The MontyVerse

2023 will likely go down as a historic year for comic book movies. While some like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 flourished, the narrative surrounding the genre is that the market has become oversaturated, and creatives need to change their approach or they will fail. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Flash, and The Marvels all severely underperformed at the box office in comparison to their budgets and were met with mixed critical reviews. While many will walk away from the 2023 comic book movie conversation talking about Marvel, I think that DC is a far more fascinating case study.

In many ways, it is rather poetic that the year is being closed out by Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. The final comic book movie of 2023 is also the final film in what has collectively been known as the DC Extended Universe. Not only that, it is the direct sequel to the most successful film in the DCEU franchise. The first Aquaman in 2018 grossed over a billion dollars at the box office. Unadjusted for inflation, it is the highest-grossing DC film ever – more than any movie in Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, the franchise that arguably kicked off the comic book movie boom of the 21st century. But the paradigm has shifted so much in the five years between these Aquaman films, and it begs the question of whether the audience will show up for the sequel the same way they did for the first film.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom sees Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) assuming two completely unfamiliar roles to him: king of Atlantis and father to a newborn son. Caught between two worlds that don’t understand each other, Arthur finds himself face-to-face once again with Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), whose newfound power and army that he can summon with the Black Trident threatens to destroy both worlds that Arthur holds so dearly to him. In order to stop Manta, he must work together with his imprisoned half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) and just maybe learn the value of what a family is along the way.

One’s feeling on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom are probably going to be based on one’s feelings for the first Aquaman, because it offers a lot of the same. Not necessarily in terms of the story, which is a solid continuation of the character and the world (although it feels very disconnected from the rest of the DCEU). But from a writing standpoint, the tones are very similar, such as the exact same sense of humor. Momoa is very good at playing this humor up well, and his dynamic with Wilson is probably the highlight of the film. The spectacle of the film is on par with the first, and the 3D certainly feels justified. The action sequences are all very well constructed, and some of the creature designs are fun.

Unfortunately, the Aquaman movies are not quite my speed, and I do think that the sequel is a bit of a step down. Where Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom really falls short of its predecessor is in the directing. James Wan is an immensely talented filmmaker, and he has an incredible grasp on the horror genre that translated very well into the first film. One of my favorite scenes in all of the DCEU is the Trench sequence from the first Aquaman. It’s a scene that both fits the film very well because it gets the audience to the next important story point, but also has such a wild and dark feel to it that I was not expecting a comic book movie to go to. There’s no Trench scene equivalent in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and I know that some people don’t like the Trench, so that may be viewed as a positive for you. There’s a scene that I think tries to replicate that horror, but it is played for a lot more laughs than the genuine horror of the Trench monsters.

Additionally, while the action sequences are well constructed from a technical standpoint, the camerawork feels a lot less dynamic. There’s a lot more movement and long takes in the first film, allowing for different and crazy angles of an action scene to be shown. The sequences that do call back to that cinematography are the action high points of the film, but they are few and far between. Most of it is quick-cut and simply not as engaging. Additionally, there are some odd choices for licensed music throughout the film, including the use of the song “Spirit in the Sky,” which was previously used in 2016’s Suicide Squad, but that I think a lot of comic book movie fans tend to associate with the trailer from Guardians of the Galaxy. That’s at least what I thought when I heard the song play in the film.

Character-wise, this is also a much weaker film than the first one. While the progression of Arthur and Orm is strong, the rest of the cast feels rather tertiary. Black Manta has varying goals throughout the film that often feel inconsistent. Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna, the mother of both Arthur and Orm, has very little to do, as does Dolph Lundgren’s Nereus. And I know that mentioning Mera is akin to stepping on a land mine, but I don’t want to discuss the actress as this has nothing to do with her. I think that the character of Mera is done the biggest disservice in this film by far. In the first movie, there is a real sense of who Mera is, the kind of fighter that she is, and that is not just told to the audience, it’s shown; a prime example of this is the fight in Sicily where she is holding her own against Manta and his cronies, the climax of the film. This is almost completely done away with. Mera now serves the archetype of being a mother, and that is her only real defining trait throughout all of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. There is one moment near the end of the film that really exemplifies this problem, and it is a problem. I understand that the film wanted to emphasize the relationship between the brothers, but sacrificing a key figure from the first film and reducing her role to the gender norms that were pushed against in the predecessor is incredibly frustrating to watch.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is not the worst comic book movie of the year by any means. Clearly a lot of care went into this film, exemplified by the fact that so much of the creative team returned for the sequel. However, it feels much more corporate than the first film, and it is somewhat emblematic of the time of comic book movies that we are living through. If Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom underperforms at the box office, which tracking indicates it likely will, it is a very good place from which to reset the DCEU. In the same way that other genres in Hollywood needed to evolve to stay alive, so too does the comic book movie and DC by extension. It seems that DC is in a position to do so now that they’re under new direction, but the question always comes down to how will the audience respond. And Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is no different. No matter what, it is always important to note how audiences respond to films. It allows for better movies to be made and it lets the studios know the kind of stories that need to be told. And if there’s one person that I trust to combine the comic book genre with stories that need to be told, it is James Gunn. So with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, we bid farewell to the DCEU of old, and embrace what is in store for audiences next year.