Movie Review: Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom is not good, it is not bad, it is just another missed opportunity
The DC cinematic universe has given many headaches to everyone, from the changes in the CEO to the actors and the productions that were already announced in the long term, this is mostly due to cancellations, recasts in the actors, refilming, script rewriting, the strike, etc.
The above has been plausibly reflected in the results they have had at the box office, as an audience what we want to see are products of good quality, the time in which we thought that the DCU competed with Marvel’s MCU has been left far behind us, having the latter one of the biggest failures in its history.
What started with a promising idea in 2013 with director Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel little by little got out of control and everything got out of hand, with Wonder Woman (2017) and Aquaman (2018) being the ones that have grossed the most. at the time and not thanks to this director but because things were planned better, which led these characters to be more recognized and loved.
5 years later and despite all the problems that this production has had, James Wan directed Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, and it premiered amid great controversy, some say it is good, and others say it is bad, which is true. which is there and is the one that closes a cycle of films from a universe that we all thought would be successful.
What is the film about?
After the first battle and failing to defeat Aquaman (Jason Momoa), David Kane / Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) driven by his need to avenge his father’s death, will stop at nothing to put an end to Aquaman and his entire kingdom with the help of the mythical power of a Black Trident that can unleash an ancient and malevolent force, to confront and defeat it, Aquaman will have to turn to his exiled brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) to forge an improbable and unpredictable alliance. Together they must put aside their differences to protect their kingdom and save everyone before the world falls victim to irreversible destruction.
After the success of its first installment, much was expected from this sequel, that was before James Gunn came in to take charge of all the new and pending projects, the idea of renewing a character that fell into ridiculousness with very little seriousness and credibility gave him a great advantage and put it on par with what we expected to see, something with classic touches but modernized to represent the king and leader of a fantastic fictional civilization.
Suppose there is something that angers and bothers about all this. In that case, it is the same thing as always, and what many of us have complained about, is the quality of the final product and we return to the point that they had everything to do it well. They wasted it but this is not so much the fault of the script or the director, it has more to do with the terrible decisions of the new CEO of Warner Bros. that things are not going well for these studios and they are in danger of disappearing.
As the Expanded Universe of DC movies came to an end, this hero has been in charge of closing and not with a flourish, we were promised that this sequel would have even more action than the first installment, but many have already forgotten that also A spin-off film with horror overtones of the sea creatures of the abyss was planned and was later cancelled, after the success at the box office that managed to place it as one of the best films at the time, the expectations were very high and above what was expected. Was expected.
It is understandable and by some very unacceptable that James Gunn wants to do new things and have better ideas about the characters, but why sabotage something that was already successful and accepted by the public? the constant delays and new filming, and the legal scandal of its co-star Amber Heard, this project has had too many difficulties, if we add to this the poor reception that Black Adam, Shazam: Fury of Goods and Blue Beatle had, things have become to rethink.
The story focuses on the power struggle from which subplots begin that attempt to explore and deepen the complex relationship of these brothers, paternity, and the responsibility of guiding a people to the throne that refuses to evolve and have a bond. with surface beings, betrayal, the search for redemption, forgiveness and acceptance is a moral discourse that we have seen many times before.
Aquaman’s unexpected alliance with his half-brother Orm establishes from the first moment that everything is going to be complex and supposedly fun, it is evident that for this they were based on the intricate, problematic, complex and sometimes the not very fun relationship between Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) as we saw in the MCU, these narrative sequences add fun and at the same time a family drama with a marked but very false moral ambiguity, making this subplot pretend to have more emotional and emotional depth, so far everything seems to work Fairly well.
Then we have the self-awareness of the protagonist who has evolved and gone from being a mess to a family man, now he has a small son with his now wife Mera (Amber Heard), as expected there are forced and very obvious jokes in this regard like this as dialogues with his father Thomas Curry (Temuera Morrison) about paternal, royal, family and heroic responsibility that sustains part of the main plot.
The story is very simple, Black Manta wants to take revenge on Aquaman for the death of his father, the ruler of Atlantis has problems with the other aquatic kingdoms that are against having diplomatic and political relations with the surface and even more so against protecting them from the threat they face, Manta discovers a black trident that belonged to an Atlantean leader called Atlan (Vincent Regan) that will give him the power not only to destroy his adversary but also absolute power in the 7 kingdoms, Manta attacks the Atlantis and breaks into its reserves of orichalcum considered the second highest in value after gold and which has been found and extracted in many parts of Atlantis in ancient times, an element that can change the nature of everything, it is to be expected that these characters confront each other in a definitive way in which only one of them can survive, that’s right, Aquaman wins the victory over Manta who apparently dies after falling into an abyss, and ends up being the king and ambassador of Atlantis on the surface.
The biggest flaw it has and we already know the reasons is the script written and rewritten by James Wan, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, Jason Momoa, and Thomas Pa’a Sibbett, it has nothing original, it is based on sequences that we have already seen in movies such as the Lords of The Rings saga (2001), Kong (2005) by director Peter Jackson, the first Star Wars trilogy, the Harry Potter saga, Thor, Black Panther, The Castaway, the television series Game of Thrones and of course not Some references may be missing to the universe to which it belongs, including the animated series of the Super Friends, Man of Steel and Justice League.
