That Aquaman Movie
Every week or so, I visit my dad and we watch a movie together. He’s got pretty much everything, Netflix, Amazon Prime, all sorts of streaming services, so there’s plenty of choices to be had. We were going to watch Aquaman 2, but I hadn’t seen Aquaman 1 yet, so we decided to watch that first. And it was an alright movie.
I mean, as far as super hero movies go, it was fine. A nice origin story, some changes of heart, the whole becoming a more devoted super hero thing and unlocking more powers, it’s pretty standard. The story isn’t mind-blowing, but the acting is alright, the bad guy does a decent job of being a bad guy and, for a change, the dad doesn’t die. And, as we find out closer to the end, other people don’t die either.
The fighting is pretty good too, considering it’s all mostly underwater. I’m not sure how strong Aquaman is supposed to be, but he does kinda appear to be bulletproof, which is useful. That being said, the ability to manipulate water is a broken ability that could easily win any fight. Water is everywhere, if you can manipulate water, you are unstoppable. Fuck, there’s water in everyone’s stomach acid, just manipulate that and cause your enemies to throw up.
There were some things that made little sense though. Like, we go to the Sahara to find a clue, because there used to be Atlanteans that lived in the Sahara before it turned into a desert. The clue is a bottle, which, placed in the hands of a true king, will reveal the location of the big bad trident everyone is looking for. Except that the ‘true king’ the clue refers to is in fact King Romulus, the first king of Rome (before Rome became a republic) and he didn’t exist until 753 BC. However, the Sahara has been a desert for at least a few thousand years, long before Rome was even an idea, let alone a kingdom.
And then there’s the massive trench in the Mediterranean that leads to the hidden sea at the Earth’s core, that’s filled with dinosaurs. Okay, if I’m honest, I can’t really fault that, because there’s a whole species of humans that live underwater and they have technology way better than that of humans. But, like, why is this hole in the Mediterranean Sea rather than somewhere deeper? And why does a random sculpture of a Roman king directly face it?
In all honesty though, the biggest problem I have is why Atlantis has waited all this time to get pissed off at humans. I know the entire conflict is a setup, but, like, they can cause massive tidal waves that can destroy a large amount of human settlements AND they have laser guns. This isn’t even a contest. Humans would be fucked in an actual war, until everyone moves stupidly far inland where the Atlanteans can no longer reach them. There’s a small spiel about how humans treat the ocean like shit, and they’re 100% right, we do. But it’s more of an aside than anything else. If you want a human/Atlantis conflict, then an ecological reason would be a good one. But really, the story is more focused on Arthur becoming king and freeing Atlantis from the rule of a pompous warmonger.
The big battle at the end was pretty cool though. Very heavily CGI-y, but, well, it’s an underwater battle between a race of crustacean men and an army of underwater breathers, backed up by a weird mixture of people riding sharks and overly aggressive seahorses, underwater submarine sort of things and whatever the weird shrimp battle suits the mermaid people were wearing. The big bad also rides a moasaur, which is pretty neat. That being said, with the amount of lasers being fired, the battle should have been very one-sided, even when Aquaman stomps in, riding a colossal sea monster.
Is Aquaman a great movie? Nah. Is it a good movie? It’s alright. Is it average? Definitely. But it’s a bit of fun. And if you enjoy it, then I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Aside from the plot holes. But I don’t think this movie was made with the intention of using your brain…