Aquaman Review

Christmas has come and gone, so it's time to finally sit down and put out some reviews that I haven't gotten around to due to the busy holiday season. First up in that is our latest trip to the DC Extended Universe, which been really struggling as of late as they've desperately tried to catch up to Marvel. And that there has been a big part of the problem. Marvel very patiently set up their universe with a handful of solo films that turned "The Avengers" into an event film like no other. DC decided to not be patient and forced their way prematurely to "Justice League," which then caused it to crash and burn. As a long time DC fan, it's been really hard to watch this take place because I want properly done DC films, but the people in charge haven't been able to give that to me. In fairness, I didn't hate "Justice League" or "Suicide Squad." I thought "Justice League" was an mindlessly entertaining popcorn blockbusters and "Suicide Squad" had a lot of great characters. But the problem there is that both movies deserved so much more. And while there were elements of good in "Batman v. Superman," the fact that they crammed five movies into one was really frustrating. And I'm doing my best to erase the abomination that was "Man of Steel" out of my memory.

Despite all this, I still was excited going into "Aquaman." Why? Because DC has had one huge success and that was "Wonder Woman." With "Wonder Woman," the focus wasn't to help set up a cinematic universe or to try too hard to copy Marvel. The focus was to simply make a good movie. A competent director in Patty Jenkins was hired and she did her absolute best to bring a proper "Wonder Woman" movie to the screen. And that brought me so much joy. With "Aquaman," I saw legitimate signs that DC had learned from what they did right in "Wonder Woman" in order to bring us a proper "Aquaman" film. An excellent director in James Wan was hired to take charge and, from everything I saw, it seemed like they gave him full control to do what he wanted with the movie. And that was an exciting prospect. Based on the trailers and advertising, it seemed like Wan's focus was to give the world a good "Aquaman" movie. DC deciding to put their focus primarily on the individual movies rather than their cinematic universe is something that I wish they had done from the very beginning, but at least they appear to be learning from their mistakes instead of stubbornly continuing down the same road, which was only going to bring them even more scorn from everyone.

Thankfully I can report here that my optimism towards this movie was rewarded with a positive cinematic experience. It feels rather refreshing to walk out of a DC movie having been thoroughly entertained without feeling like I deserved more. It also feels refreshing that "Aquaman" successfully stands on its own as a movie you can watch and enjoy without thinking about whatever big picture it is that DC is planning. There is one brief reference to "Justice League" as Amber Heard's character briefly mentions Aquaman having helped stopped Steppenwolf. But that's it. If you skipped any movie in the DC due to the general negativity towards the DCEU, there is no need for a marathon or for you to read the Wikipedia pages of the films. You can go in completely blind, not knowing anything about the DCEU or the underwater world of Atlantis and be totally fine. In fact, doing so would put you at an advantage because the movie itself starts completely fresh. I even think that there are scenes in "Justice League" regarding Aquaman that they completely retconned or ignored and I am totally fine with that. I think it was the right decision to make. Acknowledge the past, like they briefly did, but move forward with fresh eyes and a fresh vision for this character.

In regards to the comic book version of Aquaman, it's worth noting that I'm not as well versed when it comes to him like I am when it comes to other DC characters such as Batman, Superman or the Flash. But I do know that he's been a character who has been commonly mocked and made fun of. He wears bright clothes, swims around in the water and talks to fish. He's not a very manly character, nor is he a very cool one. But yeah, the casting of Jason Momoa is a direct attempt to go against those stereotypes and make him cool again. You don't get any more manly than Jason Momoa. And in regards to his powers and the talking to fish thing, James Wan did an excellent job of creating a fascinating universe unlike any we've seen in the cinematic comic book world up to this point. Aquaman's powers are also really intriguing, so they successfully transformed Aquaman from the butt of every joke into someone to take seriously, which is impressive. And it's also really nice that James Wan actually knows what to do with Aquaman to make him interesting, which is something that Zack Snyder had no idea how to do as Aquaman just sort of stood around and existed in "Justice League" while acting as a cheerleader for the other characters.

As a character, Aquaman has an Atlantian mother and a human father, making him the perfect individual to stand as a mediator for both worlds, yet the drama in this film is that he has no desire to do anything with Atlanta. He grew up on land with his father and is convinced that the Atlantians killed his mother because she left them to start a relationship with a man on the land. So he fully plans to stay on land and not associate with the Atlantians at all. Early on as a kid, he discovers his ability to communicate with the sea creatures and initially his peers make fun of him for it, but then when he gets mad at this bullying and uses all the sea animals to intimidate the bullies, that's an intense scene. It made me want to have those powers of communicating with the sea. Imagine what you could do with all that! On top of that, the ability to swim as fast as an underwater sea vessel while being able to breath and talk under the water would be really awesome. And the icing on the cake is that he's super strong. So yeah, all of this immediately makes him quite the appealing and likable character. And with the backstory regarding his parents, it gives him some emotional depth that I wasn't expected, which sets up for some real character growth.

As far as the plot of the film goes, I will fully admit that this is a lot of movie. It's not like "Batman v. Superman," which is like five movies in one. There's just a lot of story that they tell. I walked out of the theater feeling like I had just binged an entire season of an Aquaman T.V. show rather than having simply watched the pilot episode. This is both a positive and a negative in certain ways. On a positive note, this makes it much more than just your average origin story that I have a habit of being super picky with. But on the negative side, they could've done a better job of focusing the movie up a bit. In fact, there's one specific story arc that they could've completely cut out and the movie would be improved. I'll leave you hanging there for a second because I plan on diving into that a bit later. But as is, both of these positive and negative elements end up cancelling each other out a bit to the point where I was able to accept what was happening and simply enjoy the long, crazy ride that I was being taken on. Because, yeah, this is quite the adventure and the great part is that none of it is taken too seriously. It felt like a 90's superhero cartoon brought to life and dumped into the end of 2018, making the whole thing an enjoyable and relaxing ride that felt fairly nostalgic.

