When I saw Aquaman 2, I didn’t have high expectations. It was a movie that was in production when it was announced by Warner Bros that a new regime led by James Gunn would be taking over the running of all DC superhero movies in the future. This came around the release of Black Adam, and within days we learned that The Rock wouldn’t return for a Black Adam sequel and Henry Cavill would be replaced as Superman for the new DCU.
This upheaval meant nothing good for the yet unreleased Flash, Blue Beetle and Aquaman 2 movies. In particular both the Flash as played by Ezra Miller and Aquaman played by Jason Momoa had already been in multiple movies and linked to Cavill’s portrayal as Superman. The idea that any of these films still had any relevance to the future films was vague at best and bleak at worst. The idea was that the Flash movie would open the idea of the multiverse and provide an answer for a new beginning whilst allowing some options for aspects of what came before to still continue. As demonstrated by Marvel, a multiverse story can mean selective recasting and still include some actors in a new version of the same role they once played.
But with the failure of Flash and the under performance of Blue Beetle, it seemed the writing was on the wall for Aquaman 2. This movie promised to be a sequel to the first film and nothing more, and there were no designs for this to be an ending chapter for the DCEU…which stands for DC Extended Universe.
The opening minutes of the sequel kinda summed up what this film would be overall in its standing as the end of the saga started by Man of Steel and continued in Zack Snyder’s Justice League story. In the first five minutes it had Aquaman saying people think he is lame, a baby literally piss in his face, and him say that being king of Atlantis is boring. That was how the final film in the current DCEU cinematic universe begins.
I mean come on, people do think Aquaman is lame. Don’t actually say that out loud in the Aquaman movie or it just continues that mindset and reinforces it.
Also, Amber Herd is in the film which may have put lots of people off seeing the film. Whether you like her or not she’s not in it much before she gets blasted in the throat and incapacitated for the majority of the movie. This is clearly not done for the purposes of the story and is clearly some kind of middle ground after the controversy that surrounded her in the trial of her against Johnny Depp. When she does return she barely says a word and it’s noticeable.
Another issue with this film is that it doesn’t really introduce any new characters or especially, any new villains after the first film. Manta is back and still a main villain, and Patrick Wilson is also back as the turn coat villain brother of Aquaman, Orm and is on something of a redemption arc. I’m not sure of any other superhero film series that has the exact same villains from the first to the second movie. It’s just not that interesting.
Truthfully, I should have watched the first film again before watching the sequel as other than Aqua Man and Amber I couldn’t remember who anyone was. Dolf Lungren and Boba Fett and are in it so that’s cool though.
There’s a cool sequence where Orm, who looks suspiciously like Jesus has become skinny because he needs water, and crawls to the ocean from some baddies and collapses down just as the tide comes in. When the baddies surround him, he gets hit by a wave and goes from Jesus to God bod in three seconds. If only I could do it that easily.
Generally, the film is exactly what we’ve come to expect from a DC film in the last five years. Inoffensive enough and with some decent action and humour, but nothing that will leave a huge impression on you.
Aqua Man and Orm then go to an underwater city that reeks of Star Wars. There’s a weird bar with a weird alien fish band and then a huge slug man who is the DCEU version of Jabba the Hutt.
There’s another cool idea here where Aqua Man puts a diving helmet on Jabba and starts leaking the water to drown him in oxygen. Nice reversal of the norm.
Aqua Man and water Orm then go to a place which is just like Skull Island from King Kong where Orm bites the head off a bug which was more sad and distressing than funny…although was still a little funny. They then find there are giant bugs and man-eating plants. A huge wasted opportunity was not showing a giant bug that Aqua Man punches off a cliff him fall exactly like Hans Gruber does in Die Hard.
Randall Park who you’ll know as the comedy FBI guy from Ant Man plays basically the same character in this movie. He is a comedic scientist who Manta makes work for him. He defects over to the good side as soon as Aquaman shows up.
A highlight was the middle action sequence where you begin to ponder how Aquaman can get trapped under a boulder but is strong enough to swim freely under the immense pressure of the depths of water. Amber then returns and doesn’t speak or explain how she was no longer injured, and a crab monster voiced by Gimli from Lord of the Rings shows up with Dolphin Lungren and truthfully by this stage I found I was starting to get into the film.
I didn’t quite understand it, but a group of whales turned up and used the shining to defeat the enemy war submarine towards the end.
Orm ends up saving Amber and this leads to him becoming evil and setting the big boss, which is an evil Tree Skeletor man free. You may say aha, there is a new villain in the film, but nope, it lasts all of ten seconds. The evil tree Skeletor who is teased the whole movie never gets more than a step off his throne before he’s toast.
Truthfully this film is enjoyable and whilst it doesn’t wow, and just does what you’d expect it to do, and is probably the best DCEU film in a while. It’s just a shame that this was the end. And on that note, the film has a post credit scene of Orm eating a burger and then seeing a bug and adding it to the burger to eat. Again, this was only mildly funny and my sympathies went to the bug. But this was also the final shot of the DCEU and again sums up the sad ending of it all. The final chapter in the troubled series started with Aquaman’s kid peeing in his face and ended with his brother eating a live cockroach.
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