Other Media Review

Movie Review: Aquaman

In The Good Place, there’s a moment in which Chidi, the anxiety-ridden philosophy professor, is knocked off a footbridge into some shallow and photogenic water, and as he falls, he squeaks, “Whyyeeeee?”

This was my reaction to Aquaman. I’m into comic books and comic book movies, and I can suspend disbelief like a champ, but Aquaman broke me.

I’m going to take you through this movie with me, so spoilers abound, but I promise you that not one word is spoken in the course of this movie that you will not predict long in advance.

Key concepts:

  1. Atlantis needs the One True King.
  1. You can prove that you are worthy not through keen intellect or experience but by wielding Excalibur, I mean the Golden Trident, which is a weapon, not a gum.
  1. You can also kill the King which makes you the King instead. Even if you kill the King of, say, England, then you get to be the King of England. No one seems to think this is a problem. Queens just have political marriages and have babies, because Patriarchy, although they also get to have awesome fight scenes, so that’s good, I guess.
  1. Racism is bad.
  1. Protecting the environment is good but not if it means hurting people, but instead of talking about how to fix it, the best plan is to have massive undersea battles which result in the death of a lot of large and imposing fish and the continuation of Patriarchy. Sadly, this was completely realistic.

Got that? It will be pounded into your head over and over again.

Mera and Arthur
Yes, he is wearing a leather vest underwater. Why? Whyeeeee?

Here’s the plot. Once upon a time, a lighthouse keeper rescued an Atlantean who happened to be Nicole Kidman, Atlantean Queen. Think of “high born” Atlanteans as mermaids who have legs all the time and you’ll get the idea. Do not, under any circumstances, ask yourself how they control buoyancy or how they can see clearly underwater or how they can possibly pee in their skin tight outfits. They just can, OK? If you want science, read Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, but do not, under any circumstances, go see Aquaman or, to be fair, any other superhero movie.

Anyway, Nicole and Lighthouse Guy fall in love and have a very cute baby, and then Nicole (who is by far the best reason to see the movie) goes back to be Queen of Atlantis so her people will stop trying to hunt her down and kill her. Why don’t they just consider her abdicated? Atlantean politics is confusing.

She marries some Aqua Guy for political reasons and has an Atlantean baby who grows up to be a blond Patrick Wilson. He has a name but I just thought of him as AquaNazi. The other baby grows up to be Jason Momoa (Arthur Curry, AKA Aquaman or, in one case, Fish Man). Both kids are told that their mom has been executed because she gave birth to a half-human baby, so AquaNazi hates Arthur and Arthur hates himself, and much of the movie consists of people trying to convince him that he is Worthy.

Young Arthur goes to an Aquarium and discovers that he can talk to fish in a scene that would have been cooler if it did not seem to be cribbed from Harry Potter. Also, while I find it easy to believe that this kid can talk to ocean life, I find it hard to believe that this aquarium can keep some of these specific animals in captivity. This is the kind of thing that drove me up the wall: the lack of any kind of grounding in both the non-superpowered or magical aspects of the movie. I’m willing to believe that this guy can breathe underwater because superpowers, but no aquarium that I know of successfully keeps full grown Great White Sharks in captivity. Does the aquarium itself have superpowers? Does Arthur also speak Parceltongue? There are sea snakes, after all. Crossover potential!

After Lighthouse Dad is almost killed during a very cool scene that would have been even cooler were it not incredibly similar to one from Ponyo, Arthur and his pecs team up with Amber Heard (Mera, an Atlantis Princess) and her cleavage to stop a war between the Sea and the Surface.

“Why,” I wondered, “Does poor Mera look so exposed and objectified when she’s showing less skin than Ariel the Disney Mermaid, whom she so closely resembles?” I believe the issue is that there’s simply no practical reason for this outfit to show off her chest, specifically, and the camera will not stop pointing at her perfect cleavage. It’s at the center of nearly every shot. Shirtless Jason Momoa makes sense, sort of. Wet T-Shirt Jason makes sense. Skin Tight Mermaid Wetsuit Nicole Kidman makes sense. But Amber needed either more clothes or fewer clothes. I don’t mind her being sexy – goodness knows I do enjoy the wet shirt and shirtless Jason scenes, after all. The movie is quite generous in that regard to the female gaze. However, I object to the fact that she’s made sexy in a clumsy way. Her costume is similar to the one in the comics, but it’s still jarring, especially since many other costumes are changed from the comics anyway. Also, Camera, her eyes are up here, yo.

