Aquaman

*WARNING THERE MAY BE SPOILERS*

Seen 1/1/19

Aquaman, the 6th movie of the “DCEU” (unofficial name for the shared universe but I’m going to refer to it as this through out), was a movie I came out of saying “why didn’t I like this? what went wrong?”. Now I haven’t been a big fan of the previous DCEU movies (Wonder Woman was good and I like Man of Steel perfectly fine) but like all movies I walk in to, I went in to Aquaman wanting to like it. 

Now before I give all my problems with the movie let me at least give credit where credit is due. Aquaman, much like Wonder Woman, wasn’t as dark as some of the previous movies (dark in the sense of color and tone). It helps makes things clearer when trying to understand what is going on. Also I feel like you could tell the people who made this movie ( James Wan the director, Jason Momoa, etc) had fun making it. There’s nothing worse than watching a movie where you can tell everyone just didn’t care and that’s most likely why the movie turns out so poorly. This is definitely not the case with Aquaman. 

So why didn’t I like this? What went wrong? 

I think my biggest problem with the movie was, it didn’t really make me care about the main character, Arthur Curry/ Aquaman. That’s a big problem since you know the movie is called Aquaman. The movie tries to gives you little flash back scenes of Arthur as a kid/teen showing how he’s different than the other kids or him training learning where his mother came from. But these scenes are all really pointless. They could have all been cut out of the movie and the rest of the movie could have gone on just the same. I feel like this movie just expects you to run with the idea “Aquaman is your main character so like him” but there is very little substance to grab on to for me to get to that place of liking him. And because I feel this movie doesn’t make me care about the main character himself, I ended up not caring about the hero’s journey this character has to go on, which takes up a good portion of this movie. 

Speaking of portions, My 2nd biggest problem was, this movie was just too long. Runtime clocks in at 2 hours and 23 minutes and it definitely felt like it. It is never a good sign when you are watching a movie and you start to think to yourself *how much longer do we have of this? I’ve been here for 2 hours already* and you start to plot out in your head all the things that still need to happen for the movie to resolve. By the time the movie was over I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Cutting out the aforementioned flash back scenes or some other scenes like when the villain of the movie King Orm/Ocean Master goes and recruits the 3rd kingdom he needs to wage war on the surface or when they bring Aquaman’s mom back after they spend numerous times talking about how she was killed just in the end to have her character there, it didn’t really add anything to the movie, they could have kept her dead and the ending would have been exactly the same.  Either way, any of those things or other edits would have done this movie a lot of good. This movie should have been 2 hours.    

After those main problems there were smaller things that bothered me within this. Things like where does this movie fit in the DCEU timeline? Because this movie doesn’t make much sense in the context of Justice League. If it is before Justice League why didn’t Aquaman have the king’s trident or his classic orange and green suit in Justice League? If it is after Justice League it wouldn’t make any sense either because they talk about how Aquaman has never been to Atlantis or how he doesn’t know Mera’s name when he first talks to her in this movie but he is clearly in Atlantis in Justice League when Steppenwolf goes to get the mother box and then right after you see Aquaman talking to Mera so he would know who she is. Then there is the usage of strange songs through out the movie which in some scenes took me right out of what I was watching. They were so out of place. The usage of location text was also over used and really dumb. A title would pop up on screen like “Somewhere in the East Ocean” they could have just put nothing up and I would still know its the ocean. And then there is just some super cheesy dialogue and basic movie clichés spread through out this movie. 

Overall I was hoping to like it and at the very least be entertained but I came out of it not really liking it and not caring much for it. I am glad for those who saw this movie and did enjoy it. I’m glad they got something out of this movie that I didn’t. If you are on the fence about see this movie I would suggest seeing it to make your own decision but I would also suggest waiting to rent it or until it is on a streaming service to watch it. If you have been wanting to see it in theaters though by all means go out and see it.