Review 500: Aquaman

Oh...  My...  God...   Aquaman is stupid!

Based on the DC comics superhero Aquaman by Paul Norris and Mort Wiesinger, Following Steppenwolf's invasion, Arthur Curry/Aquman (Jason Momoa), the reluctant heir to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis gets caught in a battle between surface dwellers that threaten his oceans as well as his own people, led by his half-brother Orm/Ocean Master (Patrick Wilson) who are ready to lash out and invade the surface.

Firstly, I just want to say that Aquman is a character that I just never saw the appeal of. He just came off as exceedingly silly, as if he had been conceived by a bunch of primary school kids as an idea that would be awesome! There's just no way I'm ever going to take a film about a dude who can talk to fish seriously.
The plot is silly, cliched and cheesy. It's a story that been done to death and that we've heard a million times about a reluctant hero who's conceived by two parents of different worlds who will one day unite their worlds and who has to usurp his obviously evil half-sibling for his birthright in order to make that happen. If you've seen any version of Hamlet, The Lion King, Black Panther or even Thor for that matter you have a pretty good idea of where this movie is going.

It continues DCs loosing streak just for entirely different reasons: It somehow manages to be both overproduced and underwritten.

Aquaman is also a film that is sooooo overproduced, you sit there starring at shots of painfully obviously CGI sharks and rays and seashores and other underwater creatures battling each other but you still feel board.

Over an hour into the film, it automatically shifts gears and becomes an Indiana Jones esque adventure as Arthur and Mera follow a bread crumb trail of clues to find a legendary trident that will him reclaim his place as the rightful King of Atlantis.

After the initial trailer dropped at last summers Comic Con, this film received many comparisons to Marvel's Black Panther, stating that it was that film only with the roles of the hero and the villain switched around but trust me on this, it couldn't be further from Black Panther even if it tried.
This film is just all over the place, it has so much in such a busy script yet manages to fall into so many cliches and has so little depth.

Director James Wan's direction is dramatically inert and uneven with scenes that shift from being serious and dramatic to unbelievably silly in the span of just a few seconds. The score by Rupert Gregson-Williams is generic and dull. The special effects are unbelievably cheesy - it's so painfully obvious where the green screen is, particularly during the underwater scenes. Even the action scenes are equally overblown and quite dull and devoid of tension. The jokes for the most part fall incredibly flat punctured by stupid dialogue.

The cinematography, however, is stunning and captures the scale and beauty of Atlantis, the production design (creating Atlantis) is spectacularly imaginative in some areas and cheesy and looks like stock footage from an aquarium as well as just a bunch of underwater plantlife bought to life by phosphorescent lights in others. There's also some breathtaking scenery sprinkled throughout and the locations are admittedly gorgeous
The creature design is overblown

Jason Momoa basically plays himself as Arthur Curry/Aquaman. He just not much of a well rounded character and that's because he for tried and tested unlikely hero archetype that's been done to death. He's an outsider among his people, he's a guy who's trapped between two worlds but has grown up not really feeling he belongs in either of them but at the same time has a responsibility of protecting both of them. He's got amazing powers but doesn't see them as a big deal.

As Mera, Amber Heard does fine but there's not a whole lot to the character other than the love interest/side kick who encourages Arthur on his quest and sees potential in him that he doesn't as well as the female heroine whose fleeing an arranged marriage

Patrick Wilson also feels miscast and out of place as Orm/Ocean Master, Arthur's half-brother. He came across as extremely soft, he lacked conviction, he lacked menace as well as the gravitas to be convincing in a villainous role. Whilist his motivations and agenda against Arthur and the world for polluting the oceans with waste products are somewhat understandable, they're never given the food for thought required or executed in a way that engages us as an audience.

The film also stars actors like Willem Dafoe, Nicole Kidman & Temuera Morrison as Nuidis Vulko, Aquaman's advisor; Atlanta and Thomas Curry, Aquman's parents, respectively, all of whom are way above this tosh.
Dafoe is relegated to little more than spout exposition, lecture Arthur on the lore of Atlantis and set his quest in motion and Kidman is little more than

Speaking of great actors who just gave up, Julie Andrews of all people shows up later in this film voicing an sea monster that guards the MacGuffin that Arthur requires to become King of Atlantis. She'd really ought to fire her agent as a result.

While the conflict between Aquaman and Black Manta certainly sounds cool on paper, it's never developed in a way that feels compelling or engaging, isn't given enough food for though and ultimately comes across as a half baked after thought. Really Aquadude set Black Manta onto him in the first place.
Literally, this character served absolutely no purpose by the end of the film.

To put it plainly, Aquaman is waterlogged, 1.5/5.

The Anonymous Critic.