Aquaman

Aquaman 2018

Directed by James Wan, who has an impressive collection of directorial credits with a huge range of budgets – from Saw’s $1.2m to Fast and Furious 7’s $190m.

“Arthur Curry, the ‘Aquaman’, is the heir to the throne of the underwater city of Atlantis. Now, he’s forced to step forward and become the hero he’s meant to be.

Caught between the surface world and the undersea kingdom, he’s forced to grapple with his own mixed feelings about wearing the crown, and a new threat that’s beginning to emerge.”

This synopsis was taken verbatim from Empire magazine. The film bothered me that much, I can’t even think of a synopsis of my own that doesn’t include the words ‘blah blah blah’.
Where to start with this film? Warner Bros and the DCEU, it makes me sigh and a little bit angry… could end the review there as it’s the same drum that I’ve been beating since Batman vs Superman. No one sets out to make a bad film but It feels like the powers that be at Warner Bros don’t much care if it’s a good one. It seems like their assumption is that whatever vacuous nonsense they put out, people will still pay to see it, it will at least double it’s money, and they can continue the cycle.

Aquaman is a bloated CGI fest that bungles it’s way through the two and a half hour run time. The actors do their best with the barely fleshed out characters but hey had nothing here to work with. It feels like someone bought the “film making 101” book and just wanted to hit the required plot points throughout the movie. For me it lacked heart and any kind of feeling. The attempted humour missed every time as the one liners just came off the same as everything else; lacklustre and rushed.

It’s tough to not compare the two superhero universes and especially with this film. If you break down the plot points of this movie and Thor they are remarkably similar. Sibling rivalry, hunk hero needs to find weapon to defeat power hungry half brother, fantastic other worldly setting where anything could be possible. Thor (generally considered as one of the worst marvel movies in ranking charts) is a far superior film to this.

Reading this back it looks more like a Warner Bros bashing then a film review but I don’t really know what else to say about it. They are doing to the DCEU what Micheal Bay did to the Transformers franchise, and that is taking something that is close to my childhood and my heart, that has such potential to be great, and showing it nothing but contempt. I walked out of the cinema yesterday feeling thoroughly depressed.
I will see Wonder Woman 2 at the cinema as I have good will invested from Wonder Woman, however as for the rest of the DCEU…I am done. I think they may be too.