Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Put a Hook In It!

or

Basting Away Again in Peter-Jackson-ville
 

"Everybody's good at something," Arthur (Aquaman) Curry (Jason Momoa) exposits at the beginning of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. "Me, I talk to fish. Some people think that makes me a joke. But, I'm also good at something else. Busting heads."

 

Just what you want from the King of Atlantis. A lot has happened since the first Aquaman movie. Arthur is now the King of Atlantis and he's just managing to keep his head above water, finding that it requires more compromise with the multi-species Atlantean Council than merely busting their heads. He has now "put a ring on it" (and not one of his telekinesis rings) and is married to Mera (Amber Heard—she's in this a lot more than people were gleefully speculating, proving once again that the Internet is a very fallible, mean-spirited place), and they have a son, Arthur Jr. (too many babies to mention), who is just starting to take on Dad's traits. The couple are living at the lighthouse of Arthur's Dad (Temuera Morrison, again) and Mom Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) stops by every so often to help manage the chaos.

But, these are troubling times: Arthur's mentor Vulko (Willem Dafoe, MIA) has died in "the plague" which is glossed over more than at Kennedy for President Headquarters. Half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) is in prison for his crimes while King of Atlantis (Hmph. Must be nice.) and the Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) has skipped a couple steps of the grieving process and is still plotting revenge against the A-man for the death of his father and given to going around the lair muttering things like "Every day I don't fix my power-suit is another day Aquaman lives." That's not exactly a good morning affirmation and hints that not only the power-suit has a screw loose. He's aided and abetted by some disposable Manta-mob and Dr. Stephen Shin (Randall Park), one of those brilliant McGyver-esque scientists who can use alien technology on the first try but just not brilliant enough to get a legitimate job.* Dude can't even get a grant!

Anyway, the plot is some nonsense about Manta being so OCD avenging his Father that he puts the entire Earth at risk, seeking out a power source to revive Kordax (Pilou Asbæk), the frozen dead King of the Lost Kingdom of Nekrus, that was banished from the 7 Atlantean kingdoms a long time ago in a Peter Jackson-style flashback. Manta has a found a green-glowing trident (called "the Black trident") with which he can communicate with Kordax, but it's usually a one-sided conversation of Kordax telling him what to do.

So, Aquaman and Atlantis get wind (or current) of all this, and A-man decides that he needs to recruit some help, which he does by springing his brother Orm out of prison, with the help of a invisi-suit, and a stealth octopus by the name of Topo (which stands for Tactical Observation and Pursuit Operative) and, as Mom Atlanna explains he has a "genetically engineered intelligence for infiltration and espionage." "And," she explains further "he also plays a variety of musical instruments" (I only remember him playing drums in the comics, but it's been a while).

Orm and Arthur (of course) have "history" so they bicker and feud and bust each other's chops perpetually and it would get very tiresome if it weren't for Momoa's boisterousness and Wilson's acting response to him. Which (in its brilliant way) is to underplay to such a degree that one gets the impression that all of this mayhem and craziness is pretty much run-of-the-mill stuff and as real as clammy palms. I thought Wilson and his Orm character were the dullest part of the first Aquaman feature, but here, he's an absolute tonic of dead-pan stoniness and competence.**

It's needed. The surprise of him is needed because this one feels a bit rote. The first film had all the gee-whizzery of a new play-set, but this one seems to be missing a couple of necessary parts. Oh, it moves like anything, with whooshy, spinny, disorienting action sequences every ten minutes of so, but there are no great set-pieces like the first film's violent mad dash across Sicilian roof-tops. Nothing drops your jaw here.

Except for some of the special effects and not in a good way. The first film was a fun world-builder with its undersea kingdoms and giant seahorses and mounted sharks. But, you get the impression that since the first one was a hit the producers felt they could scrimp on the CGI budget and take full advantage of the murky, shimmery water overlays to hide some dodgy pixelation. There's one whole sequence where it feels like everybody's head is slightly askew of their bodies, and it's a bit of a relief when a sequence shows up with no digital effects at all. But, they're few...and far between.

It's a bit of a plunge from what the first one offered, even factoring in the "thrill of the new." This one feels clogged with recycled material--from The Lord of the Rings, Black Panther, even Iron Man. The comic book world is naturally self-reflexive and the same tidal forces apply to comic book movies. You have to do something different, risking the loyalty of fans, to reinvigorate a property, and that is something that producers are not brave and bold enough to do. It's a question of stemming the tide or just becoming back-wash. Forget about Lost Kingdoms. This should have been called Aquaman and the Lost Opportunity.

 Aquaman, Storm and Topo...together again.

