Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

The DC Extended Universe is dead. With Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the comic book-to-screen franchise hardly swims out with a memorable farewell, hasn't washed up on a high and shouldn't have many tearful over its demise. More movies based on the company's superheroes are still on the way. They'll be badged the DC Universe instead, and start largely afresh; 2025's Superman: Legacy will be the first, with Pearl's David Corenswet as the eponymous figure, as directed by new DC Studios co-chairman and co-CEO James Gunn (The Suicide Squad). Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom ends up the 15-feature decade-long current regime about as expected, however: soggily, unable to make the most of its star, and stuck treading water between what it really wants to be and box-ticking saga formula.

Led by Jason Momoa (Fast X) — not Adrian Grenier (Clickbait), as Entourage once put out into the world — the first Aquaman knew that it was goofy, playful fun. Its main man, plus filmmaker James Wan (Malignant), didn't splash around self-importance or sink into seriousness in giving DC Comics' aquatic hero his debut self-titled paddle across the silver screen (after Momoa played the same part in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League). Rather, they made an underwater space opera that was as giddily irreverent as that sounded — and, while it ebbed and flowed between colouring by numbers and getting winningly silly, the latter usually won out. Alas, exuberance loses the same battle in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. In a film that sets sail upon a plodding plot and garish CGI, and can't make an octopus spy and Nicole Kidman (Faraway Downs) riding a robot shark entertaining, any sense of spirit is jettisoned overboard.

Having spent its existence playing catch-up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DCEU does exactly that for a final time here. It isn't subtle about it; see: calling Aquaman's imprisoned half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson, Insidious: The Red Door) Loki and ripping off one of the most-famous throwaway MCU moments there is. As with 2023's fellow Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, there's also such a large debt owed to Star Wars that elements seem to be lifted wholesale from a galaxy far, far away (and from a competing company, although it was still terrible when Disney was plagiarising itself). Just try not to laugh at Jabba the Hutt as a sea creature, as voiced by Martin Short (Only Murders in the Building), introduced reclining in a familiar pose and, of course, surrounded by a school of amphibious ladies. Not intentionally by any means, it's Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom funniest moment.

2018's initial Aquaman used past intergalactic flicks as a diving-off point, too, including Jupiter Ascending, but with its own personality — no trace of which bobs up this time around. Wan helms again, switching to workman-like mode. While he's co-credited on the story with returning screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (Orphan: First Kill), Momoa and Thomas Pa'a Sibbett (The Last Manhunt), there's little but being dragged out with the prevailing tide and tonal chaos on show. Worse: ideas from abandoned spinoff The Trench, which was first floated as a horror effort about a villainous Atlantean kingdom but later revealed to be a secret Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Ambulance) movie, get clunkily flushed in. While this should be Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring alum Wan's wheelhouse, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom feels like the narrative equivalent of pouring the dregs of whatever's in Arthur Curry's liquor cabinet into one tankard.

Now king of Atlantis as well as a father to Arthur Jr — the water-controlling Mera has become his wife, too, but that doesn't mean that Amber Heard (The Stand) says more than 50 words — the half-human, half-Atlantean best-known as Aquaman has another tussle with pirate David Kane to face. Bumped up to chief baddie, Black Manta is aided by dark magic manifested in the black trident, as found by a marine biologist (Randall Park, Totally Killer) who's endeavouring to prove that Atlantis exists. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom's evil threat is also climate change, as exacerbated by its nefarious enemy on his vengeance mission after the events of the first movie. With the human and undersea realms alike beginning to boil, only Aquaman teaming up with Orm will give the planet a chance to survive. 

Pairing Momoa and Wilson odd-couple comedy-style like they're Hobbs and Shaw would've been one of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom's best moves if the material was up to it. Their escapade amid the foliage on a volcanic South Pacific island — where the film wants to be a tropical creature feature, and also a Journey to the Centre of the Earth- and Jumanji-esque jaunt — is certainly the most promising visually. But here as across the entire flick, relying upon Momoa's charm to do the heavy lifting appears to be the number-one approach. In some pictures with some stars, that can work. Rom-com Anyone But You manages it thanks to Sydney Sweeney (Reality) and Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick), for instance. In Aquaman, Momoa had a mischievous ball and was a delight to watch. What everyone involved in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hasn't factored in is that this version of Arthur has swapped underdog roguishness for the overblown kind.

Momoa remains visibly enthusiastic as the wettest of the DCEU's world-saving cohort, but Aquaman's cockiness is laid on as thickly as a kelp forest. Although there's no doubting that the movie's star can handle the part, it's a less-engaging, more one-note turn than his last jump into this ocean, and sells him short. Momoa commits, though, with the kind of gusto that Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom lacks virtually everywhere else. What happens when a film that clearly wants to be as ridiculous as it can be, or as dark, clashes with staying within the genre's routine lane? This shipwreck, which ends the franchise it's in and the saga's busiest year — after Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash and Blue Beetle — with one of its worst entries. At least it didn't have to worry about setting up sequels or connecting to other DCEU fare, aka a welcome lifeboat.