Aquaman

I hope you guys like cheese with your H₂0 because there’s plenty in this movie. I’ll be honest: I’m more of a fan of the DC Universe than most. I enjoyed Batman vs Superman a good amount, really liked Wonder Woman (particularly after the first hour), thought Suicide Squad was entertaining enough, and found Justice League to be bearable. I’d probably pit Aquaman above the likes of Suicide Squad and Justice League but below Wonder Woman. There’s a lot of entertaining moments along with some cringe in this movie, so let’s go ahead and… dive… right in.

            Jason Momoa, aka Khal Drogo and even Conan, works perfectly as Arthur Curry, aka Fishboy—excuse me, Fishman. I mean, just, what a man. Even the multiple actors who play young Aquaman are well cast. But speaking of those flashbacks, young Willem Dafoe is one creepy dude; imagine a 60-year-old man looking up YouTube makeup tutorials from a tween girl, and that’s a bit like what he looks like—I swear those eyebrows are the stuff nightmares are made of. Curry is the son of the Queen of Atlantis—goddess Nicole Kidman—and a lighthouse keeper played by freaking Jango Fett himself (credit to Seth Sanders for pointing this out to me). Patrick Wilson is a good contrast to Momoa, but he’s a bland villain overall. Amber Heard as Lady Mera puts in a fine performance, but I’ll talk later about some of the dumb story points that involve her.

            And I have to dedicate a new paragraph for how bad Black Manta is. From his first scene where he raises his arm and yells, “NOOOOOOO,” as his father (Mr. HIV positive from E.R. as well as a bit part in the new show The Rookie) gets pinned under a torpedo as their submarine starts sinking, to his second scene where his only direction was to snarl and look menacing, to his third scene… It’s fine that Aquaman doesn’t take things too seriously, but it’s still not good if I’m chuckling at what are supposed to be some of the more serious parts. Of all the over-the-top acting and dialogue, Black Manta is the worst of them all.

            I’ll try not talking about the plot too much because, let’s face it, there isn’t much of one. Kudos to this movie for condensing the origin part of everything down, but the filmmakers knew going in that it wasn’t going to be the story that would sell the movie tickets. The film is over 2 hours long, and there were a couple parts where I could tell scenes had been whittled down just to keep the movie at its current length, but there weren’t any too egregious editing mishaps. When we’re introduced to Atlantis, we see glimpses of the ecosystem, economy, politics, lifestyles, and how the Atlantians and sea creatures live harmoniously, but one of my biggest wishes from the film was for them to go more in-depth on how the Atlantis society functioned. Again, I’ll explain more later, but they yada-yada’d over stuff so they wouldn’t have to explain other choices made in the movie.

            While there are occasional logical gaps in some of the storytelling, it all breezes along fine since nobody is really worried about it anyways. But I will not let the Sicily, Italy, scene go unheard because it’s awful. Worse trash than the pollution shown in the film is the lovey-dovey, smoochey smoochey element of Arthur and Mera. Their banter back and forth is more hit than miss, but instead of keeping a solid chemistry between the leads like how Aaron Sorkin has it in the greatest movie ever A Few Good Men, we are forced to watch them make it a relationship, and more than it being utterly predictable, it’s just bad. And this is exemplified by one of the worst uses of a soundtrack ever in a movie. Why in the world am I watching a superhero movie when I suddenly hear Pitbull singing—wait for it— “Ocean to Ocean.” After this is used in a transition scene, there’s also a love song played while Mera humorously adjusts to landlubber life in Italy much to the amusement of Arthur; the scene is fine and has a couple laughs, but the song is so heavy-handed and on the nose and just kills everything. It’s weird and the songs aren’t very good either; okay fine, the song played during the end credits is decent, but that shouldn’t even count. And to top it all off, when Pitbull isn’t rapping, we’re graced by the worst score in a DC movie yet. Hans Zimmer utilized excellent themes for the 3 big heroes in Batman vs. Superman, but this sadly doesn’t include Aquaman, so the score by Rupert Gregson-Williams ends up consisting of music that works better for trailers and rips off the Inception bwaahhhummhhhhh. For the record I think I did a solid job interpreting what that sound is.

            Okay, after that little rant, let’s switch it up a bit. I think one of the best things going for Aquaman is director James Wan. Outside of a couple miniscule critiques, the way he choreographed the action sequences I thought was wonderful. This movie is a huge CG-fest. For the most part, the CGI is fine and sometimes pretty good. I absolutely dug every time he probably made his cinematographer dizzy by swirling the camera around the action without using noticeable cuts. If you’re creating a no holds barred sci-fi CGI action film, this is the way I want the action to be. Even the smaller stunts are just cool idea after cool idea. And this is possible by one of the best and worst things about the movie—there are essentially no rules. I have no idea what is supposed to hurt Aquaman and what isn’t, how the water physics and abilities work, who in Atlantis gets to use Jedi water force tricks and who doesn’t, and how advanced the technology is (they explain it a wee bit). This opens up the action to allow any cool thing to happen, but it also eliminates some of the tensions and thrills associated with thinking a key character is actually in danger of being seriously hurt or killed. But to the credit of Aquaman, since they do in fact embrace the corny, this ends up being more of a minor critique.

            And to talk a bit more of the CGI, if this was an old school video game where the graphics were based on how realistic the water looked, then this movie wins. There are really cool implementations of water including water holograms and baddies spewing out water when a limb is chopped off. One of the most impressive things to me is how the characters interacted underwater. The hair moves in a believable way (including Momoa’s beard), the slightly muffled voices get the desires effect without being distracting or inaudible, and the characters are consistently drenched whenever they transition from underwater to a dry or secluded area. Obviously, plenty of green screens had to be used, and besides some of the backgrounds looking flat, the film holds up nicely all the way through. Most of the sea creatures look pretty good too, but most importantly, this movie answers what a shark sounds like, which apparently is close to a lion’s roar.

            Okay, if I was to sum up what kind of experience you’ll get from Aquaman, this is how I’d do it. There’s an escape sequence with Arthur and Mera, and Arthur has a funny line about using something from Pinocchio to help them escape. Not even 5 minutes go by and we’re now in Sicily in the previously described scene. A little girl throws a coin in a fountain, and Mera uses her Jedi water tricks to make water dolphins start dancing in the fountain. The little girl is amazed and runs to tell her mother. Arthur and Mera start talking, and in the background the little girl buys a book. Of all the street shops in all the towns in all the world, the little girl buys Pinocchio and hands it to Mera. Granted, Arthur gets a funny punchline out of this, but it’s this type of schtick that can be overbearing.

            There’s a lot that happens in the forefront and in the background, and this works well in the action scenes, but the cheesiness is too much when the movie has to story. The costumes are beautiful, the film has a good color palette, and James Wan and Jason Momoa are the primary reasons why Aquaman is able to work in the first place, but it really mostly comes down to how willing you are to go along for the ride. I think the movie is pretty enjoyable all around and would even give my recommendation to see it in theaters, but just know that the cheese is strong in this one.

In Brief:

·       Won’t have too much in this section since I still need to see the other 3 December movies I mentioned in the Adaptation. review.

·       Mentioned both E.R. and The Rookie. E.R. has a ridiculous amount of episodes, and The Rookie is still in its first season, and I give my recommendation for both shows.

·       According to Nik Durman and Noah Yarborough, Love Island is quality trash to check out, and I think I might just do that.

·       The MIB: International trailer hit, and I have hopes for it—big fan of all 3 of those films.

·       I am so excited for Detective Pikachu next summer.

·       If I ever take like a week to rewatch all the Marvel movies, I’d like to a ranking of all those.