The Big Picture

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom embraces the silliness of the original film, making it a charming and light-hearted take on the source material. The buddy comedy dynamic between Momoa and Wilson is delightful, adding charm and energy to the film. The film showcases the strengths and weaknesses of the DCEU, with fun and relatable character moments but poorly directed and muddled fight sequences.

While the film industry has become inundated with cinematic universes that studios hope will go until the end of time, it’s rare that we get to see one actually end. Sure, every once in a while, there’s a Dark Universe that ends before it even has the chance to begin, or a Fantastic Beasts, which just fizzles out of existence, but a cinematic universe rarely ends with us knowing that it’s concluding. But that’s not the case with the DC Extended Universe, which began with 2013’s Man of Steel and has sputtered along for the last decade—with the occasional bright spot along the way. With the announcement that James Gunn and Peter Safran would be restructuring DC Studios, beginning in 2025 (and with a few characters crossing over to this new vision), the much-maligned and often exhausting DCEU would finally be coming to a close.

With that, the DCEU finds its ending with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the 16th film in this universe (and the fourth DCEU film this year), and the sequel to the most financially successful film in this franchise, 2018’s Aquaman. In some ways, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is an anticlimactic conclusion to this world, a standalone story that clearly wasn’t filmed to wrap up an entire phase of this comic world series. But in regards to the larger DCEU, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is emblematic of what worked and didn’t work over the last decade of DC films, almost making it an unexpectedly decent place to say goodbye to this world.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Arthur must enlist the help of his half-brother Orm in order to protect Atlantis against Black Manta, who has unleashed a devastating weapon in his obsessive quest to avenge his father’s death. Release Date December 20, 2023 Director James Wan

Taking place several years after the events of the first Aquaman, we find Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) now as the king of Atlantis—a job he finds boring when he’d rather be making change via taking out illegal underwater cage fighting rings with his bare hands. Since Aquaman, Arthur is now married to Mera (Amber Heard), and the pair have had a baby, who also has the ability to speak to fish, like Arthur. However, Arthur has to protect Atlantis when he finds that David Kane/Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) has gained more power with the help of the Black Trident. To stop his old foe, Arthur teams up with his imprisoned brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson) and the two try to put their pasts behind them to save their city.

James Wan Goes All-In on Aquaman’s Silliness

Director James Wan embraces the goofiness that made the original film one of the more charming, light-hearted takes on the source material. However, since most of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom doesn’t take place under the sea, Wan instead makes this an assemblage of B-movie tropes. For example, David Kane and his crew utilize ancient technology, which seems right out of a 50s sci-fi film, complete with underwater costuming that seems intentionally hilarious. As Arthur and Orm try to hunt down David and his team, they come to a land where giant insects have started to take over—thanks to the harmful energy the villains are burning to ruin the planet. This area is packed with gigantic butterflies, massive rats, and hungry bugs, which Arthur and Orm have to escape from, that can’t help but remind of the nuclear monster films of the 1950s like Them! or even the original King Kong.

Wan is no stranger to silliness in his films—this is the man who made cars fall from the sky in Furious 7 and created the bonkers horror of Malignant. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, like the first film, is best when it wholeheartedly leans into the craziness that Wan is going for. We know that this is a goofy story and Wan seemingly does too. Because of that, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom can be fun when it allows the absurdity to take the reins. This is a movie where Jason Momoa is introduced riding a giant seahorse, and where Martin Short plays an underwater gangster fish. If anything, Lost Kingdom could use more of this energy.

‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’ Is a Mismatched Buddy Comedy at Its Core
Image via Warner Bros.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom also excels when it’s essentially a buddy comedy between Momoa and Wilson. Their dynamic is charming, as in any given situation, Momoa plays the brawn, while Wilson is the brains. Wilson is fantastic as the straight man here, and he gives Momoa a place to focus his manic energy. The two are particularly delightful when thrown into a situation where they’re clearly over their heads, whether with the aforementioned giant bug land, with the Martin Short fish, or when Aquaman—along with the octopus-drummer from the first film—has to save Orm from a desert prison. Again, these moments seize the weirdness of this world and allow it to be the focus. Considering this world looks like a Windows 95-ass screensaver, complete with characters whose heads don’t look like they go on their bodies, Wan is smart to heighten the ludicrous nature of this underwater world.

But maybe most important is that writer David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (Orphan, The Conjuring 2) mostly keeps the story as small as he can. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is most interesting when it’s just Arthur and Orm goofing on each other and escaping peril. One thing the DCEU never quite understood was that these films weren’t terrible when the stakes were low, despite the penchant for always attempting to blow up the world at every turn. It’s far more exciting to watch Peacemaker and Rick Flag come to blows in The Suicide Squad or have Harley Quinn go on a breakfast sandwich-fueled adventure in Birds of Prey than it is to watch major cities get destroyed in Man of Steel and any number of other DCEU films. The DCEU almost always worked best on a smaller scale, and the moments where Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom play with the brother dynamic of Arthur and Orm can’t help but remind of that.

‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’ Also Reminds of What the DCEU Does Poorly
Image via Warner Bros.

And yet, as the last film in the DCEU, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom also, naturally, has to remind us of the universe’s flaws—namely, over-the-top, absurd fight sequences that are poorly directed, muddled, and lack the excitement they should have. Oddly, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is mostly a slog when it goes underwater, as Wan throws the viewer into colossal battles that feel like a necessary evil. Beyond the possibility of getting to see Nicole Kidman riding a robotic underwater creature, there’s no real joy in these moments. In the opening minutes of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Arthur tells a story to his child about a fight he was in, where he slams his son’s action figures at each other, and there may not be any better metaphor for DCEU’s action sequences than that.

It’s also in these fight sequences in the third act where Johnson-McGoldrick’s script goes from fairly straightforward to muddled with mythology, plot machinations, and too many villains. But in this third act, it becomes even more clear where the film’s failures and successes are. While the underwater armies clash against each other, we get smaller moments between Arthur and Orm, and we’re reminded of just a few minutes prior, when this film wasn’t as convoluted and far more fun. Sixteen films in, it still feels like DC never understood what didn’t work in their films.

‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’ Shows the Good and the Bad of the DCEU
Image via Warner Bros.

Because of that, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is kind of the perfect note to end the DCEU with. It reminds us that this universe was always best when it focused on the silliness of these characters, the goofy nature of these superheroes, and embraced the wild worlds that they’re in. As we see with the Arthur and Orm scenes, these stories excel when they focus on these characters as humans, rather than as unstoppable gods. We might not be able to relate to Superman, but we can with Clark Kent, and that’s something the DCU never quite grasped. Similarly, the exasperating, jumbled fight scenes of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom also remind that this universe always struggled with what actually makes an action scene interesting. Throwing a bunch of action figures at each other isn’t something worth going to the theater for—even if Momoa looks like he’s having fun doing it.

With Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, we get the best and worst of the DCEU, but also a reminder that there’s still hope for these characters, with a bit more focus, and a reminder of what works and what doesn’t with this world. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom isn’t the wet fart of an ending that it seemed like the DCEU might be going out on, but it also shows that a decade in, the DCEU never quite learned the lessons it needed to. The DCEU is dead, long live the DCU.

Rating: 5/10

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom comes to theaters in the U.S. on December 22. Click below for showtimes.

GET TICKETS