In a scene from Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, a weak, withered Orm asks his brother, the king of Atlantis, for drinking water. The two are trying to escape a dry, sandy prison where the former has been held up while in exile. “It’s really hot up there,” Aquaman tells his younger brother in a disarming comment about the global effects of climate change. It’s one of the few moments where this film about some really obvious anxieties and conflicts, is focused enough to speak to them through its tenor of goofy superhero shtick. James Wan’s sequel to the original, the surprisingly successful launch vehicle for the one-tone (and one-look) Jason Momoa, makes a spectacle of beating around the bush, the land, the seaside, the reefs and whatever arbitrary secret the ocean hides. It’s spectacular to look at but emotionally empty to hold.
Aquaman is now a father and lives on land from where he governs Atlantis by way of, shall we say, his imperial cohort. The opening of the film is possibly the only youthful montage (to the soundtrack of ‘Born to be wild’), where Momoa actually feels like he's in his element. A bit wary, and reckless still, fatherhood seem to be squeezing the last drops of adrenaline out of jester who plays king.
On paper it sounds like a terrific idea to ask Momoa, this overzealous hunk of mischief to suddenly play the stay-at-home, conservative father and fight for his people from behind a pile of diapers. The gradual declassification of a robust, phony, macho man so to speak. Except this sequel takes the boring route of gratification via awkward body-hugging spandex suits, routine brotherly banter (look away Thor and Loki) and unimpressive bad guy/thing/machine beatings.
You can sense a film has been preceded by a sense of jadedness when it casts people to do the exact same thing they’ve been doing for a while. Yahya Abdul-Mateen 2 plays Manta, the son of some guy killed during the events of the first film. Manta is gunning for revenge he believes will come through the resurrection of Necrus, a city banned by a cryogenic curse. There is something called ‘Orichalcum’ that seems to be of importance, but is spoken of with such uninterested grimaces, it might as well be graphic sewage. The lifting of this curse will apparently unleash an evil that will spell the end of the world. Manta is assisted by a bunch of thugs, and handymen which includes Randall Parks playing what else but the benevolent intruder who shirks at the sight of blood and violence. Manta’s weird bodysuit aside, Mateen is capable but given little to do except coarsely moan about his desire to erase Atlantis.
To fight Manta, Aquaman needs his exiled brother. Why exactly, we are never told except it feels justified to get a sound actor – which Patrick Wilson absolutely is – to do some self-serious acting. Nicole Kidman is also, well, there. And so are a gazillion, peculiar amphibians, fish and six-legged spidery things. It’s all a big puzzle-box, with pieces that just crash into one another hoping to fall into a pattern that makes sense.
The problem isn’t that this film, which has had a rough production history, including actor back-outs and budget-breaking reshoots, wants to do the usual stuff but that it won’t even let its leading actor do what he is half decent at – be the drunk, sloppy bloke next door. Instead the film feels like a grumpy, EOD email to the boss, the quality of which should be interpreted as a sign of resignation - both literal and spiritual.
It’s one of those superhero films that look airbrushed - impressively drawn, meticulously colour-graded but seldom loved through the process. It’s one of the last films in the DC universe before James Gunn’s methods and mind takes over and it kind of justifies its own whimper of an exit.
It’s bizarre to think that a film about an underwater kingdom actually can’t say much about the politics of the ocean, the prevalent problem of rising oceanic levels or even the sobering nature of the food cycle. We eat the ocean as much as we drink it and yet Aquaman’s political stance seems bereft of purpose or maturity. The greater problem is that it can’t even commit to the recklessness of its uncontrollable hero, who dreams of beer and cheeseburgers. In the corridors of elite craft and pedestrian schemes, it feels middle-class in every sense of the word. Uncommitted and uninterested.
There is a kind of superhero film that simply doesn’t click anymore. The kind that can’t manufacture a half-decent bad guy, the kind that overdoes its goofiness, the kind that doesn’t even have a coherent thread to suture the grandiosity of the effects to the increasingly implausible emotional tug. Aquaman The Lost Kingdom impresses through its desire to decorate without diction, drive to dive without direction. It’s boneheaded, dry and belongs on land – where it plays out for the most part. Ironically, it won’t even let its hero or us have fun while it drowns and sinks.
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