The main element of the plot involved Nala coming to Simba to inform him that there is a lot of commotion happening at Pride Rock with his Uncle Scar. Simba has ran away from home and wants nothing to do with Pride Rock. He's moved on with life. But Nala is here to beg him to come back to Pride Rock and take his rightful place as king because Simba is the one person who is capable of bringing order back into the world. Eventually some sense is knocked into Simba, so he runs back to Pride Rock in order to challenge Scar for the throne. And here's where the twist is. Before he is able to challenge Scar, Rafiki comes to Simba and tells him that he must first find the Holy Grail so that he can properly take the kingdom back. He's a little rebellious at first, so he challenges Scar anyways and mostly fails, but before all is lost, Nala comes to save the day and then they are off to find the Holy Grail as Simba has successfully transformed himself into Indiana Jones, who then has to face all sorts of fancy obstacles along the way, which get more and more intense as the journey goes on. In the midst of that, we also go on a random tangent where Simba/Indiana Jones has allowed a random evil dude's father die, causing evil dude to have a serious vendetta against him.

OK, I'll come back down to Earth now and start talking about "Aquaman" again instead of "The Lion King" or "Indiana Jones." Although I hope you grasped my point there. Earlier this year I gave "Black Panther" a lot of flack for being "The Lion King" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some people were blown away by the Shakespearean of "Black Panther" since "The Lion King" is simply a re-telling of "Hamlet" with the African animal kingdom. To me I felt like it was a bit of lazy story-telling, which caused me to be a lot more "meh" about the film than your average person. So I figured if I gave "Black Panther" some flack, I had to be fair here and also give "Aquaman" the same flack. The big difference here is that no one is claiming that "Aquaman" is the greatest superhero film ever made and it's not on track to be the highest-grossing domestic superhero movie ever, which was the case with "Black Panther." So that caused me to push back on "Black Panther." With "Aquaman" there's nothing to push back against, so I'm more accepting of the story here. No one is calling "Aquaman" the greatest superhero film ever made. Most people are simply enjoying the fact that the DC has actually made a decent film.

The other point I wanted to make with that paragraph is to illustrate the fact that this is a lot of movie without giving specific plot details. I can draw comparisons to "The Lion King" and "Indiana Jones" to prove a point and I don't have to spoil "Aquaman" in the process. I will add that it does veer away from both of these movies quite a bit. In regards to "The Lion King," it's his younger half brother that's in control of Atlantis and not his uncle. And Aquaman didn't run away from Atlantis following the death of his father. It's his mother that ran away before he was born, and was then forced back to Atlantis before Aquaman was too old. And the whole Indiana Jones thing isn't following a specific Indiana Jones story arc. He's not actually searching for the Holy Grail. He's searching for something else. But the idea there is that he's searching for a lost artifact that is thought to have not existed or permanently lost a long time ago. And yes, the final part of that is the tangent involving the movie's secondary villain, which is precisely the story line that I was referring to earlier when I said there's an element of the movie that could've been completely cut out. Since the cat is already out of the bag, that secondary villain is that of Black Manta, a popular Aquaman villain from the comics.

Now I did enjoy Black Manta in this movie. He's played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who does an excellent job in the movie. He has solid motivation and is a formidable opponent for Aquaman with quite the epic supervillain suit. It's just that the story arc itself felt like more of a side thing that distracted from the main story. I think they should've saved Black Manta solely for the sequence while focusing this movie specifically on Aquaman's half brother, who is also played brilliantly by Patrick Wilson. In fact, there's a lot of great acting in this movie. Jason Momoa and Amber Heard are more than just eye candy for fans. They own it in the lead roles. And in addition to who I've already said, we also have Willem Dafoe, Nicole Kidman, Dolph Lundgreen and Temuera Morrison in the film who all work together to provide a great cast of supporting characters who are all directed excellently by James Wan in order to provide us with a cinematic experience that felt great in magnitude. And the aquatic visual effects were honestly breathtaking. We've done a lot of things with superheroes in the last 10 years or so, but exploring the sea is not something we've done very much, so that element managed to make this movie feel a bit fresh and unique when compared to the rest.

In summary, if you've not been on board with the DCEU at this point, I don't blame you. It's been a really rough ride as of late that have caused many fans to give up on DC. But the great thing about "Aquaman" is that it feels separate from all of that. We can pretend for a moment that "Man of Steel," "Batman v. Superman," "Suicide Squad" and "Justice League" all ceased to exist and that this is the second DCEU movie after "Wonder Woman." With that in mind, it feels like a much safer venture to dive into "Aquaman" because "Wonder Woman" is the DC movie that "Aquaman" belongs in the same conversation with. No, it's not as good as "Wonder Woman." But it shows that the success of "Wonder Woman" was not a fluke and that DC actually can make good movies if they continue to follow that formula instead of what they were trying to do before. Because this works. "Wonder Woman" and "Aquaman" are both good movies and it gives me a renewed sense of hope for the DCEU moving forward that makes me confidently excited for "Shazam!" in April, because that seems like yet another example of DC done right. As far as a grade goes, that's a bit fickle. It's easily the second best DCEU movie, so take that as you will. For now, I'll give "Aquaman" an 8/10.