Amber Heard as Mera

Anyway, Arthur and his Pecs and Mera and her Cleavage have to find the thing that does the thing which means they have to go to the Sahara Desert (?) and do some Indiana Jones Stuff and also they have to visit a quaint Mediterranean village (how did they get there?) where Mera learns that Surface folk are charming and Arthur and his Pecs are all, “You know, Mera is pretty cute.” Y’all remember the scene in Tangled where the hot thief takes Rapunzel to a village and they dance and she gets her hair braided? There’s one just like that only with more food and less dancing and hair braiding, which is a pity because I would have paid a lot more to see Arthur and Mera hang out getting their hair braided by lovable children.

A lot of stuff happens and AquaNazi talks about purity (boo) and there’s a really cool bit with Mera and Arthur on a boat fighting off these terrifying sea creatures and then they go to the Earth’s Core which, surprise, is Jurassic Park, and who should be there but MOM, who was trapped there all this time but still has perfect make up. Mom gets to say:

“Atlantis has always had a king. Now it needs something more.”

“What,” asks Patriarchy Arthur, “Could be greater than a King?”

Wait for it….

“A HERO.”

Cue music.

There’s an undersea war and a one-on-one duel between Arthur and AquaNazi and then Nicole hugs everyone and says, “AquaNazi I love you but please stop with the purity, it’s so embarrassing, I’ll visit you in prison. M’Kay?” and Arthur sweetly kisses Mera on the head (having previously been kissed by her in the middle of a giant battle with explosions going off around them that are not at all metaphorical I’m sure) and he strikes a heroic pose and that’s the end.

Aquaman in his final, gold and green oufit
At last, he is clad in the gold bubblewrap of royalty!

I’m not going to try to unpack race and class in this movie except to say that apparently racism is bad but classism is fine? Only “high-born” Atlanteans can breathe on land and underwater. This leads to a cool thing where Atlantean fighters who go on land wear diving helmets full of water, but it’s classist as hell. On the other hand, Arthur’s dad is played by Temuera Morrison, who is Maori. Jason Momoa is Native Hawaiian, and Black Cobra Manta is played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen. It’s always a happy thing for me to see major roles being played by people of color. Plus Julie Andrews voices a sea monster and that’s certainly something that doesn’t happen every day.

Many reviewers and fans found this movie to be a fun, light-hearted film with stunning visuals. I confess – I did not like the visuals. I never believed that anyone, including CGI fish, was actually in the water. The movement was all wrong and inconsistent. The climactic battle, which should have thrilled my heart with all the ocean animals battling AquaNazi, is shot in such a fast and chaotic way that I couldn’t focus on anything. There’s no internal consistency and no laws of physics – much more so here than even in other superhero movies, which is saying a lot.

It is, however, a lot of fun watching Jason and his Pecs act like they are in a completely different movie from everyone else. Everyone else is at high, epic fantasy level, and Jason is all, “You better hurry up because I’m missing Happy Hour for this.” Mera drives the story much more than Arthur and is great in fight scenes. Everyone acts as well as one could possibly expect them to given that everything takes place against so much CGI that there’s no sense of any reality. The movie is optimistic and empowering, and at one point Nicole says “A King fights only for his own nation. You fight for everyone.” I endorse this message.

Here’s how I think this movie could work for you, if you’d like to see it:

  1. See it on Imax. Have popcorn.
  2. See it in as crowded a theater as possible.
  3. If at all possible, be drunk. Unless you get motion sickness, in which case, no.
  4. DO NOT, AT ANY POINT, ASK ANY QUESTIONS.

Good luck, people. You’ll need it.

Add Your Comment →

  1. Bu says:

    Aww! I loved this review.

    Hilarious and informative, without being remotely mean-spirited. Thank you!

    I’ll probably wait till I can watch this at home…but with popcorn and wine, of course.

    Also, “Whyyeeeeee?” had me laughing and laughing. <3

  2. The Other Kate says:

    The answer to almost every “Whyyee” moment is: because cool. Leather vest is cool! Explosions are cool, etc. I agree about not asking any questions, and the dialogue and character development are nothing special, but the visuals were spectacular, the action was good, and it was full of very sexy people, so I found it an enjoyable 2+ hours.

