Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Featured, Reviews Film Threat
James Wan’s Aquaman and the Last Kingdom is the stupidest superhero movie I’ve ever seen. This list includes Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, the entire Fantastic Four, and Howard the Duck. Despite their obvious failures, these films had at least a sliver of redeeming value: unintentional camp, unfulfilled ambition, all-you-want attitude, and great performances. The latest Aquaman has no redeeming value. Judging by the audience reaction as it left theaters, it will be hard to recoup its inflated $205 million price tag. Who wants to undergo two hours of water torture? David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick’s script – if you can call it that – is wrong at every turn. What should be playful banter between the main characters feels leaden, forced, and contrived, as if the author couldn’t be persuaded to come up with a decent joke or pun here and there. It’s almost impossible to explain with its completely stupid and overstuffed plot, but I’ll give you a quick synopsis.
But the same applies to the story as a whole. “Slapdash” would be a compliment when describing the editing, pacing, and headache-inducing assault on the senses that this sleazy excuse for entertainment represents. You might think that scenes in which characters ride translucent seahorses through waves, Aquaman battles giant insects, or armies clash would at least evoke a sense of awe or wonder, but that’s not the case. That’s a mistake. It’s like being stuck in a spinning submarine in turbulent waters, which only induces seasickness and seems to go on and on. Momoa pushes it to 100 points. It’s like he has nothing to lose. Arrogant, self-assured and almost humorless, it shows an underrated star power. I quite liked the first part, but the monotony of it gets boring quickly. Kidman achieved great success with perhaps one of the most embarrassing performances of her career. Did someone on her set tell her the lines? Because she has no idea what’s going on.
Add to this a bit of an agenda-boosting factor: the big, under-addressed issue of global warming, and Aquaman and the Last Kingdom isn’t just one of the worst superhero movies ever made. , I would like to take this further into consideration. Worst Worst movie of all time. But at the time, I thought “Wonka” was a terrible movie, on the level of “Cats.” And lo and behold, critics seem to love it, and audiences seem to love it, too. Maybe as I get older I’ll become an old nuisance. Or maybe I just expect more from our filmmakers and from the audiences that lap up whatever is served to them. I implore you to go see The Holdovers this Christmas season and not waste your hard-earned cash on dreck like this.