Aquaman

Movie, 2018, PG-13

Premise - The hero known as Aquaman, or Arthur to his friends and family, is the bastard child of the Queen of Atlantis and a human lighthouse keeper. As the queen's oldest son, he is technically the heir to the throne of the kingdom of Atlantis, despite being a surface dweller. As Atlantis is on the verge of a war with the earth's surface, Aquaman is persuaded to find Neptune's trident, reclaim his spot on the throne, and stop the war.

Review - My mom was really excited for this movie and convinced the family to come see it with her. I agreed (hey, free movie!), and admittedly had some semblance of hope that the movie might actually be good. The story has a bit of a Percy Jackson-vibe to it, with Arthur having some connection to the king of the sea and being a sort of half-breed. And Jason Momoa looked like he'd be an excellent and truly badass hero.

It was... not good. I mean, I might be biased because I have very specific criteria for liking superhero movies, but this wasn't even truly a superhero movie in my eyes anyways. It's funny, when I started the movie, I was ranking it in the high 70's, and then it just kept dropping... and dropping... and dropping... and it's a long movie, so my ranking fell quite a bit. It was such a long movie, in fact, that about 2 hours in, I couldn't help but pull out my phone in the middle of the theater, trying to stifle the light as I googled how long the movie was. It's a 2 hour and 38 minute movie, so I still had a good 45 minutes left to dread.

Credit where credit is due - let's go over the high points of the film first, because despite the above statement, I did not hate this film at all. Jason Momoa, as expected, was fantastic as Aquaman. He had such a unique physique. The man bun and tattoos... he truly felt like a 2018 badass. He did a remarkable job leading the film and turning Aquaman into a respectable hero instead of the joke he normally is in DC. That sequence where we first meet adult Aquaman as he saves the submarine from the pirates, was the best scene in the film, and the most traditional superhero moment. The music had some high points as well, at least towards the beginning. The problem was that when the same leitmotifs were used over and over and OVER again (that dun dun DUNNNN one especially), they became so ridiculously cheesy. But I liked them when I first heard them.

Kudos to the film for also making a story that was socially and politically relevant at points too. It touched on superheroes in the age of social media and camera evidence (though briefly), but was more importantly about ocean pollution and the long term effects decades of trash have had on our ecosystem.

Okay, onto the bad, and this may take a while. Maybe I should just start compiling a list:
-Willem Dafoe. I'm sorry, but he just stands out so much to me as Willem Dafoe. There are plenty of examples of films where this is okay and I'm happy to have him in the cast, but in this film watching him swim around in black leather just made me cringe.
-Amber Heard's entire character and her romance with Aquaman. I can't recall her name (Mira? Mara?) but she was the red-headed Ariel looking thing. How did she find Arthur? Why was she so upset with Arthur all the time? Why was her relationship with Arthur and the surface dwellers so contentious even though SHE was the one who sought him out? I truly believe they just made her antagonistic towards Arthur towards the beginning so that there would be a hard-to-get element of their forced romance story.
-Those water warrior things and how they needed water to survive. Of the citizens of Atlantis, who was allowed to breathe on land and who wasn't? Surface dwellers never come to Atlantis because they truly can't breathe underwater. But the Atlantis people, for the most part, seem to have no trouble coming to the surface, with a few exceptions that I truly can't figure out.
-The Black Manta, or Mantis, whoever he was. The other villain. He had more backstory than ANY character in the film. Honestly, my sister and I were joking that we had more reason to empathize with him than with Aquaman himself. Yet he "dies" (I'm sure he'd come back in a sequel) about 2/3 of the way through the film and never makes a return. Narratively it created such a weird balance to the film.
-The amount of cheesiness. I can do cheese, believe me, I loved Tobey Maguire dancing in Spiderman 3. I think I'm just specific about my kind of cheese. There was an overwhelming amount of slow motion in this film, as well as ridiculous explosions.
-The way in which people from Atlantis speak. First of all, they speak English, which is totally for plot convenience but I completely understand why they did it. But it bothers me that there is no communication barrier between Atlantis and the surface. There are moments where the girl clearly doesn't understand surface culture (she tries eating a rose), but then there are moments where she absolutely does (she knows what a book is, and how to read it in English). Arthur throws out phrases and slang words all the time, "That was awesome!" "You're a dick!" and they have no problem understanding him. Like, if they are so attuned to the language and culture of the surface, why are they not more sympathetic to them?
-The visuals. There were moments of the film that were truly breathtaking. And then there were many more moments of the film that were so awkward. I understand the filmmakers' dilemma - it is very hard to not make fish people look ridiculous. But they looked ridiculous.

The last thing I want to address is the character of Aquaman. I already gave my approval to Jason Momoa, but the crafting of the character himself is limited. The character has so much potential to be interesting - he's a half-breed. Fortunately, that had an incredible relevance to the film because Arthur is of both sea and surface, and would be the perfect individual to create peace between the two. But that is the limit of relevance it had. Aquaman has no shortcomings or weaknesses. He's essentially like an Atlantian - he can breathe underwater and is just as fast and strong. The only difference is he was raised on land, not in the sea. Superman has his kryptonite, and Aquaman had nothing. He was not limited in any way by being half human, except for perhaps his emotional attachment to his human father which actually operated in the film as more of a strength than a weakness. I'm a sucker for character development and conflict and it just did not live up to its potential. (53/100)

Quote - "A king fights for his nation. A hero fights for everyone." Or something like that. I may have paraphrased here.

What to watch for - I guess just Jason Momoa as Aquaman, let's be real.

If you liked this movie, I'd recommend Percy Jackson and the Olympians!

Based on characters by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger
Directed by James Wan
Distributed by Warner Bros.