Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

How much you enjoy Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom might come down to how appealing you find the idea of Jason Momoa punching an oversized bug in the face or your proclivity for watching Nicole Kidman riding some sort of armoured/roboticised shark (and guessing quite why she made the decision to come back for this sequel.)

That, or watching the DCEU go out with something worse than a whimper. In some ways, it’s actually just sad that this film was even made and released in the first place knowing that it sounds the death knell for this upsettingly woeful series.

You almost feel bad watching this great cast, who mostly know what kind of movie they’re in to their credit, floundering underneath yet more dreadful CGI, confusingly stupid ‘underwater voice’ effects (in the name of, what, realism? Or just simply to piss off people watching it?) and a plot that you will struggle to remember even one thread of the moment the pointless mid-credits scene ends.

There is some fun to be had playing a game of ‘how much of Amber Heard’s scenes could they cut to minimise her role as much as possible but also ensure that huge swathes of exposition weren’t cut out completely.’ That might give you some enjoyment.

However you feel about her appearance here, DC are two for two with this and The Flash in terms of causing unnecessary controversy considering we already know they’re ripping up and starting again.

So is this some sort of genius ploy to sucker people into pouring more unearned money into DC’s coffers rather than just fall on their sword or put these films on some sort of streaming platform deal? Are cinema audiences being laughed out by wanting to see if DC could restore some semblance of credibility with this final attempt?

It’s hard to know what to think. ‘The Lost Kingdom’ of the title might just be the biggest waste of a MacGuffin in cinematic history with some sort of half-arsed backstory, which doesn’t explain why it wouldn’t have been mentioned before now, a flashback which might have you wondering whether they’ve actually stolen footage from The Lord of the Rings instead of filming something themselves and then a villain reveal that is over so quickly, you might miss it by yawning or checking your watch, which you may well find yourself doing.

It’s interesting to know whether anyone even bothered watching the final cut before they released it.

Is anything salvageable here? Ok, so Director James Wan throws a few ‘horror’ elements in which don’t quite land but you sense that may have been a path he was pushing to go down and it could have been successful doing that with this character in this setting.

As already mentioned, most of the cast know what film they’re in and are game. Obviously Momoa who sweats charisma and a mention to Randall Park who actually makes the exposition sound tolerable.

Otherwise? Like the rest of the DCEU this is a risible, old-fashioned, unworthy, unfathomable waste of a film with not a single mention of anything else going on in the shared universe in which it sits (but will throw a Harry Potter reference and I think something about Loki in as well – I couldn’t quite hear it but if so all I can say is “*******” (cut for profanity).

Here's hoping James Gunn can restore order with his reset and give DC a new slate of films that can sit with their other high class output. As for the DCEU, we can now pretend it never happened if there's any Justice (pun intended because, ironically enough, there wasn't much of that in the first place).

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