Much like the character himself, Aquaman is stuck between two worlds, unable to leave one behind for the other. While Aquaman manages to bring his two worlds together, Aquaman’s dramatic and comedic elements never mesh into an enjoyable movie. If it was just a little bit better or a little bit worse, it might have been fun. As is, it’s a tonal disaster. Aquaman made me realize just how impressive it is that Marvel pulled off the first Thor movie. It’s hard to remember now since that character has changed so much, but when introduced, Thor himself was played completely seriously, as was the entire Asgard setting. But as a fish out of water, Thor was funny. One of the things that made Jason Mamoa stand out as a supporting player in Justice League was his humorous, self-aware attitude. That may have worked when Aquaman was a bit player in the ‘real’ world, but it proves detrimental to a similarly Shakespearean origin story. It tries to be self-aware but only when Aquaman is making fun of other characters, and nothing about the entire proceedings. The character and production team is so amazed by his underwater home, the one thing that should be made fun of for being absurd is left alone. Most blockbusters, especially superhero movies, are filled with absolute nonsense. Just reading plot descriptions about the incredible new Spider-man can make your head spin. That itself is not the problem. What makes the good ones work is when these elements are presented in a way that doesn’t constantly call attention to the absurdity and when it does, the characters comment on it. I’m sure a lot of smart people thought muffling everyone’s voice when they were underwater would be a brilliant way to bring the setting to life, but it prohibits any consistent suspension of disbelief. And when those underwater scenes are typically the most dramatic, it creates a problem. There’s a reason almost every humanoid character in the Marvel movies speaks English, even if that makes no logical sense. Because it’s not the real world and it would be far too distracting for people to pay attention to anything else if the characters constantly needed translators. That’s what happens with every underwater scene. This choice may be the biggest issue I had with Aquaman, but it’s a stylistic preference that might work for some. That doesn’t change the fact that the movie around it is still very messy. As far as superhero origins go, the story itself is a straightforward royal drama. Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Mamoa), is the first person ever conceived by an Atlantean, Queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), and a human, Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison). When Arthur is a young boy, his mother must return to Atlantis – in order to save him, she must leave him, of course – so he is raised on land by his father, still aware of the other half of his family. Aside from a couple training flashbacks with mentor Vulko (Willem DaFoe), there’s not much to show Arthur’s evolution from kid to superhero who fought alongside the justice league, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters now is that he must become King. His half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) is rallying underwater civilizations together in order to declare war on the surface, so Princess Mera (Amber Heard) finds Arthur with the hope his unique lineage and birthright are the keys to peace between land and sea. Once together, the two of them go on a search for Neptune’s trident, which will give him undeniable control over the ocean kingdoms. From the first scene after the prologue, we get a good sense of the key issues still present when no one is talking underwater. In just a couple minutes we get severe tonal shifts, awful performances, and extreme predictability. Arthur prevents some pirates from killing a submarine crew, and in the process flips from a fun quip here to a dramatic caring moment there, unable to maintain his character for more than three or four lines. It’s all capped off by a monumentally terrible performance from Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Manta, who is truly doing something special in a movie filled with bad acting yet is sadly not a sign of more enjoyable awfulness to come. Manta’s father gifts him his favorite blade (with a manta ray symbol!), then said father dies, and suddenly Aquaman has someone with an obvious nickname and grudge against him. From there the details of the plot are telegraphed in a paint-by-numbers approach to even the biggest reveals. The screenplay as a whole is off, as some good story points can usually help balance bad dialogue and vice-versa, but it swings and misses at both, pulling along mostly uninteresting characters. This feels like someone bought a screenplay book, wrote a single line to each story beat, and hit print without adding a layer of subtlety. There’s nothing to the Arthur Curry rightful king returning to his home story that hasn’t been done before, and the new setting is detrimental to even a bare bones attempt. I don’t want to go into much more detail for fear of spoilers, but if you’re afraid of spoilers try not to watch any movie in existence before this.
Nicole Kidman is ridiculous, but being Nicole Kidman, she turns it to the right level and stands head and shoulders above everyone else. Amber Heard is right behind her though, and they both manage to maintain their characters' strength while playing ignorant as literal fish out of water. These two steal the movie right out from under human charm machine Jason Mamoa, who is only able to make the dueling tonality built into his character work about 50% of the time. It’s no surprise that the three main characters who spend more time speaking above rather than underwater come away looking the best. Dolph Lundgren kind of fits with the underwater scenes, but I’m sure that’s because he’s trying his hardest, yet remains Dolph Lundgren. That’s just good casting. The two other actors who spend most of their time behind a bubble Bane-mask take things to opposite extremes. Patrick Wilson tries so hard to sell Orm’s anger, it’s just not possible to take him seriously and because of that he appears to get out-acted by Lundgren. On the other hand, you can practically see Willem Dafoe’s eyes glazing over even when he’s underwater, which is still better than most actors can pull off. If every character under the sea was played by Dolph Lundgren or sleepy Willem Dafoe, they might have had a winning formula, since even Mamoa and Heard have trouble with those scenes. It’s easy to make this stuff sound stupid, but there is no right subtlety found in any aspect of this movie. The one place where it might pay to be overt is a message the film only hints at when Orm washes all the garbage and warships back onto beaches around the world, but that is quickly abandoned as he becomes a mustache-twirling caricature motivated purely by self-interest. Ostentatious doesn’t even begin to describe the amount of visual effects thrown onto screen and in the production design, as everything just feels busy. Admittedly, the first one-on-one underwater fight between Orm and Arthur is interesting as they use the different speeds and depths against each other the choreography gives us something new. But the final action scene undermines any action goodwill by becoming even more crowded than a typical onslaught, since underwater soldiers can move vertically, creating a whole other dimension of space to fill. My eyes couldn’t get a break at any moment. When I think about Aquaman, I’m reminded of Venom, since I kind of liked that despite being a similar mess. But at least one person: Tom Hardy, knew what could make Venom work and committed to it. Some of the actors come out of Aquaman unscathed, but it doesn’t seem like anyone in front of or behind the screen knew what could make this work and neither do I. What we’re left with is an unfocused story, a bunch of potentially fun pieces playing entirely different games, and no one writing any rules.
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