There was a good amount of agonizing over which movie to watch this Christmas weekend.  My original choice was Poor Things.  However, the more previews I saw for it, and other stuff I read about it on the internet, my concerns grew.  Before making my decision, I looked up the amount of nudity in the film.  Nothing I saw was good.  At the final moment, no matter the positive reactions of most critics, I felt that I could not put those images before my eyes.  The next logical choice was The Iron Claw.  The problem with that one is that I do not enjoy wrestling, at all, and it is based on the true story of the rise in popularity of that so-called sport.  It is, again, another flick drawing rave reviews, but I also looked up what kind of questionable content it contains.  Without going into detail, I will simply say that it was enough to point me in another direction.  Thus, it was down to Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom or Migration.  Every time I saw a trailer for the former, I whispered “no” under my breath.  As for the latter, I thought about asking my nieces to see the animated feature.  Yet, they are getting a little old for this material, and I did not want to bother my sister.  Thus, I proverbially pinched my nose and saw Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.  Ugh.

Somewhere on the high seas there is a trans-ocean freighter being boarded by armed men at the beginning of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.  Later it is revealed that they are pirates, and they are foiled by the title hero (Jason Momoa), known to his family as Arthur Curry.  I am going to call him Art because I feel like it.  It fits his personality better.  Art has a busy life.  In addition to filling the superhero gig, he is the ruler of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, and he is raising a baby boy, Junior, along with his wife Mera (Amber Heard).  The sequence where this is all explained is played for laughs, but it is tedious.  The main thing to come of all this is that Art is bored by the trappings of his kingship, and would rather do cool things with his son and drink beer with his father, Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison).  Meanwhile, his nemesis from the previous film, David Kane (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who took on the deadly mantle of the Black Manta, has not stopped trying to figure out how to destroy Art.  Somehow, he has learned about the Lost Kingdom.  How did this happen?  Who knows?  He has also deus ex machina-ed a few scientists, namely Dr. Stephen Shin (Randall Park), into the villain’s employ in order to find the long dead civilization.  He believes it is key to rebuilding his deadly suit, with its death-ray eyes, which he thinks will help him get revenge on Art for killing his father in the last movie.  Dr. Shin finds a way into the Lost Kingdom, and David finds more than expected.  The ancient part of the realms beneath the waves had once by led by Kordax (Pilou Asbæk), the evil brother of King Atlan (Vincent Regan) of Atlantis.  Kordax turned himself and his people into monsters through the use of the Black Trident in order to challenge the power of Atlantis.  Still awake?  I would not blame you otherwise.  David finds this three-pronged spear lying in two on the ocean floor.  As soon as he picks it up and joins the pieces, he receives a vision from Kordax, who promises great power to David if the mercenary helps free Kordax from his magical prison.  The first step in accomplishing this is to begin raiding Atlantean vaults for a substance called orichalcum.  Imagine nuclear waste, but for whatever reason power companies kept it stored in canisters under lock and key, and you get the idea.  David starts stealing it in order to power a giant furnace somewhere in the Pacific, which helps him build weapons of war and an army.  The bi-product of this is a huge amount of greenhouse gases that begins to pollute the planet, causing rising temperatures and other ecological disasters.  In short, his plan is to warm the Earth in order to melt the ice to get to the kingdom. . . ?  Huh?  It is during David’s attempt to find more orichalcum that he is finally caught by Art.  The inevitable fight shows Art that David is more powerful than before, particularly since Mera is hurt in the process.  She appears a day later totally fine, but in the meantime Art is mad.  So angry is Art, in fact, that he decides to free his brother, Orm Marius (Patrick Wilson), from the prison I guess Art had placed Orm in at the end of the last movie.  I have nearly blocked that one from my memory, but please feel free to read my review of it to jog your memory.  I do not intend to do so.  Anyway, they bicker immediately, but Orm is able to grasp that there is a bigger problem that requires their grudging cooperation.  Besides, Orm had once used David against Art, thus the idea is that Orm would know where to look.  Art and Orm are eventually led to the tiny dot in the Pacific that forms David’s base.  While they are able to shut down their power plant, but David gets away, headed to Antarctica and the Lost Kingdom.  Suddenly, there is a new development: David needs somebody of royal Atlantean blood to complete the ritual to free Kordax.  Thus, David kidnaps Junior before going to the South Pole.  Thanks to the sympathies of Dr. Shin, who has been incredulous of David from the beginning, Art and Orm are tipped off as to David’s location.  With a few more fish pals, Art and company go to the Lost Kingdom and stop David, at least for the moment.  When Orm touches the Black Trident, the spirit of Kordax instead inhabits Orm.  It takes Art and Orm learning to finally put aside their differences for them to triumph.  The last scene is of a seemingly drunk Art addressing the United Nations from Ellis Island, revealing the existence of Atlantis.

If you took little of what you read about the plot of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom seriously, then you are not alone. One of the characters complains about this very problem.  This is not something I typically like to comment on, but the performances are strained, adding to this dilemma.  It comes off like they are delivering their lines after several takes where they had to yell “Cut!” a number of times, the result of them laughing through their delivery.  Overall, it makes for a problem of tone.  One moment Art is delivering one of the most important speeches in the course of human history when he reveals the existence of Atlantis, the next he is letting out a sort of rebel yell as he completes his soliloquy and dives into the water.  Hey, bro, you might want to be more attentive to such matters, and try to have some gravitas.  Supposedly there is a lesson he learns about the importance of statesmanship, but his gesture at the end makes me question the veracity of this claim.  He seems to be the same half human/half Atlantean as he was at the beginning.  If the main character has no arc, then do we really have a movie?  Yet, I should not pick solely on Momoa.  He may be a meathead, but the rest of his co-stars looked like they could not believe some of the things they were saying.  This is especially noticeable in Mera, though this could have a lot do with Heard’s recent legal troubles.  I read online that before production began on this film, there was a petition to keep her off it, and she had to fight hard to remain part of the story.

As for the whole story of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, I am not sure what to say about it from a Catholic perspective. Okay, there is one moment.  After listening to Art complain about his duties, Tom tells his son that sometimes the most heroic thing one can do is to not give up.  This is a good reminder for a Christian, especially one struggling with sin.  The enemy is always going to tell you that one little transgression is okay.  Once that is done, then he will try to keep you down by saying that you might as well keep going now that you have done the deed.  If that is allowed to go on long enough, before you know it you may start to feel that there is no return.  This is all untrue.  Sin is a failure, to be sure, but it is not irreversible.  I do not mean to say that the sin can be undone.  What can be removed is sin’s effect.  Yet, this is only possible with a contrite heart, one that is truly sorry for having done wrong by God, great or small.  To put it in the parlance of the film, it takes a willingness to get back up no matter how many times you fall.  These sentiments are found throughout the Bible and Christian history.  You can stumble any number of times and God is right there to gather the pieces with you and move on in the hopes of doing better in the future.  To a certain degree, as much as it pains me to say this, you can see this in Art and Orm’s relationship.  To Orm’s credit, he is willing to go back to prison after the day has been saved.  What keeps this from happening is Art issuing a pardon for his brother.  Orm had committed a pretty serious crime, whatever it was, but he showed a true willingness to be redeemed.  This is something God wants from all of us.

I hope I did not bother any of the surprisingly large audience gathered to see Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom by audibly saying to myself, “Ugh.  Get on with it!”  I was ready for this film to be over after the first few minutes, so I apologize for my frustration.  Hopefully you will read this review and say to yourself, well, that is enough of that, and not see this one.