Writer-director James Wan is known for everything from “Saw,” a 2004 film that made torture entertaining, to “Furious 7,” whichever one that was, a couple of “Conjuring” films and an “Insidious.” He’s also the director of “Aquaman,” the 2018 debut of the DC character played by Jason Momoa. Wan directs mediocre to bad screenplays and fills the screen with excessive CG imagery, fights, crashes, fiery explosions, witches, monsters, flying cars and, of course, superheroes and other things that blow up and make loud noises. Chief among these screen-filling loud noises here is Momoa himself, a gifted comic actor with the size, strength, reflexes and athleticism that would have gotten him into the NFL if he had chosen.
As Arthur Curry aka Aquaman, the king of Atlantis, Momoa makes his entrance on a bad-looking giant CG seahorse. It’s not very impressive. But the bearded Aquaman with his skintight golden scaled tank top, his golden trident and iridescent sea-green gauntlets is. He’s “Born to Be Wild,” as the Steppenwolf oldie on the soundtrack announces. We learn that Aquaman splits his life between the lighthouse run by his father Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison), where he and his baby son Arthur Junior live some of the time and where the fridge is full of baby formula and beer. His other life is running Atlantis, which has a stodgy high council he’s not crazy about. Is Aquaman a single father?
You might think so at first. But, no, Amber Heard is still in the film as Mera, the Amazon-like queen of Atlantis. The screenplay attributed to David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who returns from the first one, certainly packs in the exposition and backstory. David Kane aka Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is back as a mercenary with a giant, bug-eyed helmet who lives in a huge submarine. He has created a gun he believes will kill Aquaman if he and Dr. Shin (Randall Park) can find Atlantis. In one scene, Shin and a fellow scientist end up in a big chamber where they are menaced by a giant tentacle. Shin helps Manta steal an Atlantean power source.
The climate crisis on the surface causes people to experience super-extreme weather. Eventually, Aquaman and his half brother Orm (Patrick Wilson of those “Conjuring” movies) join forces to the delight of their fierce mother Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) to stop Manta from bringing the monsters of the Lost Kingdom back to life. Or something like that.
Why, I wondered, did actor Abdul-Mateen II have to mutter the line, “I’m gonna kill me a dead mermaid?” In between pee jokes, a blue cephalopod sidekick and Momoa’s “Castaway” and Wilson jokes, we get superhero spectacle. Aquaman and Orm ride giant insect “horses” that look like they were imported from “John Carter” (2012). We arrive at the Sunken Citadel, where Wan and Johnson-McGoldrick plagiarize the much-plagiarized cantina sequence from “Star Wars” and then have the brazen nerve to lift the Jabba the Hutt sequence from “Return of the Jedi” with Martin Short playing the fake, fishy Jabba. Aquaman goes on about the food he enjoys on the surface (tacos, tequila, steak and fries) and tricks Orm into eating a live cockroach.
Yes, that is Dolph Lundgren, again, as King Nereus. Try not to stare at Wilson’s wigs or hum along with the vaguely Wagnerian notes of composer Rupert Gregson-Williams (“Wonder Woman”). That’s the voice of John Rhys-Davies as the giant crab warrior. Sorry, but that cameo by Ben Affleck’s Batman has been cut. Watching the merely 2-hour and 4-minute “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is like rewatching every superhero film you’ve ever seen. Ahoy, me mateys, 2024 DC Extended Universe reboot just ahead.
Verniere reviews films for The Boston Herald.
