REVIEW: Aquaman

As I write this Review, James Wan's Aquaman has just blown past the $1 billion mark at the international box office. Aquaman. Even as a longtime fan of the comics, I can't exactly say I saw this coming. The DCEU has been chugging by on a wing and a prayer for years now, and while Wonder Woman earned the franchise enough good will to hold onto a glimmer of hope that the worst had long since passed, 2017's utterly abysmal Justice League tanked both critically and financially. Rumors swirled about Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill dropping out of the franchise for good, the upcoming Scorsese-produced Joker movie seemed to indicate that WB was pursuing other options, and we all had to wonder if Aquaman was merely a formality at this point; the last gasps of a dead franchise, pumped into theaters for no reason beyond recouping losses. I was excited to see one of my favorite superheroes (yes, seriously) portrayed on the big screen, but even I was apprehensive of what awaited me. One mind-numbingly long screening later and I found myself feeling something I seldom feel about many movies. Aquaman is by no means what I would call a "good" movie, and yet I had an absolute blast with it. It's flawed, bloated, and verges on being totally braindead at times, but there are also elements of this movie that I feel exemplify exactly what WB should aim to accomplish with future entries in the DCEU.

Set after the events of Justice League (let's not pretend that really matters, since the characters certainly don't), we find that Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) has taken to superhero-ing like a fish to water, known throughout the seven seas (and his quiet hometown of Amnesty Bay) as the Aquaman. The son of a lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison) and the renegade Queen of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman), Curry has been reluctant to confront the wetter side of his heritage, believing the xenophobic Atlanteans to be responsible for the death of his mother. This all changes, however, after he is confronted by Princess Mera (Amber Heard, rocking one of the worst wigs this side of Spirit Halloween), who informs Arthur that his half-brother, King Orm (Patrick Wilson) intends to unite the seven undersea kingdoms and march on the surface world, establishing Atlantis' dominion over the entire planet. With the help of his mentor, Vulko (Willem Dafoe), Arthur joins Mera to locate the lost trident of King Atlan, usurp his brother's throne, and take his rightful place as the one true king of Atlantis.

Right off the bat, the movie suffers from a screenplay that toes the line between harmlessly campy and comically bad (which feels like something of a motif for 2018). While I was eventually able to adjust to the movie's cheese-factor, it doesn't change the fact that some of these lines feel like they were meant to be placeholders. The cast all do their best with what they've been given, but no actor could make a gem like "Your fish-ship has been marinating in chum-butter, I'm not coming out smelling like swamp butt" sound good. It doesn't help that we're stuck with this level of dialog for, as I mentioned, well over two hours. The plot essentially condenses the first three volumes of Geoff Johns' New52 run into a single story (which makes sense, seeing as how he has a story credit alongside James Wan and screenwriter Will Beall), so things naturally get more than a little crowded. You get the impression that WB assumed this would be their only shot at making an Aquaman movie, so very little is saved for the sequel. They put all their chips on the table and it more than paid off, so while this definitely doesn't feel like a bland corporate product, it definitely gets rather clunky here and there (especially during the first act). We get Arthur meeting Mera, contesting Ocean Master for the throne, reclaiming the lost trident of Atlan, and fighting Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), all in one movie. As a result, despite a reasonably brisk pace, the entire thing suffers from a distinct feeling of bloat. While I didn't necessarily dislike any of these storylines, I definitely would have been fine with cutting one or more in favor of saving it for the sequel; the end result is very much a concentrated dose of Aquaman, but it may prove a little too dense for anyone who isn't already a fan of the comics.

Aside from that, we have our two main leads played by Jason Momoa and Amber Heard. In my Review of Justice League, I said that they were by far the weakest links in the main cast, and the same holds true here. Don't get me wrong, they're both extraordinarily good-looking people with charisma to spare, but their relationship lacks chemistry (especially compared to, say, Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor) and their emotional range left me wanting, to say the least. The villains definitely steal the show, with Wilson and Abdul-Mateen cranking it up to 11 as Ocean Master and Black Manta. The cornball script and bombastic presentation only does these two favors, as we're treated to two separate scenes where our antagonists look right at the camera and proclaim, "CALL ME... *insert supervillain name here*!"; if that doesn't sound like the kind of thing you could get into, then I'd recommend giving the whole affair a pass right here and now. These are two comic book villains who make up for their apparent lack of depth with sheer screen presence, exemplifying just what makes James Wan's approach to this material stick the landing, despite its many flaws. Whereas other films may hesitate to embrace the over-the-top nature of adapting a superhero story to the big screen, Aquaman pulls its absurd, pulpy roots into a crushing bear-hug, splashing hefty doses of color and melodrama across the screen to remarkably fun effect.

