox has the most grounding line of dialogue with, “Black magic isn’t real magic – it’s DNA.” (…okay, wait, what exactly is powering the trident? Orichalcum, black magic or DNA? – Let’s go with magic who cares fuck you) So with no explanation, Manta changes focus from orichalcum to the blood of Aquaman’s line, to open the ancient king’s tomb, and if he can’t get it from Arthur or Mera – as Yoda said, “There is another…” and Manta goes after Aqua’s seven different baby actors. Cue Aquaman shouting, “NOOOOO!” and sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads.

By the time everyone and everything has reverted to CGI in the third act punchaboo fest, THE LOST KINGDOM has lost us completely.

END