It fails terribly in its climactic confrontation, we would expect the final battle to be a clash of catastrophic proportions against an ancient power that threatens the entire world and it develops and concludes too easily, the fight between fast-motion shots dilutes the spectacularity of the threat that are facing, the story can resolve things out of nowhere and in the most casual way, as an audience it leaves us wanting to see a more challenging resolution with more substance that is in line with the construction of a more careful narrative.
The story takes many liberties to have fun and very forced funny moments that lead to nothing like the supposed death of Vulko (Willem Dafoe), a character that leaves a big hole, at this point this film is pretentious and It makes very little effort to be original, James Wan as director has it easy and doesn’t worry about anything other than entertaining and rushing out a project that closes everything that came before and that we eventually forget that it existed.
Not everything is so bad, the production design is impeccable, we see a very different and more majestic Atlantis than in its first installment, the costume design is possibly the best it has, and the changes in Aquaman’s suit make it more colorful and more spectacular, the same as Black Manta’s, which was inspired by the first comics and the animated series Super Friends.
As far as special effects are concerned, there are scenes where the CGI looks too false and exaggerated, in others it looks more careful, such as in the island sequence with the giant and mutant lobsters, it is here where we can see which sequences were re-recorded. and which ones don’t, we already expected very little participation from Mera’s character after the legal problems with her until her husband Johnny Deep,
The creation of new creatures that mix between what feels fake and what looks well done, the underwater shots at times forget the bubbling when talking and swimming but in general, the aesthetics and color palette it has is acceptable Well, it is worth noting that to take away even more seriousness we have the appearance of a key character in the rescue of Orm, the octopus Paul, who is that funny but unlikeable mollusk that simply amuses and is unnecessarily supporting the hero.
In the action sequences, Wan fails to achieve or do anything spectacular, such as Atlanna’s (Nicole Kidman) confrontation with the white Atlantean soldiers the chase over the roofs of houses, or Black Manta’s first and only confrontation with Aquaman on land. Here the sequences are too careful, marked and edited with the peculiar style of their director, the same happens with the political parts and those that involve the already well-worn family message as well as Junior’s nascent aquatic powers, everything seems to be above without completely daring to make something concrete, we know from the beginning where things are going and in the meantime we as an audience expect something to surprise us and that doesn’t happen.
Having good actors, the characters feel too flat, each one in the role they must play without delving further into their evolution, we see an Aquaman more in the style of the latest Thor films, with black humor bordering on gray and absurd, an excessively protective father and grandfather, an absent mother, a warrior grandmother who shows very little of her emotions apart from what she feels for her children, a cliché and very maharajah villain with a very comic-like plan and poorly executed, a brother who redeems his previous villainy to become just a something.
The post-credits scene that involves a hamburger, a beer, and a cockroach is not what was expected for closing, this should have been a great conclusion and lived up to a universe that will no longer continue, that will leave the memory of that that could have been and was not, that it had the necessary action and a more concrete and firm story that would enhance the character more, James Gunn’s desire to end everything is noticeable and let’s hope that what he is doing is much better, with this there is no I say that he is not capable of doing it but until now what we have seen that he has done is only talk and talk and talk about his future projects, ignoring that to have a new beginning and do it well you have to conclude everything above with the respect it deserves.
Despite everything and its sequential errors, the holes in its script, its narrative and rhythm, the film works within the genre it occupies and delivers what it promises, a visually impressive, charismatic, and action-adventure, which makes it entertainingly attractive throughout. moment, although it does not meet the expectations established by its first installment, it does not disappoint at all, it simply offers us a pleasant time but nothing to satisfy the demands of fans of the genre.
The cast is made up of Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Randall Park, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison, Vincent Regan, Indya Moore, Martin Short, and Nicole Kidman who do what they can with what they have and try to save a project that was sabotaged so that it failed, a bad tactic to recover the investment that lets us see that these new managers and the studios are more interested in making money even if they lose it than in entertaining and presenting higher quality products.
The music composed by the British composer Rupert Gregson-Williams repeats with a score that is a continuation of what is his previous work in Aquaman, we hear that there is an evolution in each piece and each one has a personality that remains very Above what we see in the screen, a good score that gives a worthy closure.
In conclusion, this is another clear example that the superhero genre in cinema is declining in public taste, doing it for the sake of doing it is not at all effective and much less attractive, the little planning and the millions of dollars spent do not justify A product like this arrives in theaters with the hope that it fails, it should be the opposite, a film that excites and entertains but that also remains at the level we expect, seeing these characters for the last time leaves us with the feeling that They should not have ended like this anymore, however, the studios trust that we will continue to be a captive audience in an industry that is becoming more decadent every day and in a genre that is already too worn out.
Let’s hope that the next projects are better developed and that they fulfill what was promised and once again put this and many more characters in style.
Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom is already out in theaters and in February on the HBO Max platform.
