‘Aquaman 2’ Is Actually the Worst DC Movie Yet

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is the last gasp of Warner Bros’ long-running and ill-fated DC Extended Universe (DCEU), which is now being rebooted by James Gunn and Peter Safran as the DC Universe (DCU). As a result, there’s no serialized-storytelling reason to be invested in James Wan’s sequel to 2018’s marine blockbuster. In fact, there’s no cause of any kind to pay attention to this lavishly hectic and cacophonous washout of a follow-up, whose plot is nonsense, visuals are garish, and performances are the wooden sort born from having talented actors pretend to be underwater and interacting with fanciful creatures on green screen sets. It’s a franchise farewell so underwhelming, nary a tear will be shed over its passing.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (in theaters Dec. 22) is crazily overdesigned and belligerently busy. Worse, it’s absurdly inconsequential. Set years after its predecessor, it finds Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), aka Aquaman, now firmly ensconced on the throne of Atlantis, as well as married to Mera (Amber Heard), with whom he’s recently had a son. Things couldn’t be going better for the hero, who splits his time between life on land and in the sea, except that he’s intensely bored by his royal duties and prefers to be battling nefarious pirates, as he does during the film’s opening. Luckily for him, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldnick’s script (based on a story co-conceived with Wan, Momoa, and Thomas Pa’a Sibbett) introduces Star Wars prequels-style government councils and warring political factions and then wholly ignores them in favor of establishing a brewing showdown between Aquaman and old foe David Kane (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), otherwise known as Black Manta.

Regardless of his prior defeat at the hands of Aquaman, the big-helmeted Black Manta hasn’t abandoned his quest for vengeance against the Justice League member, whom he loathes for killing his dad. To best the superhero, he goes in search of Atlantean technology that will restore his power suit. With the aid of scientist Dr. Stephen Shin (Randall Park), he locates it, along with a Black Trident that causes him to become possessed by the weapon’s maker, Necrus, who resembles a demonic-skeleton King Triton and who was once the ruler of the oceans’ long-lost seventh kingdom. Wielding the Black Trident makes Black Manta really strong and really mean. It also compels him to raid secret storage facilities in order to steal Orichalcum, a magical substance that fuels his ship and, when burned, releases greenhouse gasses (and is green!) that are rapidly accelerating global climate disasters—something that Necrus covets, since he’s intent on getting thawed out of his frozen prison.

Read more at The Daily Beast.