Eye-Popping CGI excess can’t save this underwater adventure from spouting over the top. Jason Momoa (Baywatch, Game of Thrones) is pleasing enough as Arthur, the Aquaman, a muscle bound hunk with a great smile andsense of humor. He’s played the role twice before in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. But this overblown epic is predictable from the opening scene. DC comics based movies are usually very dark. The attempt here is to inject more fun into the Aquaman character. It works for awhile and then falls back into the usual dark drudgery.
Director James Wan (The Conjurings, Insidious, Furious 7) takes this film to the extreme, crowding the screen with an overabundance of visuals. Every kind of deep sea creature is lit to the max. They sparkle and glisten with almost a neon glow. But it’s so distracting, you don’t even care about the story. However, seeing an Octopus play drums was a ludicrous sight that must’ve been added just for laughs.
Why did Nicole Kidman agree to do this water-logged melodrama? As Atlanna, she is a wounded woman from the depths who was washed ashore in Maine and saved by a kind man who lives in a lighthouse. Tom (Temuera Morrison) and Atlanna fall in love. She’s a chick of the sea who is also royalty, and her family is not happy that she is AWOL. When found, they discover that she has delivered a son, half man/half prince. Mom is hauled back to Atlantis and it’s up to Arthur to find her and get some answers. A power struggle ensues, of course.
Director Wan has young Arthur touring the Aquarium in Boston on a class trip when two boys start bullying him. When the fish in the tank take notice and the biggest shark in the tank starts busting the glass to make them stop, Arthur and the bullies discover Arthur’s special power. That’s how Aquaman is born.
This origin story written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, Will Beall, Geoff Johns, and James Wan, is very mind boggling. You might want to shake the water out of your ears. Lines put in the script to be clever turn out more to be more groan worthy. And when Arthur goes searching for Mom in Atlantis, it takes a lot of effort to try and figure out the various alliances that Arthur’s half-brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson) is patching together. Orm is the son of Atlanna and the late King. Arthur’s half-brother’s goal is to take over both land and sea. Dolph Lundgren (Creed II) dives in for an appearance as King Nereus aligned with King Orm in this film. Not much else going on there.
Arthur is faced with fighting his half-brother to save the world but it gets muddled with all the side battles.They are many and overloaded to point of filling the screen with blurry machines and monsters that are neither technically groundbreaking or interesting.
Willem Dafoe plays Vulko, an advisor to the King, but he doesn’t get much screen time and the brilliant actor is wasted floating around Atlantis with a vacant stare looking as if he’s asking himself, “What am I doing here?” He plays the voice of reason but he’s too weak. Very disappointing.
Orm is the heavy. He’s the meanie. But fighting with him gives Momoa, as Arthur, a chance to flex his muscles for show. He gets a workout in the action scenes. The likable actor likes to do all his own stunts, but this time, he had not one, but TWO stunt doubles and all three of them broke something on their bodies during the shoot.
Amber Heard, as Mera, eventually becomes Arthur’s love interest, but it’s telegraphed. You know that’s got to happen. The development of their relationship is dumb. And their big kiss may go down as one of the cheesiest movie kisses of all time. Heard looks great, but her acting is stiff. Maybe because she even admits that her glitzy costume was so tight, it practically had to be painted on. So is Nicole Kidman’s. Instead of looking like fish scales, their costumes look sparkly and shiny, but so unrealistic.
Hair plays a big role in this film, particularly Momoa’s and Heard’s fiery red locks. The special effect the way they moved under water works well. Wan has created an effective way of showing these characters with their hair flowing and weightlessly floating through the sea.
Aquaman’s origin story is visually stimulating with an outrageous excess of computer generated sea creatures loaded on the screen. But the plot is mind numbing. This film tries to be super cool, but it just isn’t camp enough to be good. We groaned our way through this predictable water-logged action flick and were dazed and confused, distracted by so much eye-candy, we never got hooked.
Warner Bros. 2 hours 23 minutes PG-13
