REVIEW #331 Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom (2023)

Dealing with the challenges of ruling Atlantis, combined with the hardships of parenthood, an old foe returns with a new power which threatens all Aquaman holds dear.

I must say that lot of the Aquaman hate I’m seeing does feel a little unjustified, the film has its flaws but on the whole I had fun with it and I’d certainly watch it again. Jason Momoa did just decide to go out there and be himself, so it did feel more like him compared to Arthur (Aquaman) on our screens, but I don’t think that ruined the movie. The best part for me was definitely the dynamic between Patrick Wilson’s Orm and Momoa’s Aquaman, it worked really well, delivering humour as well as a pretty strong redemption arc. There was certainly more than a few punchlines that boarded on cheesy and cringeworthy but to be honest, I can’t remember the last comic book movie I watched where I wasn’t saying that, which is a shame. The movie starts by providing an insight into Arthur and Mera’s life as parents and although one particular scene involved in that is being used to insult the film, I think it was a positive way to make the godly hero more relatable, whilst showing the difficulties of parenthood. On the subject of Mera, I thought they were cutting down Amber Heards role but she was in it more than I thought and Mera was actually a badass in the film, whose powers were wiping the floor with everyone. Not sure that was the best approach considering the result of the court case but it would have been hard to remove her completely without extensive reshoots I guess. 

This next part will include a mild spoiler so skip to the next slide if you haven’t seen it yet! 

I was actually surprised by the amount of emotional notes within scenes, it actually held a lot of emotion at times and it worked well, whether that was when Arthur Junior was taken, or the final interaction between brothers, the movie done enough to reel you in and get caught up in it all. But what I will say is that they should have stuck with Aquaman’s dad being killed, once again it’s evidence of these comic book movies being afraid to stick to a big death without some high tech reviving someone. You kill off the father and it makes Aquaman’s decision to try and save Black Manta all the more heroic and noble. It also shows there’s real stakes to the plot and actions have consequences, but instead they opted to save him and ultimately bottled it. My final criticism would be how quick they defeated the final boss, the big bad teased throughout the whole film, defeated within 15 seconds by a thrown trident, even Black Manta put up a bigger fight! So like I said, this movie has its flaws and perhaps my incredibly low expectations helped me here, but I had a lot of fun! There’s something about Momoa that I find incredibly fun and it’s easy to enjoy him doing his thing, even if he’s not even trying to be another character. They also seemed to opt for almost animated horizons in their cinematography, which I think avoided the risk of dodgy unrealistic CGI. Despite being animation, they still looked good and it did make it look like comic book panels at times. So don’t listen to social media, don’t watch the terrible quality clips and just find out for yourself. Watch it and give it a go, I’m sure you’ll find something to enjoy!

Overall (7/10)

Thanks for reading.

Callan