    Also, this is the train of thought that went through my head: “Wow, another cleavage shot? They’re really objectifying her. Ooh, shirtless Jason again, mmmm! Oh, wait, I have been posting sexy gifs of shirtless Jason for literally months in anticipation of this movie. Huh.” I guess the movie is actually fairly balanced in terms of providing eye candy for all. Everything runs on Rule of Cool.

  3. Kira says:

    I’m probably the only one that wants a (not a sequel / not really a prequel / let’s call it a “mediequel”) about Nicole Kidman’s adventures kicking pterodactyl ass in the Land of the Lost.

  4. rachel says:

    I think this movie was BANANAS, but kind of pretty to look at. I was mostly there for wet/shirtless Jason Momoa and paid very little attention to the “plot” (I’m suspicious that there even was a plot here).

    And if it makes you feel any better, the shark in the aquarium was a sand tiger shark, which only grows to about 10 ft. and can be kept in captivity. They’re pretty hardy.
    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/s/sand-tiger-shark/

  5. Kim W says:

    My biggest beef with this movie was that Jason Momoa kept wearing boots in the water. I can accept that he’s such a good swimmer that boots don’t impede his swimming but is that his super power when he gets back on land? His shoes don’t squish water out?! It was extremely distracting.

  6. Rebecca says:

    Why is Mera wearing built-in wedges with her Ariel cosplay? Those are impractical for sand dune hiking AND swimming.

  7. Hope says:

    My issue: Mera’s dad is 100% complicit in the murder of the Fishermen King and at the end he’s there with the heroes laughing, guilt and consequence free.

  8. Heather M says:

    I had SO MUCH trouble with the visuals in this movie. I couldn’t understand what was going on half the time, and not in a oh-gosh-this-plot-is-so-confusing way but in a I-literally-can’t-parse-what-I’m-seeing way. It was a fun-ish popcorn movie, but it also gave me a hellacious headache.

    I still want a jellyfish dress, though.

    (though that brought up all sort of ethical issues that they never addressed! They-at least “highborns”- can maybe possibly communicate with all sea life(or is it only Arthur?), indicating that those animals are in some way sentient, but are also like, a slave underclass that are used for living fashion and as war mounts and such. What the fuuuuuuuuuck, Aquaman.)

  9. Misti says:

    You have many valid points. I saw it just this week but I was there to watch Jason Momoa and to see things get blown up and that’s what I got. I have tried not to think about it too hard since. 🙂 I’m dying about the gold bubble wrap!

  10. Heather C says:

    I saw this at an alamo and I adhere to the rule that it is a no-talking zone. That is a mistake for this movie. I second the “be drunk” and I want to see this movie again where my friends and I can share our reactions out loud and in the moment

  11. I’m going with a friend to see this next week. As long as it’s not as bad as SUICIDE SQUAD, I think it will be okay. LOL.

  12. Deianira says:

    “If you want science, read Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant,”

    I cannot endorse this opinion enough.

    Also, thank you, I’m home from work with a nasty sinus infection & am now going to watch “Tangled”. Because I need to be in my happy place.

  13. chacha1 says:

    I saw this movie for one reason and one reason only, I went with my also-roughly-fifty-year-old friend who had the same reason, and we thoroughly enjoyed it for that reason. (No points for guessing the reason.)

    It is completely preposterous, nonsensical, loud, and derivative. All of the C ratings points stated above are completely legit.

    I do not for a moment regret spending that time and money on something so stupid, because every shot of Jason Momoa walking out of the ocean or tossing back his wet hair (with that look that says ‘I know exactly how ridiculous this is, when can we go get a drink?) made me happy.

    And that said, if he had not so clearly been in on the joke, it would have been a lot less fun. I can think of several other actors who are similarly gorgeous who would not have brought the sense of humor that saved the whole stupid thing for me.

  14. Sarah Peach says:

    I enjoyed myself much more than I thought I would?

    I was HERE for Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman kicking ass, though I did question why the hell they couldn’t be the badass rulers when Arthur didn’t even want to come to Atlantis.

    Also, shout out to my precious, underrated baby, Willem Dafoe, who I thoroughly enjoyed in the mentor/double agent role even if his hair was…a choice.