* Imagine Shin's job interview with Black Manta: "Dr., what do you see as your five-year goals?" "Well, developing a more powerful energy source." "WRONG answer! It should be to KILL Aquaman!" "Uhhhh-huh! (uncomfortable pause)...Do you offer insurance?"

 

** Ya know who else is good in this movie that you'd never guess? Dolph Lundgren. He was very good in the first Aquaman, but here, he's given more to do and he's subtle and majestic. The man was born to play kings. 

Aquaman

Currying Favor ("You'll Believe a Man Can...Swim")
or
He's Not Just a Punch-Line from 'Entourage' Anymore

Two places where DC beat Marvel to the super-powered punch: the first superhero film featuring an iconic woman superhero-Wonder Woman (Catwoman and Elektra don't count) and the first underwater superhero movie—this one. Marvel's Namor: the Submariner, which is the Marvel version, debuted a couple years before Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger created Aquaman for the comics in 1941.

Aquaman always had it tough—he was always a straight-up hero—Namor was exotic looking (kinda Spocky) and could be a bad-boy-villain type when Marvel's writers didn't know what to do with him. Aquaman was a blond-haired Aryan in gold lame and fins who talked to fish and had a particularly weird weakness—if you wanted to kill Aquaman, you had to keep him out of the water for an hour, and that was a hard and fast hour; A-man would croak right at the hour mark, not 59 minutes, not 61 minutes--1 solid hour. And if he encountered a drop of sweat at 59:59, he'd be okay. He became popular—or at least "known"—when he shared the by-line of "The Superman/Aquaman Hour" back in 1967. Then, when Hanna-Barbera took over the DC heroes in the "Superfriends" cartoons, Aquaman became something of a joke—"the lamest of the superheroes." There was a running joke on the old "Entourage" series that had actor "Vincent Chase" starring in a James Cameron directed Aquman movie. 

Aquaman from TV's "Smallville"

The bad rep was so intense that when Zack Snyder came up with the character concept for him in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, he made a "surf n' turf" Aquaman, beefing him up in the form of tattooed bad-ass Jason Momoa who looked like he'd rather be riding Harley's than giant sea-horses—as a matter of opinion, Momoa would have been fun playing DC's "Lobo"—their dirt-bag galaxy-spanning "Main Man." 

You laughed at Mamoa's Aquaman at your own risk because he'd beat your ass and take pictures while doing it. The concept worked, in no small measure to Momoa's charisma, so the blonde Aryan version of Aquaman just might be obliterated from popular culture. I'll drop no salty tears over that.

The Snyder-Aquaman carries over to his own film, directed by James Wan—he of Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring. So, you know it's going to be a bit different in style and substance. It even starts with that horror movie trope of shutters banging against a house. A lighthouse at that. Momoa narrates the story of how his father, Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison—you may remember him as Jango Fett—all of them—in Attack of the Clones), a lighthouse keeper, finds the figure of a woman (Nicole Kidman) on the rocks during a violent windstorm and takes her in. He cares for her and they fall in love and start a family with a young son they name Arthur. Turns out she's Princess Atlanna from Atlantis (uh...sure, honey) who has escaped from an arranged marriage.

Life is idyllic for the Princess and Curry, but there are problems with the relatives. At some point—it's never explained how—an attack squad from the sunken civilization of Atlantis comes calling to take her back. They should have brought a bigger army because Atlanna single-handedly takes them out, causing quite a bit of damage to the lighthouse at the edge of the ocean. Knowing that her family will never be safe, Atlanna bids Curry and her son goodbye and dives back into the sea to face the consequences.

Young Arthur grows up and decidedly takes after his mother—in flashbacks throughout the movie, we see him growing up under the tutelage of Atlantean emissary Vulko (Willem Dafoe) on how to be a bad-ass—it's the sort of training  where Vulko explains that Atlanteans can talk under water and the kid goes "Wow! I CAN talk underwater," in order to short-circuit any objections from logicians who'll accept underwater civilizations but insist that an air-pocket be created anytime someone has something to say (I have issues with Atlanteans riding around in aquatic skiffs when it's demonstrated they can swim just as fast as these Atlanteans do, but that's just me).

We first get to see Aquaman in action when he stops a bunch of pirates from hijacking a nuclear sub. Evidently it's a family affair because Dad Jesse Kane (Michael Beach) is showing son David (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) that he's earned the right to lead the group. Then, Aquaman shows up, rescues the crew, but leaves a particularly bad situation—Dad's trapped on the sinking sub while David tries to free him, but must abandon the effort and him, leaving him to die. That creates the required revenge plot; he wants to kill Aquaman, by any means necessary, but more violently than leaving him out of the water for an hour.

