Even though the imminent demise of the endlessly beleaguered DCEU has been common knowledge for some time now, the controversial connected universe has longer to expire than a fatally injured Captain Kirk in Star Trek: Generations. Both fans and detractors of the series that started with 2013s Man Of Steel have been counting down the movies since last years Black Adam that followed a string of financial flops in 2023 that started with comically bizarre The Flash and currently rests with the unfairly squashed Blue Beetle.
The last hurdle that stands between the DCEU and a dose of anti-life is the sizable frame of Jason Mamoa’s hard drinkin’, sea monster commandin’ Aquaman whose first solo outing managed to net over a cool billion in box office. Can James Wan’s long delayed sequel finally give the series the noble, dignified, burial at sea fans are hoping for?
Since last we saw Arthur Curry (aka. the trident twirling sea vigilante known as Aquaman), he had been fully promoted to King of undersea kingdom known as Atlantis and had even married Mera and had a little Aqua-Lad in the shape of his son, Arthur Jr., due to the ever increasing weight of leadership, the champion of the sea is starting to feel the pressure of bureaucracy. Frustrated that ruling leaves him less time to punch rampaging shark people in the face, Curry soon finds out that he needs to be careful of what he wishes for when his old enemy, Black Manta resurfaces with a new lunge at vengeance.
Essentially the greatest hater in the sea, Manta has upped his game in order to get even for his dead father, he’s aligned himself with the ghostly spirit of an ancient, corrupted, undersea ruler who has given him a power boost thanks to a glowy, green trident and after plundering this lost kingdom, hes got the tech and power he needs to settle his watery beef.
However, Black Manta’s plan has serious repercussions for the world in general as the evil he is in league with desires that the ice caps melt to free his earthly, zombie body and so Manta dutifully obliges by causing ecological damage on a frightening scale. However, while Aquaman has the gung-ho moxie to take the fight to his foe, he has no idea where to start and the only person who might know is his half-brother Orm who not only hates him as much as Black Manta does, but currently resides in a forgotten desert prison for his crimes against Atlantis.
After illegally breaking him out, both Aquaman and Orm have to try and get on the same page if they hope to stop a global disaster that could destroy both the surface world and the one that Del is in the beautiful, briny sea.
While this may be the end for the DCEU, this certainly isn’t the end of the line for DC properties in general as Matt Reeves separate Batman universe lives on while James Gunn and Peter Safran hope to start anew with a fresh new slate around 2025. However, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be beneficial for the DCEU to finish strong, so even though it seems that Warner Bros have all but abandoned it (no glitzy premiere and a review embargo that drops on the day of release hardly inspires confidence), surely the makers behind the slickly fun original can end things on a high, right? Soooort of…
If your favourite take away from James Wan’s original Aquaman was a bunch of cool world building, a host of awesome creatures and the sight of Jason Mamoa whupping a whole lot of undersea ass as his water resistant charisma did the (sea)lion’s share of the work, then you’re in luck because Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom attempts to be bigger and whackier than its humongous predecessor in every conceivable way. You want more superhero smackdowns, we’ve got the continuing quest of Yahya Abdul-Mateen III’s illogically hateful Manta as he fixes the glowing, bug eyes of his sea helmet onto another all-or-nothing attempt to gut his nemesis like a… well, you know. If you want more expansive, ludicrous world building and characters, Wan’s got you covered there too as not only the bongo-playing octopus from the first film been upgraded to official sidekick while Patrick Wilson’s bitter Orm is now retro fitted to to be the silently cursing straight man in the film’s shift to buddy movie comedy. Wan even gets to scratch that horror itch once more as we get zombie mer-people, demonic possession and eagle-eyed viewers might spot that Manta’s henchmen are dressed like exactly like the crew in Mario Bava’s 1965 Planet of the Vampires – however, while the visual effect houses get a stringent workout, it seems that Wan’s string of influences are becoming worryingly obvious.
Yes, the director is obvious crafting an experience that harkens to old-school adventure movies, but as a result, you’ll suffer wave after wave of nagging deja vu. If you think that Blue Beetle was, at times, uncomfortably similar to large sections of Iron Man 2, get ready to re-experience around 75% of the plot of Thor: The Dark World where our dumb hero has to break his conniving brother out of prison in order to thwart and ancient evil scrubbed from the history books. Alongside this, you’ll also have to contend with large swathes of film that are awfully reminiscent of Lord Of The Rings, The Mummy and a couple of other Thor movies too and it proves to be far more damaging to the movie than the appearance of Amber Heard could ever be.
Yes, the movie looks cool as hell and the Jules Vern-style octopus robots are freakin’ magnificent, but there’s also a string feeling that the movies runtime has been tinkered with in order to speed things along with some important scene setting being taken care of thanks to some hasty and random narration from some of the cast – needless to say, its deeply ironic that a movie set predominantly underwater isn’t being given a chance to breathe.
However, the real issue here is exactly the same one that plagued Black Adam, The Flash and Blue Beetle before it – the feeling that no matter what occurs, it’s not going to have any longer, bigger meaning as the overarching series is shutting down for good. While Wan maybe counteracts a lot of this thanks to keeping proceedings firmly within Aquaman’s boundaries (don’t go looking for yet another Bat-Cameo), it’s not enough to make us particularly sad that this entire timeline is essentially now defunct.
While fun in a mindless, loud, CGI drenched mind of way, a deeper dive of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom proves that there’s no longer much going on beneath the surface.
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