Aquaman Requires Water Wings

Aquaman (2018)

Aquaman was the result of a movie studio trying too hard to correct its mistakes by copying a far more successful studio. Sadly, DC will never be able to match Marvel, so they should stop trying to copy them and try to make good movies independent of box office trends. There were a good amount of elements that worked in the movie. The action scenes were top notch, effectively using CGI and live action to create immersive and substantial battles and fights. It was clear that it was CGI, but it was clean and mostly believable. It was not like A-X-L, where the quality of animation constantly reminds you that you are watching a movie. The actors also did a great job of portraying characters that I actually care about. Unfortunately, I only care because I am projecting their comic book personas onto their big screen counterparts. Every actor except one was well cast and could do their character justice, but the terrible dialogue prevented any character from having depth. This movie had one of the worst scripts of the year. So many interactions were cliché and scenes that should have held weight were either glossed over or were never given a pay off. Character reveals were predictable and the execution of the plot was lackluster. The story was an amalgamation of a half dozen comic storylines and tried to do too much. Thor: Ragnarok was built from a similar catalogue of stories, but it was not bogged down by exposition because it was the third movie in a franchise. Aquaman tried to have the same style and tone as Thor: Ragnarok, but James Wan is no Taika Waititi. I honestly don’t know why I expected something better from a director who almost exclusively directed horror movies. Wan’s choices were questionable throughout. Every time I enjoyed a scene, he would immediately have something to drag the movie back down. I enjoyed the first 15 minutes of the movie, but then it started making the wrong choice at every turn. It felt like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, but you are forced to read every death before you continue the story. There was an excellent underwater fight and escape scene immediately followed by Pitbull’s atrocious remix of Toto’s Africa and then a battle through an Italian town that was critical to make the hero vulnerable ruined by a stupid scene with Mera playing a flute for no reason. For as bad as the script was, the soundtrack was one of the worst I have ever heard. The combat scenes had basic, but listenable music, and every other scene was backed by songs that sounded like they were mixed on a PC that could only support programs from 1992. And then there was the Pitbull song and the awful song playing over the end credits. I know it sounds like I hated this movie, but I only hated parts of it. There was a good movie in there, but it tried to do too much. I give Aquaman 3 out of the 7 seas.