  15. Carol says:

    I thought it was fun. I have to ask the question, though, if you are going to see a superhero movie (where it’s understood that main characters have magical powers) based on a comic book, why does credibility come into it at all? I thought the point was suspending disbelief and entering an imaginary world….

    Some of the stylistic decisions are, I imagine, made for folks who are hardcore DC fans (or comics fans in general). I know someone who dearly loves DC stuff and keeping certain details, like costumes and the overall look of the underwater world, true to the comic book vision was really important to him. (We talked about Mira’s hair color, which I thought was fug, but he loved because in the comic books she has really red red hair apparently.) Reminds me of when the first Hunger Games came out and the cat was black and white instead of ginger. THAT’S NOT THE WAY THE AUTHOR IMAGINED IT!!! and they changed the cat in the next movie!

  16. Caroline says:

    I could have used like 25% fewer fish battles . . . “Aaaaaand, now we conquer the super (not just kinda) fishy people . . . and now the gross fishy people . . etc.” This reaffirmed for me that Kidman is a seriously talented actor. She made those terrible lines sounds decent.
    Also: Fuck the Patriarchy

  17. RaccoonMama says:

    I desperately wanted “what could be greater than a king” to be answered by “a queen!” and then Mera goes in and becomes the queen because obviously she was way more capable than Arthur. But I also knew DC would never do that.

  18. Jessica says:

    I took notes during the movie so I could query the Facebook masses afterwards. My post was:

    I have SO MANY questions, you guys…

    If you can make Willem Dafoe look 30 years younger, why don’t you just get Daryl Hannah instead of giving Nicole Kidman weird braidy dreads?

    Who chooses to swim in denim? Jeans are very uncomfortable when they are wet.

    Why doesn’t Aquaman have a Down East accent?

    How are you gonna scoff at fairytales when you’re a freaking merman?

    Why are the bad guys Power Rangers?

    He-Man is Ariel’s dad?

    I want Ariel’s wig.

    Who decided to wear armor in the ocean?

    The octopus playing the drums broke me. I never recovered.

    Where’s all the light come from to illuminate the bottom of the ocean and Aladdin’s cave?

    You know why no one else got the trident? ‘Cause everyone stopped to listen to the mama monster speak rather than charlie mike and pick up the stupid spear before she got there.

    Why do these aquabeings have cities and vehicles and plasma lasers, but still fight en masse like it’s damn Waterloo? Drop a JDAM on the shrimp and be done with it.

  19. Joy says:

    OK, Deianira, I too have been home with a nasty sinus infection and REALLY recommend Mira Grant’s Drowning in the Deep and its prequel Rolling in the Deep. Both scared me spitless so I have no desire to re-read them when I’m sick but own both and plan to re-read them again and again.

    During the two books there are mentions of other events that happen in this somewhat parallel (?) world. One mention I catch but another about a dinosaur I can’t match up with other Mira Grant stories. Anyone read these and also catch them?
    PS: Better to spend your dollars on these two books and wait for Aquaman to show up on cable soon.

  20. Jake says:

    @Kira, Comment #3: I think the generally-accepted term for that is “midquel”.

  21. BellaInAus says:

    I saw this with the family yesterday. I spent half the movie going “Isn’t that Bobba Fett?” and “The Green Goblin!” and “Nicole Kidman is in this???”. I have no regrets about being the noisy movie goer. The woman in front of me kept checking her phone everytime the scene had dark lighting.

    Jason Moama’s habit of wearing his boots underwater was distracting, as were Amber Heard high heels. But at least Amber Heard wore a sunsafe outfit in the Sahara. But I wondered how she could swim with that neckline and not flash everyone

    Was the lighthouse in New Zealand? It looked like New Zealand.

    At one point, AquaNazi and Jason Moama have a face to face argument and AquaNazi was distracting because he was arguing with JMs collarbone instead of his face.

    Also, did anyone work out exactly how AquNazi’s hair was done at the back when he had it slicked back? It looked like a pointy French Pleat to me.

    I kept expecting Willem Defoe to be a bad guy. But he also looked like he would go out with Jason Moama to the pub when shooting was over for the day. Except he’s need a smaller glass.

    Also, auto-correct thinks I’m talking about Jason Moans. snigger

  22. Molly says:

    I have one very important question.