Now, the sub attack did not come out of the deep blue—it was planned and engineered by Orm (Patrick Wilson), Atlanna's other son and half-brother to Aquaman and the current King of Atlantis. Orm is mightily P.O.'d that the underwater kingdoms have been the dumping grounds for the surface world's pollution and military activities. So, his intention is to launch an attack against the land-dwellers and unite the seven tribes (one per sea?) of ocean-dwellers in his efforts, effectively making him The Oceanmaster©®.

Oh, and by the way, he wants to eliminate any rivals to the throne, so he wants to kill Aquaman, too, putting his intentions in line with young Mr. Kane, whom he's recruited to attack Atlantean troops and create a motivation for other tribes to side with him in his crusade. In return, Orm gives him some Atlantean tech to make himself a villain called Black Manta. That effectively introduces all of the major Aquaman villains, with the exception of the Skipper's and Red Lobster franchises and all of the cruise lines.

Orm launches the first—er—wave of attack by unleashing tsunamis that beach a lot of aircraft carriers and garbage onto the beaches. One such section swamps Aquaman and his father, almost killing him, if not for the life-saving efforts of Princess Mera (Amber Heard), adopted daughter of King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren, surprisingly, and even more surprising is it's a good performance), who, with her powers of controlling water manages to yank all the briney out of Tom Curry's lungs. It isn't entirely altruistic—she wants Aquaman to come to Atlantis to stop Orm and take his place as King. Given that Aquaman has issues with Atlantis—that they consider him a half-breed mongrel and that they killed his mother by consigning her to "The Kingdom of the Trenches," he wants no part of it.

But, a clandestine meeting with Vulko convinces him that he should at least try, if he doesn't want to see a full-out war between land and sea, and the best way to do that is to find the powerful fabled trident of the original King Atlan of Atlantis, a quest that gets interrupted before it starts when Orm's troops drop in and capture Arthur. The King makes him an offer—leave Atlantis forever and live (if he survives the Earth-Sea War, of course)—but Arthur, given his lofty position as Orm's prisoner, instead, challenges the King to a fight for the crown...which Orm, being a jerk and slightly off his sea-horse, accepts.

Orm has the advantage of home-turf...or the watery soggy version of home-turf...and all but defeats Arthur in combat, but the A-man gets a last-minute rescue from none other than Orm's intended, Mera, who cancels her registry at Davy Jones' Locker and takes him on a a far-flung search for Atlan's magical trident, first to the Sahara desert where it was forged and then to Sicily for the final clues they need to find its final resting place.

How do you accessorize in Atlantis? With Portugese Man o' War, of course!

Of course, you can't go ten minutes in a super-hero movie without a fight, so Manta and some Atlantean guns pursue the two heroes through the streets and do a very good job of scorching a lot of Sicily before they are able to continue on their search...which will come with more than a few surprises (some of them quite cool, for instance, a vocal performance by Julie Andrews, anyone?) that they find under the sea (Don't cue the song, this isn't Disney, but the other guys).

Well, that's quite a lot to fathom (cough). But Wan, working with a rather dense script by DC's Geoff Johns, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, and Will Beall, manages to keep the story straight while not drowning it with various Atlantean cultures and their habits (there will be sequels to explain the tribe of "Fishermen"). He does all this while also coming up with some astonishingly epic visuals that are weirdly beautiful, vaguely threatening, and awash with fascinating detail.

It becomes apparent very early on that Wan is a horror film director, and not one of suspense, an interesting choice for this type of adventure film. Because just when you think things are nice and calm—*BOOM!*—something explodes with no warning, enveloping the actors and the screen and eliciting many a popcorn explosion in the theater. On the other hand, he's great at action set-pieces, creating whirling epic fights that are ingenious in the smaller scuffles, and downright "Lord of the Rings" epic in the big ones. In one sequence, two huge armies face off against each other, one riding great white sharks while the others are astride Jurassic seahorses (how cool is that?). In the Sicily sequence, he stages a running battle between the heroes and Black manta's goons that involves following them through walls and rooms and across roof-tops without any evidentiary edits to curb the momentum.

One wonders where it can possibly go next: the major Aquaman villains have been introduced, the family units established. I suppose they could go into Mera's story, although that would tend to swerve the series into a romantic story, which is problematic in the superhero genre. One hopes that it doesn't depend on Orm as an antagonist the way Marvel's Thor series has clung to Tom Hiddleston's Loki (Wilson's OceanMaster isn't nearly as fun).

Perhaps they can borrow from ancient mythology to build on the Arthurian legend that the series could naturally fall into. But, this is a good start, but not so exceptionally done that there isn't any room for improvement. Hopefully, the creators will venture into the deeper end of the pool, rather than stay in the shallows.