- Starring
- Jason Momoa, Ben Affleck, Patrick Wilson
- Director
- James Wan
- Rating
- Not Yet Rated
- Genre
- Action, Adventure, Fantasy
- Release date
- December 20, 2023
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
Aquaman made his debut in DC Comics in 1941, created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger. Initially, his origin story portrayed him as the son of a lighthouse keeper and an Atlantean queen, giving him a unique connection to both land and sea. Over the years, his character evolved, with various reinterpretations highlighting his role as the King of Atlantis and a founding member of the Justice League. Through comics, animated series, and live-action adaptations, Aquaman has solidified his status as a beloved and influential figure in the superhero genre.
Since the events of the last film, Arthur Curry has settled down and started a family, and when he’s not busy changing his merbaby’s diapers, he’s managing the affairs of an underwater kingdom as the King of Atlantis. However, all is not well. Despite his efforts, his subjects continue to distrust the surface dwellers and reject Aurthur’s attempts at reconciliation.
Aquaman offers up some fun moments but is overlong and relies far too much on convenience and contrivance to move the plot along, not to mention that it’s a bit of a Frankenstein’s Monster of editing. You can almost feel the edges of the multiple reshoots haphazardly rounded off to fit square pegs into round holes.
Unfortunately, Aquaman flounders most with its main plot. Driven to vengeance by his father’s death at Arthur Curry’s hands, Black Manta aligns himself with a demonic presence that he promises to unleash from its ages-old prison in return for the power to destroy Aquaman.
Despite its best efforts, The Lost Kingdom never successfully manages to build the race-against-the-clock tension that it is going for. In part, that’s thanks to a combination of messy edits and uneven pacing, but mostly, it’s due to the plot’s stakes being regularly relayed via newscast exposition rather than in a more poignant and visceral way and its underwhelming villains.
Granted incredible strength and the means to destroy the planet, Black Manta occasionally shows up for a relatively meaningless CGI battle and then returns to his base of operations to look grumpily into a mirror. While the filmmakers sporadically pepper in some dialogue and flashbacks in an effort to build tension, it all feels perfunctory and haphazard. The result is a villain that is just sort of there waiting to be defeated.
Much the same can be said about the film’s secondary villain, who only appears as a disembodied voice and almost exclusively in a few flashbacks until the film’s conclusion. It makes his final reveal nothing more than a meaningless boss battle.
Further complicating things is the film’s copious and substandard CGI. Pro Tip: If 99% of your film is shot in front of a green screen, it is incumbent upon you to make sure that every digital moment doesn’t look pre-rendered.
With all of this said the film does offer up some moderately fun moments, usually thanks to decent chemistry between Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson, who plays Aquaman’s half-brother.
All in all, Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom might be worth a watch once it hits Max or Netflix, or Paramount+, or whatever studio owns WB by the time the movie hits streaming, but it’s not much of a sendoff for the DCEU, and we wouldn’t suggest spending money on a movie ticket.
WOKE ELEMENTS
First off, there’s a refreshing pro-family subplot, especially about the importance of fathers, that helps to smooth out the rather hamfisted Global Warming nonsense.
Greenhouse gasses stink
- The plot revolves around artificially generated global warming, but the film doesn’t get sanctimonious about it, which helps.
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- However, it does get mentioned a lot.
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DEI
- There’s a smattering of DEI casting, but it’s in the background with some meaningless characters that aren’t much more than glorified extras and, in most cases, are extras.
- Neither Black Manta, nor Dr. Shin were race-swapped for the film.
- Black Manta has been black since the first time he took off his helmet in 1977’s Adventure Comics #452
- Dr. Stephen Shin was introduced in the comics in 2011’s Aquaman Vol.7 #2.
- Neither Black Manta, nor Dr. Shin were race-swapped for the film.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
20 comments
Cory roe
January 3, 2024 at 9:37 am
I agree about the global warming nonsense but I did find the movie entertaining. My kids loved it. I thought it was better than the first movie.
Richard Voss
January 3, 2024 at 11:40 am
There are some who seem to speak intelligently for a bit about this or that subject. Then they use the phrase “global warming” or “climate change” and immediately reveal themselves as moronic pseudo-intellectuals. Those of us who have taken the time to test the hypothesis with seriousness are unfortunately condemned to nauseating irritation at so much asinine braying.
Sweet Deals
January 3, 2024 at 5:54 pm
Climate change is exactly the kind of nebulous threat that comic book superheroes love to save the world from. It’s up there with extinguishing the sun, enslaving the surface world with an army of subterranean mole men and alien invasions. I’m sure that once the world’s superheroes find the right fabled jeweled accessory and the right chosen leader to wield it, our troubles with climate change will all be over. The world’s skies and oceans will be magically clean once again.
Alternatively, because “climate change” also likes to point the finger at ordinary humans, it’s used as an excuse to get ordinary humans involved in the world-saving action. Even if they can’t really do anything about it, it makes them feel good to think they can try. We’ve also asked the superhuman mutant inventor to create machines that run on no fuel, generate no emissions and never break down. He says he’s already done it using nothing but local topsoil for materials and he didn’t even need any special tools to build them. But he dislikes ordinary humans so much that he will never share his technology with anyone. And then he wonders why people don’t like him.
