Aquaman (Jason Momoa) is just getting used to life as a husband, father and king. However Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), still seeking revenge for the death of his father has other ideas and with the help of a magic imbued black trident sets the world on a course for destruction. 

Aquaman and his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) must set aside past differences and with a little help from Queen Mera (Amber Heard), Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren) and the Brine King (John Rhys-Davies) save the world. 

Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom marks the final movie in this era of the DC cinematic universe. With only a few successes with the likes of Man Of Steel, Wonder Woman and Shazam the studio has turned to Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn to reboot/reimagine/reignite the comic book fortunes of DC films. And ultimately this film is a fitting finale as it splutters and falters to an unsure end. 

Objectively the Aquaman films are bad. But the one thing you could never accuse them of is taking themselves seriously. Director James Wan has a “throw the kitchen sink” at it approach whilst Jason Momoa plays the character like an excitable 12-year-old. The result is a visual and plot mash up of Lord of the Rings (the trident has an evil power that corrupts), King Kong (mutated large creatures on a remote island) and even James Bond in an evil lair inside a volcano. And there is so much CGI of varying levels of quality it is slightly nauseating. Whilst the comedy sometimes hits such as when we get a montage of what has happened between films as explained via toys in a story to Aquaman’s baby son. Or misses by a huge margin such as a CGI character called Kingfish played by Martin Short. 

The plot itself makes little sense. Especially in relation to decisions around Orm’s character. Clearly the plan was to have a story that focused on family so they needed him involved. They just struggled to have a good reason. Whilst the other main focus on ecological damage we are doing to the planet is fairly surface level…unlike its characters. Ba-dum tish! See, I can make bad jokes like Aquaman. 

As a big Aquaman comics fan the one thing this misses for me was a storyline I know so it does miss out on the fanboy factor that helped me enjoy the first one. But alternately on the other hand it knowingly makes a joke about a squid with the ability to play musical instruments. A clear nod to a cult moment from the first film. 

So it is awful, but it knows it’s not Shakespeare and tries to have fun with it. I compared the original film to Flash Gordon and if you can have that kind of fun with it you might enjoy this more than you think.