I've noticed that many big-screen comic book adaptations (especially those found in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) are often more than a little hesitant to fully commit to the levels of absurdity found within the pages of its source material, using self-aware humor as a buffer to help sell the audience on something so seemingly childish. That isn't to say that I need my superhero movies to be dour and moody, there are definitely good ways to blend humor and intimate character drama, but there are definitely bad ways to go about it as well. If the film is constantly winking to me about how goofy the movie I'm watching is, it's only going to hurt itself in the long run. If the characters in the film don't take the situation, threat, or villain seriously, how can I, as the viewer, be expected to? This is where Aquaman uses its cheesy tone to its advantage; while this is a supremely weird, goofy movie with lots of fantastical locales and impractical costumes, the universe of the film takes itself entirely seriously. This is something the DCEU has attempted in the past, to disastrous results. Fortunately, James Wan is a talented enough filmmaker to not confuse a film taking itself seriously with being a joyless, dour slog.

This is a film that is fiercely committed to playing its role as a superhero movie, and there is zero cynicism to be found in how it approaches such a task. The tone very heavily reminds me of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films; movies that were very intentionally made to be exaggerated, stylized, sometimes downright cartoonish action romps, yet never felt the need to justify that level of silliness to the audience by pretending it was "ironic" or "deconstructive". Aquaman wears its heart firmly on its sleeve, which I find somewhat refreshing in today's contemporary superhero scene. Its goal isn't to reinvent the wheel or get audiences to think Aquaman is a "realistic" portrayal of a superhero. The mission statement here is, without question, to entertain. And if I'm judging a film purely on how well it accomplishes the goals it has set for itself, I have no choice but to give Aquaman full marks. It's not very subtle or nuanced, there's a lot of terrible acting and dialog, and it's not at all conceptually ambitious in terms of displaying what a superhero movie can be in this modern age. But I was fiercely entertained, thanks very much in part to James Wan's talents as a director. 

There are countless other films that try to coast by on sheer spectacle and fail; Justice League is a prime example. For as messy and unrefined as aspects of Aquaman are, it at the very least feels like someone's vision, rather than a sanitized product that's been focus-tested and homogenized in an attempt to appeal to as many paying demographics as possible. And that's not to say that giving a director free reign to exercise their vision is a one-way ticket to success either; films like Batman V Superman and The Last Jedi prove that a filmmaker needs to understand and respect the subject they're working with in order to create something that, at the end of the day, isn't a frustrating chore to sit down and watch. This is something Aquaman definitely gets right, mixing goofball superhero aesthetics and melodrama with genuinely engaging direction and cinematography. It's not an exaggeration to say that the majority of this film takes place on a green screen, so when I'm praising the effects, you know it's something special. Atlantis feels like a fully realized world with countless depths worth exploring (in contrast to Black Panther's Wakanda, which felt like three soundstages and a grassy field) and there are loads of imaginative creature designs which give way to some truly spectacularly realized action setpieces (especially in the latter half of the film). There's a sequence later on in the second act involving the Trench, an ancient race of monstrous fish-people, that really exhibits Wan's talent as a horror filmmaker. Although clips from this scene made it into several of the trailers, they really don't do the sequence justice; it's clear from a quick visual gag in the beginning that he's a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, and this Trench sequence just makes me wonder how long I'm going to have to wait for an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth with James Wan in the director's chair.

While it's hardly what I'd call a groundbreaking success in the superhero genre, I simply can't hide the amount of fun I had with Aquaman. It's a movie with a myriad of problems holding it back from true greatness, yet it managed to keep me thoroughly entertained throughout its somewhat bloated runtime. There are glaring issues with the script, story, and performances, but there's such a distinct lack of cynicism here that I can't bring myself to hate it. This isn't a bad movie in the same way something like Batman V Superman or the Michael Bay Transformers films are, where the lack of quality comes off as insulting to the viewer. This is more akin to something like The Fate of the Furious, where you get the sense that everyone on set knew exactly what they were making; a bombastic, cartoonish spectacle that plays all of its candy-colored melodrama 100% straight. I caught myself groaning at the downright embarrassing dialog in the beginning, but then Black Manta shot Aquaman with an electric harpoon and said "I'm gonna gut you like the fish you are" and I realized this movie and I were, in a way, very much on the same page in regards to what an Aquaman film should be. The costumes are fantastic, the effects are impressive, and the last thirty minutes are pure visual opium. It's silly, it's stupid, and I had an absolute blast with it. If you're not a fan of superhero comics or prefer your cape stories to be a bit more on the low-key and serious side, there's little here that would be worth your time. But if you're a fan of the comics, nostalgic for a time when superheroes didn't have to be reimagined to make sense in the real world, Aquaman will definitely quench your thirst.