Johnny YesPapa
January 3, 2024 at 8:29 pm
I don’t get it – there are no race-swaps, no lgbtq-propaganda, only little bit preaching about green gasses (which is not a big deal at all). And yet it has 80% wokeness? SERIOUSLY???? It looks like you guys might be a little bit biased because of Amber Heard, whose role in the movie already was diminished to the minimum!
Not good, guys. Not good at all.
James Carrick
January 3, 2024 at 8:46 pm
You’ll notice that Based is on the right and woke is on the left. It’s 80% Based and 20% Woke.
You’ll also notice at the top that we labeled it Woke-ish.
The Woke-O-Meter was a bit of an experiment. You’re not the first to be confused. We’ve been kicking around alternatives for a few days.
Hopefully, our second try will be clearer.
Drew Strickland
January 3, 2024 at 9:51 pm
So, just to clarify, pushing aside the global warming hogwash, this movie may be worth a view when it hits streaming. Are you sure there isn’t anything else in the film we should be on the lookout for?
James Carrick
January 3, 2024 at 9:53 pm
Everything that I caught is down in the Woke Elements
James Carrick
January 3, 2024 at 9:55 pm
There’s a female council member who schools Aquaman once. It’s kind of annoying but more so because the writers don’t understand monarchies.
Drew Strickland
January 4, 2024 at 2:29 pm
Thanks.
Tommy B
January 6, 2024 at 12:36 am
Personally I don’t mind the new Woke-O-Meter. It seems to bring the scoring in line with the other categories… low scores are bad and high are good. I suspect a lot of the confusion is just people not being aware of the change. Perhaps some people aren’t familiar with the term “Based” as well. “Woke” has become almost universally understood these days, but I’ve never heard anyone from older generations say “Based”.
I’m not sure what would clear up the confusion…maybe just a short description under the Woke-O-Meter?
Instead of red you could color the Woke-O-Meter like a rainbow if a movie goes full woke lol…
James Carrick
January 6, 2024 at 12:52 am
I’m working on tooltips for all of the ratings to explain what they cover, etc. So far, the coding is getting the better of me, but one day…
Ken
March 4, 2024 at 8:46 am
They are trying to push eating bugs with this crap and also green house gasses destroying the world and you’re saying it’s not woke? This movie seemed to be pushed out fast and it was just to push messaged like that because the story ain’t even good. You’re just blind and don’t want to see. You’ll see by 2030 that no one is lying about the wokeness
Chris
January 7, 2024 at 2:50 am
I support the anti-woke elements in this. However, there’s one fatal flaw in this movie that is going ro prevent me from willingly watching this.
That flaw is………….. Amber Heard still in as Mera after the Johnny Depp thing. To everyone reading this, you can call me a child, call me a woke nutjob who whines about everything they don’t like, I just can’t support anything with that woman in it after what she did to Johnny Depp.
Richard Voss
January 7, 2024 at 1:22 pm
Happily, “Mera has a greatly reduced role,” as she “had to fight to remain in the film.” So, at the very least: (1) woke is no longer a get-out-of-jail-free card; and (2) defecating on beds is not a great superpower.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/amber-heard-breaks-her-silence-on-the-aquaman-2-mera-controversy/ar-AA1mpXya
argus733
January 7, 2024 at 9:26 am
Like the marvels. Aquaman is take it or leave it. You will definitely find other things more interesting to do while watching and will not mind that you missed anything. Everything was obviously just going through the motions for everyone. disney, and in this case paramount, once again prove they are very effective at cutting their own throats for their own egos. Look, just forget the politics and the actor drama, both of these just fall short of completely sucking.
I predict that both networks will have to pull some very serious Hail Mary’s to avoid complete bankruptcies this year.
Amy
January 9, 2024 at 7:05 am
What does DEI stand for?
MattS
January 21, 2024 at 7:32 am
DEI means Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Diversity- are minorities represented in the film.
Equity- is everyone presented as equals (I suppose)…
Inclusivity- does the film include minority viewpoints etc…
I hope that helps Amy. 🙂
BR
January 25, 2024 at 6:18 pm
Equity means everyone has equal outcomes regardless of their inborn ability or effort. Equality is everyone has equal opportunity with outcome based on inborn ability and effort.
Logan
March 1, 2024 at 11:41 am
DEI is also a Latin for “god”, which hints at what the diversity, equity, and inclusion is all really about: power and domination. DIE would have been a better acronym, given that it spells the death of freedom, free thought, and the individual. “Die!” is also the sentiment the thought police (DEI) divisions direct towards the employees they cancel. Indeed, after such mobbing, many actually commit suicide and, well, DIE.
8mile
June 6, 2024 at 1:00 pm
There is a Tgender in it..a man called Indya Moore. Since i do not support people experimenting with their body with GDysphoria being considered a mental illness and lots of of Tgenders not having such illness i will not going to buy it. Also giving such behavior a world wide audience looking at the social contagion there already been for years now causing irreversible damage to young peoples bodies that is just sick. Tom Hanks btw gave a Tgender Tman Mack Baydo who thinks she is the fonz and likes to hit on girls a part in his movie making him a pusher of this stuff shows he is not that nice person he pretends to be.