Imagine you’re an executive for Warner Films. You know that the DCEU is dying and that all’s that left are a few sequels and then it’ll be time to move on. So you’re looking at pitches for what will likely be the highest-profile of these pitches: the sequel to Jason Momoa’s Aquaman.
“One idea is to focus on how completely unqualified Arthur Curry is to be king. He has no experience. He wasn’t raised to rule. He wants to split his time between his kingdom and the surface world. And he disagrees with one of the most important tenants on Atlantian politics: that they remain hidden from the surface. Over time, he finds the demands of trying to compromise with the semi-democratic ruling council taxing. He finds it increasingly frustrating that he can’t just be who he wants and rule the way he wants. He definitely doesn’t appreciate the implications that he should be raising his baby in Atlantis, rather than on the surface in his father’s lighthouse—and don’t even get started with the regular people of Atlantis, who, rather than just being grateful that he is willing to be their king, keep demanding more and more of him. As his frustrations grow, so too do his authoritarian instincts, leading eventually to a crisis point.”
“Uh, no. That sounds a little too close to current American politics.”
“Ok. How about this one: Arthur Curry is a very busy man, what with being King of Atlantis and all, but he is also trying to be a loving parent to his infant son. But the time he has to spend away from home is straining his relationship with his father, who is increasingly the child’s full-time caregiver. His relationship with his wife is becoming strained for much the same reason. Meanwhile, his mother and his people are pushing him to spend more time doing his duty to them. And then there’s his brother, who is trapped and being tortured in a desert prison, but there’s little Arthur can do about it without endangering important alliances.”
“So, a family drama? How is that going to sell action figures? Try again.”
“OK, fine. It’ll basically be two hours of action figures punching each other. Lots of special effects. Lots of battles.”
“Sounds good… go on…”
“The, uh, story will involve Manta…”
“The bad guy from last time? Yeah, we definitely like that. Lots of those figures still on the shelves.”
“And it, uh, will basically be Lord of the Rings, but, like, underwater.”
“Awesome. Sounds great. Oh, but we did like the bit about the brother being tortured in the desert. Be sure to include that.”
Of course, I don’t know if those conversations took place. Maybe I’m giving a lot more credit to director James Wan and any of the four credited writers of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom for wanting to push the boundaries of what a superhero movie can be in 2023—of wanting to take some risks.
Because there are elements of those first two pitches present in Lost Kingdom. The first portion of the movie shows how unsatisfied Arthur is in his role as king, even including a moment when he falls asleep on the throne. His only real joy seems to come from his time on the surface with his father and baby son. (And Amber Heard’s character is all but missing from most of this. Presumably, of course, it’s because of her time in the tabloids.) It’s also interesting that she’s almost entirely absent from the trailers, but there was a potential to just write her out entirely and have the story be about the King of Atlantis struggling to be a single dad, but that would have, again, required something other than the safest of safe routes.
And Arthur definitely struggles with not being able to simply rule as he wants—he says that almost exactly at one point. He also outright tortures an enemy at one point to get information and genuinely seems to care very little for what the people of Atlantis might want. So the authoritarian storyline is also definitely hinted at along the way.
But in the end, Lost Kingdom turns out to be the blandest possible superhero movie. It’s a generic villain, who is mostly bad because he’s being possessed by an even blander, more generic villain. (Think Sauron but frozen, since that’s very clearly what the movie’s writers were thinking.) Arthur does reunite with his brother, and together they go off to battle the villain in a series of fights that aren’t bad, necessarily, but they definitely lack any real excitement and are hindered by the fact that both Aquaman and his brother are indestructible. They get punched, beaten, crushed, blown up, thrown from impossible heights, and then immediately pop back up and continue fighting, without so much as a scratch. It’s so laughable that even when one of them does appear to be seriously injured, by the very next scene he’s back in action as if nothing happened.
The movie was made before the writer and actor strikes, both of which were at least in part driven by a concern about the role of AI in the future of entertainment, and while AI probably wasn’t used here, there are a lot of set pieces that felt more like Midjourney prompts than creative choices. “We need a bar like the cantina from Star Wars, but underwater. Oh, and Jabba the Hutt as a fish, please.” “Modor, but if it was under the ice in Antarctica.” “A steam-punk submarine.”
The movie is saved from being just outright terrible by the fine acting all around: Momoa really does perfectly embody the surfer bro/superhero king, Nicole Kidman does a good job as his mom (and maybe she’s just happy to have been let out of those empty AMC theaters for a bit), Patrick Wilson provides a nice comic foil for Momoa as his brother, Randall Park does well as a scientist in over his head (and one the wrong side), and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, in reprising the role of Black Manta, clearly could have shined if he was only given more to do.
It’s also mercifully short. It’s a sad statement that it seems surprising that a modern superhero movie can manage to stay at two hours, but I do thank the movie’s editors for not letting it drag on any longer than that.
But the actors’ best efforts can’t, in the end, save the movie from those early decisions to have it just be a nice, safe, and mostly family-friendly (if you are going to take the kids, be prepared for them to ask why Aquaman likes to say s— so much) way to hopefully get a lot of action figures sold.
Perhaps it’s fitting to have the DCEU, which tried so hard to be the MCU but never quite got there, go out with such a whimper. At least the slate is now clear for James Gunn to do something new and different with the IP. And there’s good news for him: the bar is set so incredibly low that almost anything he does will be an improvement.
