An underwater bar scene is swiped from the Mos Eisley Cantina in the original “Star Wars,” still the gold standard for sci-fi worldbuilding on screen. Tied for intellectual dialogue for dead last on the film’s list of priorities is originality. The script is almost exhilaratingly dumb at times, as when a character says, “I sense something in the water,” and another one immediately says, “Light her up.” The filmmakers have seemingly sidestepped Heard’s ongoing legal entanglements with ex-husband Johnny Depp, each of whom has accused the other of domestic violence, by making her character such a nonentity we forget who’s even playing her. Then there’s Amber Heard as Aquaman’s wife Mera. Jason Momoa in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.” (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Wilson’s portrayal of Orm more readily suggests the pre-Momoa Aquaman parodied on “Family Guy” and “Robot Chicken.” You may remember his crotch-first swimming style in the first movie, which emphasized his comfort in the water as a full-blooded Atlantean - and subtly feminized his character, per long-standing Hollywood villain conventions - in contrast to Momoa’s way of pushing the water aside with his massive arms and swimming headfirst towards the camera with a grin. “Lost Kingdom,” for reasons too complicated to explain, finds Aquaman buddying up with his half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), who tried to destroy the surface world in the first movie. This is the final film in the DC Extended Universe, which never found the same financial or cultural foothold as Marvel’s Cinematic Universe despite producing some of the most interesting superhero films of the genre’s 21st-century boom - including the original 2018 film, also directed by Wan, which situated Momoa in a universe somewhere between the fishy logic of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the Day-Glo surrealism of “The Fifth Element.” Sadly, this may be the last we see of his Aquaman on screen. Ignoring the actors’ maxim about not sharing a scene with a child or a dog, Momoa plays to members of the audience who wouldn’t mind having a hunk like him to help around the house. This Aquaman would make a great drinking buddy - and, as we think during his scenes with his infant son Arthur Jr., a pretty good dad. Momoa’s dude-bro interpretation of the king of Atlantis deliberately contrasts with the long-standing pop-culture perception of the character as the butt of Justice League jokes. A superhero who can talk to fish? This limited skillset is more than enough for Jason Momoa, who throws himself into the character with gusto in James Wan’s “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.”

Star wars mos eisley scenery