The Film Buffa: ‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’ claims the worst movie of 2023 title

It’s a giant bonfire of tired superhero tropes that goes on for two plus hours.

At one point in James Wan’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, I wondered if the acclaimed director had been kidnapped and held against his will while making this movie-and then I remembered he directed the first one as well. Sometimes nothing makes sense except for money.

Lost Kingdom makes the 2018 original look like a Best Picture hopeful, a magical idea due to the fact that Aquaman was a bloated mess the first time around. A giant excuse to waste good actors’ (Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Yahya Mateenn Abdul II) time and give screen time to bad ones (Amber Heard is all over the sequel), it was an accomplishment just to make it through the 124 minute movie.

Jason Momoa does all one can with a script that could have been conceived on Chat GPT, but he’s not the greatest actor to ever live either. He’s a decent action hero who looks like he showed up two hours late to a rave here. Some of his line readings are unintentionally funny, and that’s a result of the entire product feeling cobbled together by a disinterested P.E. kindergarten class. Maybe he needs a new shade other than far out dude hero guy.

What’s the story? As Hal 2000 would put it, the new king is bored until an old foe (Mateen II) whose father he killed comes roaring back for revenge. But he’s got new equipment and Randall Park at his disposal, so Momoa’s Arthur Curry has to unlock his defeated brother (Wilson, looking generally aloof) from one of those ocean prisons to help him reclaim the throne or something. Yawn.

And this is one of those movies where fish references are jammed into a script like emissions tests before Christmas, way past the point of eye-rolling exhaustion. The action is recycled from 20 different older DCEU movies. Even the great Dolph Lundgren can’t overcome terrible CGI.

Speaking of computer generated imagery that felt groundbreaking back in the 90s, the entire film feels like it was made on a laptop instead of an actual set with humans. There’s little authentic about it, and even less fun in the experience. All one can think is how wrong things have went since Birds of Prey, which was a personality-filled gem.

Much of Lost Kingdom feels ripped from Marvel or other, much better DC films, including the brothers unlikely joining forces. It’s all tired and looking to be buried. James Gunn should enjoy lightning the match on all of this. There’s no need to make a worst films list for this year.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is easily the worst, with the only challenge coming from Marvel’s Ant-Man Quantamania. A telling sign that comic book movies need a huge makeover, and how low the two biggest makers of such films will flown lately.

Skip the one. James Wan could have made six Death Sentence type movies with this kind of budget. Such a waste.

(Images courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures Group, who better greenlight Heat 2 after this shit.)