Weary Aquaman sequel proves it’s just as well DC is starting over

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM ★★½

(M) 124 minutes

If audiences were polled on which cinematic superhero they’d like to have a beer with, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman would surely rank high. Otherwise known as Arthur Curry, he’s a burly, affable guy with the look of a domesticated Hell’s Angel, who wears a bathrobe around the house, enjoys a good hamburger and dotes on his infant son.

Arthur has the swagger of a natural-born fighter but is allergic to pretension – that is, while he’s on land. Things are otherwise in his second home below the waves, where he serves as the hereditary ruler of Atlantis, a position that allows him to ride around on a giant seahorse in between sitting through boring meetings with a council of elders who tend to shoot down his better ideas.

It’s not hard to imagine why this vision of a double life might resonate with director James Wan, an Australian whose record of commercial success is matched by few in Hollywood. Wan’s first Aquaman film, released five years ago, was among the more endearing recent superhero blockbusters, and like its hero managed to balance the flamboyant and the unassuming.

But much as Arthur has learnt the novelty of being king wears off, a degree of creative weariness is visible in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, reportedly a farewell not just to Momoa’s Aquaman but to the entire loose-knit comic-book saga known as the DC Extended Universe (Henry Cavill’s Superman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman have likewise been handed their redundancy papers, despite the effective casting of all three).

Is this a grand finale tying together all the DC Extended Universe’s loose threads? Not even close, although there’s plenty of full-tilt undersea action to distract us. The plot resembles one of the more fantastical Bond movies, with a scarred supervillain (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who schemes to speed up global warming as roundabout revenge for the death of his dad.

Saving the day requires the help of Arthur’s embittered half-brother (Wan regular Patrick Wilson), the main antagonist in the first Aquaman. The resulting sibling squabbles supply the central emotional dynamic, with Amber Heard as Arthur’s bride Mera largely reduced to cheering from the sidelines with her in-laws, played as before by Temuera Morrison and Nicole Kidman.

One jokey moment threatens to give the entire game away: Arthur addresses his brother as “Loki”, acknowledging the parallels with Marvel’s rival Thor franchise. There’s no denying he has a point (he could equally have compared Atlantis with Wakanda, the hidden kingdom in Marvel’s Black Panther).

But the exchange raises a host of further questions, now never to be answered. Do the Marvel movies exist in the DC Extended Universe, as well as the comic books?

If so, does Arthur enjoy watching them, when kicking back in his home above sea level with pretzels and a pint of Guinness? Does he view them as fantasy, or a form of social realism?

Maybe it’s just as well DC is starting over.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is released in cinemas on December 26.

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