Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

It appears that I’m the only superhero with the ability to have fun in every scene and still know how silly it all is, and that’s Aquaman. More specifically, that’s Jason Momoa’s Aquaman half-human Prince (and later King) of Atlantis Arthur Curry as a musclebound, long-haired, beer chugging, high fiving, smartass bro who looks a lot like Jason Momoa himself.

Momoa goes full Momoa in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” an electric-pink submarine wreck of a sequel where he battles returning baddie Black Manta né David Kane (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who blames Aquaman for his dad’s death in the last movie possessed by the spirit of the Black Trident, which was made by devils from the seventh necropolis-kingdom of Atlantis. Black Manta is dangerous to himself as well as others. He does not control the power of his awesome weapon at all. His plan involves a glowing green old power source that’s like radiation times a billion trillion gazillion zillion: It is making climate change happen faster (the title etches itself into a collapsing glacier).

Not great. Definitely need Aquaman here.

Momoa is the greatest reason for watching this movie. As a “rebel” action hero, he is alpha cool to an almost jerk-ish extent and still convinces you that his character is at heart good and knows when he’s gone too far and sincerely regrets it. And he has versatility. Momoa can spend one minute here practically giving his own smart-alecky running commentary on the movie he’s in, then weep bitter tears or scream out in anguish or vengeful fury over some bad-guy’s dastardly act the next minute, as if he were acting in a silent-movie melodrama with title cards.

And it all works. The self-awareness never grows self-conscious or alienating; instead of whiplashing audiences, Momoa leads them to the next scene (or mode) so that it feels like part of a whole. (By the way, our hero has an infant son in this one by his wife Mera, played by Amber Heard and there are Pixar style obvious but can’t miss jokes about the kid keeping the parents up all night; belly laughs from baby confirm Momoa’s movie-star bona fides.)

The second-best thing about seeing Aquaman again is getting more Momoa screen-time with Patrick Wilson as Arthur’s half-brother Orm Marius, aka Ocean Master, deposed would-be king of Atlantis and Arthur’s chief rival in first film. Wilson seems to have been warped into contemporary Hollywood from much earlier decade; he has Van Heflin quality here (Matt typed for benefit of any oldsters and Wikipedia consulters reading). He’s as dry in this role as man playing ocean-dwelling humanoid could be; not just never-in-on-joke but doesn’t seem to know what jokes are guy.

Which makes him perfect foil for Arthur Curry who calls him “little brother” (despite lil bro’s repeated attempts to kill him in last film) and messes with his head like only big brother can. Arthur is never more infuriating to Orm than when he’s barreling through life, crashing and smashing his way past obstacles, somehow coming out unscathed, and grinning at Orm as if he had a plan the whole time.

Returning director James Wan and screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (one of Wan’s go to collaborators; he wrote the first “Aquaman” and two “Conjuring” sequels) don’t waste a lot of time either setting up the story or laboring to convince us that the rest of the cast of the first film (including Temuera Morrison and Nicole Kidman as Arthur’s dad and mom, and Dolph Lundgren as Mera’s father Nereus) had dramatically sound reasons for staying out of the way so Momoa and Wilson could carry the picture.

Probably two thirds of this sequel’s running time is devoted to Arthur and Orm doing the argumentative buddies on a mission thing, with a bit of estranged brothers reconciling, plus dashes of redemption narrative, lessons learned, and admitting you were wrong so that you can grow.

This is a fun movie, but not anywhere near a great one. It lacks the go-for-broke bigness of the original, with its flagrantly melodramatic family dynamics and knowingly ludicrous spectacle (like the seahorses that whinnied and the sharks that roared). There’s a cluttered too-muchness to the production. You may get the sense that there was chaos behind the scenes, and stuff that was staged and shot with the intention of having it play out full-length had to get pulverized and reconstituted in editing to make it all work for audiences and exhibitors.

The narrated by Aquaman opening montage plays like an attempt to shave 20 minutes off the running time by getting scene-setting and expository throat-clearing out of the way so they could jump ahead to where they brothers get in trouble then work through their relationship while toppling statues, punching giant bugs. zapping people with laser guns.

“How many influences do you think they referenced in this?” my viewing companion asked afterward. I wouldn’t dare put a number on it, but the film is upfront about its fondness for “Star Wars,” Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft, Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the “Matrix” films (in particular, the sentinel bots) and works of H.G. Wells (one spectacular extended action scene is built around Arthur and Orm trying to fend off a “War of the Worlds”-type tripod machine).

We follow them through an array of settings that includes a necropolis where everyone wears what look like Mario Bava-designed Halloween masks (“Planet of the Vampires,” which Wan has said was an influence), and a secret underwater lair constructed from pirate ships that were sunk during high-seas battles with laser-wielding buccaneers, and a volcanic island full of green-goo-mutated flora and fauna that’s like something Ray Harryhausen would’ve stop-motion animated in the ’60s (the Harryhausen showcase “Mysterious Island,” based on Wells’s novella, is a charming fantasy adventure that’s perfect for young kids, by the way).

The combination of CGI and real locations should appear less cartoonish in 2-D than it did in the 3-D screening I saw. The detail work is impressive though, especially among the non-human characters that are basically SpongeBob SquarePants, including a talking crawfish king and a dutiful octopus who travels along with the brothers on their adventure and periodically gets sent back to Atlantis to update everyone on how things are going.

Wan never tops himself with an action scene as virtuosic as the leaping across rooftops fight in his first Aquaman, but he’s got some good ones here choreographed, framed and edited with his usual pinpoint clarity even when the camera is shaking like an astronaut during liftoff. A few play out from a distance, with our speck-sized heroes racing through vistas packed with gigantic creatures, machines, armored warriors, jagged rocks, fire and ice.

Kidman, Morrison, Lundgren, Abdul-Mateen and other supporting players exhibit such poker-faced commitment to the story throughout that you might wonder how much richer this thing could’ve been if they’d been integrated elegantly instead of shoehorned in. But still: This is a ride! It’s fun! Like its hero (and Wan), it succeeds despite itself. And there’s something to be said for a big-budget fantasy that knows what not to do and when to stop doing it.

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