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It’s crazy how long WB and DC took to get a lot of their characters on screen. It’s 2018 and we’re now just getting a live-action Aquaman movie. Just like some of their bigger characters, we should be at least three movies deep by now. So suffice to say that since some people have thought this character is a joke, I was looking forward to this. And to have a very good director such as James Wan is reassuring. So walking out of the film, I found myself disappointed in what it offered. Especially since another comic book film did exactly this but better and slightly shorter.
Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) is a man of two worlds. With the possibility of uniting both the seven seas and the land, Arthur is thrust into a quest aided by Mera (Amber Heard) to stop his half-brother King Orm aka Ocean Master (Patrick Wilson) from destroying the surface world and claim his birthright as ruler of Atlantis.
I’ve seen this twice now. We’ll get into the Black Panther comparisons later, but for right now I wanna talk about what I did and didn’t like. So out with the bad. I don’t really notice bad dialogue, and when people bring up parts of a movie that does have bad dialogue it usually doesn’t really bother me. Here, it’s noticeable and atrocious. I couldn’t believe what the actors had to deliver. Honestly, it’s a testament that everyone manages to do a good job with the dialogue given. There were certain lines where I was cringing badly.
I’ll let you know now that this film is a huge slice of cheese and the cheesiness continues to the music. Guys, the score is straight outta SyFy original. Rupert Gregson-Williams who did the elegant, majestic score for Wonder Woman has made a cheesy score. And the song, selection good God. Mr. Wan really loves pop ballads. There’s a scene in Italy where Mera and Arthur are supposed to be falling in love, and with the music selection, I couldn’t help but snicker. This even reaches Suicide Squad levels of needle drops when we have a pop singer’s 2018 version of Toto’s “Africa” complete with a Pitbull verse when our heroes reach the Sahara desert.
But, what is excellent is the world building. At times I could hardly believe that Superman and Batman exist in the same universe just by how detailed and fantastical everything under the sea was. The white Atlantian armor is so cool as well as the giant armored seahorses and sharks. In fact, a whole film set in Atlantis would be awesome. As well as spending time in the seven kingdoms of the sea.
The battles are epic. There’s no denying that I got wrapped up in the sheer scale of this film. I never expected for an Aquaman movie to deliver some striking visuals and big battles, but it does.
The resolution and the way the film deals with its villains is refreshing. The film makes it a big point on why it needs to resolve itself the way it does and I’m glad. I wish more blockbusters (specifically Marvel) would take note of this and find unique ways with handling their villains as well. And speaking of the villains both Patrick Wilson and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II look like their characters. It’s as if both Orm and Black Manta stepped out of a comic book panel and directly onto the screen.
Amber Heard as Mera is the film’s best character. I really wish we were watching her story before Arthur’s as she seems to have one of the most interesting backstories out of all the characters. Same goes for Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna.
But, Black Panther beat DC to the punch and without all of the topical nationalism politics and black identity crisis that was in that film, what’s Aquaman left with? I mean they could have leaned heavily into Arthur’s half-Samoan ancestry or the fact that the film features a hero of an interracial romance, but it doesn’t really. Arthur is referred to as a half-breed and that’s the extent of it. Plus, Arthur goes through almost the same exact arc here as he did in Justice League (which is mentioned briefly in passing). Orm has Killmonger’s military motivations as his main motivation and Black Manta is functioning as Klaue but with Killmonger’s motivation for revenge for his father. Plus, the whole relatives battle over the throne as rightful king was done so much better in Black Panther due to the character development of both hero and villain making the situation complicated. I was really only half invested in watching Arthur be a reluctant hero until he’s not due to storytelling purposes.
Look, there’s fun to be had here and James Wan’s directing is great. But as a whole, I was a bit let down by Aquaman. Maybe my expectations were too high, but for something this long, there needs to be either a bit more punch to the storytelling or a bit more character work to make it pop. I do think with different scriptwriters, a sequel could be awesome. If you have to see this you should spring for IMAX. 92 minutes of the film’s two and a half hour runtime have been formatted for IMAX with the expanded aspect ratio. ------------------------------------------
America from 9:00 on: https://youtu.be/GUwLCQU10KQ
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