Like Harvey Dent, the DCEU is a franchise with two faces. On the one side, it brought us Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad (and Peacemaker), Birds of Prey… On the other, it also gave us the Martha moment, Jared Leto’s Joker, and Henry Cavill’s Justice League lips.
2023 has been a terrible year for superhero movies all round, but while Marvel Studios has many more years ahead to wash the stain off its cinematic universe, this is it for the DCEU, soon to be rebooted with James Gunn’s shiny new DCU. So it really was all up to Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom to determine which side of itself the DCEU would show us as it disappeared beneath the waves of cinema history. Unfortunately, it’s not the pretty side.
Remember the events of the first Aquaman? What do you mean, no? There’s only been… five years, a bazillion superhero films, and a whole pandemic since its release. Well, don’t worry, you won’t struggle to keep up as there’s hardly anything in Aquaman 2 that you haven’t seen before if you are even a casual consumer of comic book cinema. Much like Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Lost Kingdom massively drops the ball on expanding the fresh, fleshed-out corner of this universe established in the first film.
The plot, such as it is, sees new dad/king of Atlantis Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) forced to team up with his formerly evil brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) to stop Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who’s been possessed by a malevolent macguffin called the Black Trident, from destroying the world by unleashing an ancient evil from the arctic. Add in Arthur pushing for Atlantis to reveal its existence to the world and you have a story Frankenstein-ed together from the likes of Thor: The Dark World, Black Panther, and DC’s own Black Adam.
Sure, the original Aquaman wasn’t exactly innovative, but director James Wan brought a vibrancy and an energy to proceedings that helped make up for its shortcomings. Here, however, whether because everyone involved knew they were working on a dying franchise or otherwise, there’s a serious lack of enthusiasm and passion on display. The world-building, a highlight of the last film, falls short and there’s a fatal lack of comic book-y fun. For example, Topo the drum-playing octopus returns… but he never gets to play the drums. I want my money back, James.
But while Topo didn’t beat any drums in the sequel, I’m afraid I have to beat one we’ve all heard too much of late: Aquaman 2 is yet another superhero movie that suffers from eye-wincing VFX. The floaty-haired weirdness of the Atlanteans was a problem in the first one too, but it was offset by the depiction of Atlantis as a colorful underwater Wakanda. With the action mostly kept away from the kingdom this time around, we’re saddled with various dark deep-sea caves and dingy submarine interiors. For whatever reason, Wan’s typically bursting imagination and eye for visual flair deserted him here.
Whether leading man Jason Momoa is on form or not seems to be up for debate, as fans can’t decide if his laid-back, swaggering performance here is a mark of the actor being so comfortable in his role at this point that he’s bringing the character closer to him or a sign that he’s merely phoning it in, perhaps already eager to don the Lobo makeup for James Gunn. What is certain is that Abdul-Mateen fills Manta with as much intense, ruthless hatred as he can, which helps sell the villain’s one-note personality as a character flaw, not a writing one. Patrick Wilson is likewise as dependable as ever as Orm, although his brotherly chemistry with Momoa is let down by lame dialog.
Those who picked up on the supreme lack of Amber Heard in the trailers (i.e. everyone) may be surprised to note that Heard as Mera, Arthur’s wife, queen, and baby momma, is in the film much more than expected, showing up for around 20 minutes of screentime, which includes several moments where she gets to save her husband. Mera has no discernible arc, but it seems the marketing department is really to blame for sidelining Heard and Wan actually used the actress as much as he could amid all the behind-the-scenes drama.
In a year that also brought us Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom probably isn’t the most egregious superhero movie mess of the year, and yet — dare I say it — I actually found myself longing for anything as boldly off-the-wall and borderline self-parodic as Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K — we do get a post-credits scene so banal that it almost comes back around from disappointing to become an avante-garde deconstruction of the form, but it doesn’t quite manage it. I would’ve gladly accepted anything to liven up this final shrug from a franchise that is apparently all too ready to surrender itself to the ever-churning waters of studio politics.
So, that was the DCEU. As someone who has actually enjoyed much of this 10-year oddity — I mean odyssey, The Lost Kingdom makes it abundantly clear that this is the right time to end it. Bring on the DCU, both the franchise we deserve and the one we need right now.
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