The combined efforts of Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Nicole Kidman, Patrick Wilson and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II fail to save the shipwreck Aquaman and the Lost KingdomDirector: James Wan.
The production of this second part of the adventures of Arthur Curry, aka Aquaman, the unwitting king of Atlantis, was marked by all kinds of problems and scandals. But that's not enough to explain the atrocious flaws that plague the 124-minute feature (including what I consider to be an unnecessary end-credits scene).
Patrick Wilson and Jason Momoa in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Photo provided by Warner Bros. Entertainment & DC
3D: an outdated gadget
In this final episode of the adventures of Aquaman, the hero (Jason Momoa) and Mera (Amber Heard, barely present) are married and parents to a little Junior who appears to have water powers. Meanwhile, scientist Stephen Shin (Randall Park) comes across a strange creature trapped in underwater ice, while David Kane, aka Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), is still obsessed with avenging his father and the Black Man Trident discovered, which endowed him with these extraordinary powers. Aquaman will therefore have no choice but to make peace with his brother Orm Marius (Patrick Wilson) to get this villain out of harm's way and he will count on the help of their mother Atlanna (Nicole Kidman).
Having cut his teeth – and his weapons – in horror, James Wan, the creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises, is using the new adventures of Aquaman to include a range of creatures and monsters with a visual appearance alien to Atlantis As a result, moviegoers, even superhero fans, often have the unpleasant impression that they are in an incongruous universe of cheap science fiction.
Photo provided by Warner Bros. Entertainment & DC
David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick's script is equally lazy, with all of the characters' dialogue – apart from a few deliciously funny lines from Jason Momoa, who certainly improvised them – seeming to come straight from an automatic dialogue generator.
As we know, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is the last DC/Warner feature film before the complete overhaul announced by James Gunn and Peter Safran. Unfortunately, the feature film is not the swan song we had hoped for, but rather a disjointed collection weighed down by a ridiculous scenario.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom floods cinema screens from December 22nd.
Rating: 1 out of 5