You know what the best part about attacking the crab people is? The post-victory celebration feast. Those pincers are good eatin’. “Sir! I regret to inform you that we have run out of condiments!” “Dammit! Battle stations, gentlemen. We are going to attack the kingdom of the melted butter people.”
Aquaman is a film proving that if you add just enough distractions in the form of CGI, idiotic costuming, chaotic battle, and terrible dialogue, you probably won’t notice that the acting sucks, too. Let me backtrack. With 100,000 votes and a 7.5 imdb rating, a fair number of people truly believed they were watching greatness. Clearly, you didn’t see the same film I saw.
A bloated whale carcass of a movie, Aquaman describes the rise of Arthur aka “Aquaman” (Jason Momoa) as he leapfrogs from fish-talking child weirdo in one scene to aquatic WWE wrestler weirdo in the next. I’m not sure exactly what Aquaman’s powers are, and I’m not sure I ever will. Lemme see if I can describe some of them: He’s amphibious. He can talk to fish — which amounts to commanding fish (not quite the same thing), he has the strength to rip locked submarine hatches off their moorings, and he’s … bulletproof? Ummm, cuz that’s why when we say “it’s like shooting fish in a barrel,” we mean that as a message of futility because bullets can’t penetrate scales, right? Like most fish, he can also jump out of airplanes and smash chute-less onto the Earth without issue.
Arthur is the product of the sea queen (Ursula?) and a lighthouse keeper, making him heir to the Atlantis throne. Not exactly sure how he gets superpowers out of that combo, but, whatchagonnado? Without knowing it, Arthur has a pre-set enemy in his half-brother and throne rival King Orm (Patrick Wilson) and with little explanation, Arthur’s first showdown with Orm lands him the-girl-we-know-he’s-goin-to-end-up-with-you’re-not-kidding-anybody-with-this-“tension” Mera (Amber Heard). Mera is DC’s answer to Black Widow – “We’re never going to give you your own movie, but feel free to kick some ass in this one, OK?” With Hawaiian Punch hair and a teal sequined catsuit (fishsuit?), Mera exists almost entirely to make your wonder who the Hell storyboarded this crap? Only once every few years, I will isolate a film for asinine costume and make-up. Congratulations, Aquaman! This is a rare suck.
The usually reliable James Wan is out-of-his-element here (dare I say … like a fish out of water). I would happily agree with the statement that Wan is the best director of horror in the current generation, but here he becomes yet another victim of goggle-eyed CGI fascination; it looks to me like Wan became so entranced by green screen magic that he littered the sea with it like that floating garbage island the size of Wyoming. So much of this film is: Jason Momoa shows up and doesn’t react to the fact that he seems to be in Six Flags Under Texas. Pretty soon, there’s fighting. Sometimes you know what’s going on; sometimes there are simply dudes in military fish costumes with laser guns recreating Moonraker.
Arthur’s motivation is sea rescue; he doesn’t seem concerned about throne games until he realizes that Orm is a megalomaniac, interested in dominating the sea “peoples” and enslaving the land dwellers. And that’s when Arthur – and yes, there is a deliberate King Arthur-type connection to this guy – takes action. In talking with potential fans of Aquaman, I must have heard from five different sources, “Jason Momoa is pretty!” Yes, he is. No argument there. But you sure as heck didn’t think so when he made Conan the Barbarian. Aquaman is, if nothing else, a tribute to a fabulous ad campaign. Well done, fellas! You sold the product as a positive sight unseen. And, being Americans, we’re really good at insisting something is AWESOME! even when presented with a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Pretty or not, Jason Momoa strikes me mostly as a poor man’s Dwayne Johnson. Jason’s acting has improved since Conan, but that mostly amounts to: keep your lip zipped and look pensive. Hey, gotta start somewhere. Bulky, but neither as charismatic nor as flamboyant as Dwayne, Jason –in my mind- is Light Rock, Less Talk. Believe me; I’ve thought about this a lot – “Pet Rock?” (“Petrarch?”) “Little Rock?” “Pebble?” Hey, he’s both Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm. However, and I say this with 100% honesty, Jason Momoa is the one guy I actually feel bad about ridiculing – partly because I think he’s a decent guy and mostly because I’m pretty sure he can rip me limb-from-limb.
I sat with people who enjoyed this movie, so believe me, I know there will be massive objections to this fish fry pan. For me, Aquaman just became sillier and sillier as the film wore on. Each bit of dialogue was stupider than the last, and what’s that? Oh yes, the plot from How To Train Your Dragon 2 –gosh, that’s unique … by time Patrick Wilson donned battle goggles that looked like something you might wear to show your devotion to 80s New Wave bands, I was done playing nice. Everything that deserved a laugh at its expense got one. Aquaman has a lot of lights and sounds and action and music and color that will happily float your boat if you’re not picky, but for the rest of us, this film is a can of tuna opened past its expiration date.
♪Standing by a green screen
Eying fishy men and looking mean
Ready to break someone’s nose
Post-shower hair and sequined clothes, hey, Aquaman♫
Rated PG-13, 143 Minutes
Director: James Wan
Writer: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall
Genre: A fish story
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The blockbuster crowd
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The film crowd
♪ Parody Inspired by “Aqualung”
