Dir. James Wan
Aquaman is a conundrum for me. I don’t think it’s good (I guess I’ll get that out of the way now) but I do think it’s fun; meaning I had a good time in the theater and I’d probably watch it again with friends. But I do think that’s the crux of the issue, this is a movie tailor made to have friends over for some drinks, popcorn, and a home version of Mystery Science Theater, not a movie of quality. This movie is full of interesting ideas but they’re handled everywhere from well, to oddly, to terribly. It’s not an unwatchable movie by any means, but I doubt I’d ever rewatch it on my own. Then again, this was my opinion on Venom and it went on to gross over $800 million, with rave reviews from many moviegoers who truly, deeply enjoyed it. Not in a “so bad, it’s good” way, or a “It’s silly but entertaining” way, but “I genuinely believe this to be a good film and the critics are just mean”. So with that in mind, I’m curious to see what the consensus will be on Aquaman. Some seem to believe that along with Wonder Woman, Aquaman is taking the DC universe in a shining, new direction; and others, like myself, think this movie is perhaps getting too much praise for surpassing a very low bar.
Out of the gate, this movie knows what it’s selling; the pure, unmitigated, undiluted Badass-ness of Jason Momoa. The audience is treated to an incredible number of close up shots of Jason, eyes a-glow and one dramatic eyebrow arched threateningly. The camera pans out, (and slowly up and down) to let you know that he is indeed shirtless and damn, he works out. Why is he wearing jeans and a belt to traverse the ocean? Never answered, and I don’t think you’re supposed to think about it too much.
But while the movie puts a great deal of effort into telling the audience that this isn’t the crayon blonde, dolphin surfing, cartoon Aquaman aesthetically, they fall very short in giving him any real character. He has a cool-guy personality and plenty of quips but we are never given much in the way of deeper motivation. The audience is shown flashbacks of Arthur Curry as a child, learning the ways of the Atlanteans; but those scenes are mostly a hilariously unsubtle fount of exposition meant to move the plot forward but do little to develop Arthur as a character, or they provide information that doesn’t answer any of the questions you’d hoped they’d answer. The movie especially missed the boat on providing some interesting cultural representation. I admit when Jason Momoa was cast, I’d hoped we’d get a good amount of that Polynesian influence in both the casting and the story. Instead, it was mostly ignored except to make all the Atlanteans sound that much more racist when they called him “tainted” or a “half-breed”. However occasionally Arthur would say things or move in a certain way during fights that make you go, “Hey, I watched that video of the Aquaman cast doing a Haka! This looks familiar”. But they popped in so sporadically and with so little context, it just felt awkward.
The dialogue was more exposition than meaningful exchange of realistic or character defining words, but the visuals of this film definitely delivered-sometimes. Aquaman is a visual roller coaster. Wan has some truly gorgeous scenes, especially the fighting sequences, but the highs are matched by some truly horrendous CGI lows. There’s a scene in an all-white throne room where I almost missed all the content because the CGI was triggering Jupiter Ascending war flashbacks. And when I clawed my way back to the present, the background was so terrible I still missed some of the dialogue. It was the kind of green screen work that felt so heavy and intrusive even the actors look digitally rendered. I’m almost tempted to apologize to Henry Cavill’s upper lip for every joke I’ve made about it in the last year.
However even at its highest moments, it was obvious that Aquaman rested on a very fragile base. I’ve seen some praise this film’s worldbuilding and truly I’d love to see what they saw, but all I saw were glimpses of a world that were never fleshed out. We catch glimpses of Atlantis as Arthur and Mera go in and out of the city but we know nothing of its people. We catch glimpses of other underwater kingdoms but they are merely pawns to be killed or manipulated by Oceanmaster. Also there’s a very confusing detail where only Atlanteans of royal blood are able to breathe air, which has haunted me ever since I’ve seen the movie. Is it a government conspiracy? Genetic modifications of the underclass to keep them docile? I have so many questions.
Additionally, a world can’t be built without strong and interesting characters and this movie doesn’t seem to know what to do with the ones it has. I mentioned Arthur’s tidepool like depth but sadly this extends to Mera and Atlanta as well. Atlanta is introduced as this incredibly independent warrior queen who sacrifices her husband and child in an attempt to save their lives. By the end she’s just the mother of the hero, teary eyed and proud as her son becomes the “True King” that Atlantis needed because Prophecy. Mera is a water bender. I repeat, an Atlantean who lives underwater, is a water bender. Yet someway, somehow she isn’t kicking everyone’s butt all the time. She isn’t quite a damsel waiting to be saved, but she’s lightyears away from what she logically should be. To try to avoid the obvious, the movie goes back and forth about the strength of her abilities. At one point she stops a tsunami single handedly, at other points she has performance issues in relatively minor tasks.
Warner Bros.
Finally we get to the disappointment that was Black Manta, played by Yahya Abdul Mateen. While I wasn’t overly impressed by Oceanmaster, he was a functional villain. He was satisfactorily evil and though not particularly complex, he was Arthur Curry’s physical equal and could go against him toe to toe. By contrast, Black Manta has an interesting and understandable reason to hate Aquaman, the audience can feel sympathy for him and relate to his motivations. But as a villain, he gets so totally and almost comically defeated by Arthur that I can’t really take him seriously as a threat to either Arthur or the world at large. I can’t begin to understand why James Wan and Warner Bros chose to include him in this movie as a side quest mini boss when he’s such a prolific antagonist in the comics but his limited screen time did him a real disservice. The film ends with Black Manta and some sequel bait but what I’ve seen of him is so unimpressive, I can’t compel any excitement for him as the main villain. I’ve already seen him be handily defeated, what is there to look forward too?
I could probably go on for longer but I’m going to cut off this thesis here: this film is fun but wholly mediocre. Even at its best there was a sad lack of originality, every new scene was constantly reminding me of other more successful films or stories. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or the story of King Arthur are an integral part of pop culture at this point; it’s hard to find any modern piece of sci-fi or fantasy that doesn’t draw on them to some degree, but it went a little too far into the realm of laziness. There were even times where I felt like scenes has been ripped straight out of Moana (There’s a certain scene where I was waiting for Shiny to start playing, and frankly it would have been a far better soundtrack choice than the Pitbull rendition of “Africa”).
The movie missed many chances to undercut its own cliches with just a wee bit of self-awareness. It doesn’t need to be Deadpool, or even Teen Titans Go To the Movies– but with the amount of pop culture references Arthur makes, it’s a bit wild that he is sent on a quest to find the magic trident that will make you king with nary a comment. This movie is well on it’s way to making $1 Billion so clearly my litany of complaints hold no place in the heart of the movie going public. I understand it to a degree, because I too had a good time with my friend in the theater watching this movie, but if I hadn’t needed to write out my thoughts for the sake of this review, I’m pretty sure I’d have forgotten half the plot. Sadly, Aquaman wasn’t the fish prince that was promised- so once again we hold our breath, and wait for the “new direction” the DC universe is still looking to go down.
(And while you wait, if you want a movie that has excellent storytelling, amazing art direction, boatloads of heart, fun and a killer soundtrack- Go see Into the Spider-Verse instead.)