    Does Patrick Wilson sing in this? Because if he sings in this I’m in, I don’t care how bad it is.

    (I mean, yeah, I’ll probably go see it at a second-run theatre anyway because Jason Momoa, yum. But still.)

  23. HeatherS says:

    So apparently this movie has made more than “Wonder Woman”, and, given this review, I can only wonder why.

  24. Dani says:

    After the crapfest that was Justice League, I was really hoping Aquaman would give me a legitimate reason to continue seeing the DC movies. And yeah, Mamoa is handsome as hell, but he’s funny too. Pretty bummed that all the funny parts of the movie are included in the trailer…

    Not as bad as Suicide Squad or Ben Affleck’s pitiful excuse of a Batman, but not something I would spend more than $5 on.

  25. Mintaka14 says:

    It had SHARKS! With frickin’ LASERS!! (Dr Evil, eat your heart out!)

  26. Brigit says:

    @ Rebecca, comment #6, about wedges/heels:

    Because in USA-produced TV/movies, women wear heels. It’s like a law of nature, no matter what the character does in terms of movements, fighting, a job that has her on her feet all day, etc. She. Wears. Heels.
    It one my my pet peeves and something I recognize Canadian-produced shows by (e.g. Travelers, Private Eyes). The female get to wear sensible shoes, appropriate for how and how much they move.

    That said, I haven’t seen the movie yet, but plan to do it soon, taking my niece with whom I go to see all the superhero movies. And, like chacha1 @ #13, for me there really is only one reason to see it… 😉

  27. MinaKelly says:

    The wedge heels amused me because I have a real soft spot for Bombshells (digital first DC comic set in a WW2 AU where all the male heroes are just kinda absent and everyone punches nazis while looking super cute) and the Atlantean women in that all wear wedges, which the comic sort of gets away with because of aesthetic and this movie on hundred percent does not.

    I really enjoyed the space opera elements of this, with the travelling to all the different kingdoms, but I found all the flashback stuff really dragged. We’d planned to see Spider-verse but the film broke down, so we ended up seeing this instead. Not a complete waste of time, but Spider-verse is just so much better.

    @RacoonMamma I leant over to my husband and said exactly that during that scene! Mera is very clearly the obvious candidate for the throne of all oceans. Trinity trope at work again.

  28. Claire Andress says:

    REALLY good undersea book: Lost Voices by Sarah Porter. It crushes the Patriarchy under its…fins, and it is the first book in a trilogy. It’s not comic-bookish, but it’s awesome.

    Off to ogle again now, though. Every tale has a different strength to its telling.

  29. Deianira says:

    @Brigit: Re: the heels thing. It is very much cultural, & not just in movies! I used to be an internal auditor for a large warehousing & shipping company, & I spent half my time in our warehouses, supervising counts, inspecting stock, etc. I wore pantsuits & flats because, hello, warehouse floors & cherry pickers. I got dinged on my first review for not “dressing like the other women in the office” (code for dresses & heels, obviously).

    Becaus even when we’re counting pallets or kickng ass, we have to have those sexy heels, amirite?

  30. ReneeG says:

    I was hoping for an enjoyable fun film, but found the class/patriarchy/animal issues left a bad taste in my mouth (although Jason was fabulous to watch, and not just for the pecs or hair). The whole insistence of having a “king” instead of a queen made my blood boil – Mera (costume aside) would have been a far better ruler than either of the male options and should have been able to try for the trident herself.

    I’m really getting tired of Hollywood playing to the fanboys all the time, while using the whiny “that’s how it was written” excuse. Why not take the bones of the material and make a movie that reflects this time and these issues, instead of some crazy wish fulfillment for males who are scared of the “other”?

    Sorry for the rant, but the film has been nagging at me since I saw it and this is a safe place to deflate.

  31. L. says:

    According to Pitch Meetings on YouTube the answer to the question:

    “Whyeee?”

    “I don’t know.”

    “Fair enough.”

  32. Allison says:

    I whole-heartedly endorse the suggestion to just read Mira Grant’s excellent duology about mermaids. (That said, I did enjoy Aquaman in the Big Dumb Fun category of action movies. The view is very nice.)

  33. Sonya says:

    @BellaInAus “Was the lighthouse in New Zealand? It looked like New Zealand.”

    No, it was in New South Wales. Most of the movie was filmed in Australia, in fact.

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