Bad for a superhero movie

Rating: 5/10 (6 April 2019)

I love superhero movies and shows, and this is the lowest I've ever rated one since the Iron Fist series. Don't get me wrong, 5 stars still means it was worth the watch, but I probably won't be rewatching this movie. There were two positives about the film. The first is the action, which is unquestionably amazing. It's very well-coordinated that I couldn't help but feel awed by some of the scenes, even while I wasn't emotionally invested in the scene.
The second good aspect was Momoa. His devil-may-care attitude and raw prowess translate well to the big screen. This new take on Aquaman is a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre... except that it was already fresh in Justice League and he isn't ever given anything better than we've already seen, even in his own movie. Momoa does well in spite of it, but the character was not written as well as he should have been. In fact, even the emotional scenes where Momoa could have flexed his acting talents were given to a different actor by only occurring in flashbacks with a younger actor. It's difficult to get emotionally invested in a movie when it seems like the main character doesn't feel strongly about anything.
As for the other characters, Wilson and Mateen both perform decently. Not outstanding since their one-dimensional characters had no depth, but also having enough potential to keep the viewer engaged if not satisfied. The story occasionally tries to touch on the villain's emotions, but the limited screen time never allows them to dive in. I truly believe the movie should have toned down the epic war scenes and focused on establishing Aquaman as a character along with introducing an intimidating low-threat villain with a little depth, like was done in Spider-Man: Homecoming. They could have easily done this by keeping Black Manta as the sole villain. Then they could saving the jaw-dropping spectacles for Aquaman 2, where Oceanmaster would be the main villain and they could have more screen time to explore Oceanmaster's ruthlessness and dynamic with Aquaman. Combining them into one film made for a movie so rushed that neither villain's story had any emotional weight.
As for other actors, this is where we start getting from bad to worse. Not that any performances were outright bad, but they were certainly given horrible dialogue. Nearly all of the dialogue for Mera and occasional lines for everyone else were so cliched and/or cringe-worthy that it honestly makes you think the movie would have been better if the character didn't say anything at all at that moment. The worst moment was the Pinocchio joke; the joke itself was great, but the minute-long explanation of the joke actually had me squirming out of my seat with embarrassment for the entire superhero genre. Some of the other jokes were fine, but all of the subversive humor was awful. Subversive humor has already been overused in the Marvel series, so even though it was new for the DC series, it still felt contrived and unoriginal. In a movie with an entire franchise riding on it, screenwriting is not where you should start making budget cuts.
On the subject of budget cuts, the budget could have been significantly smaller if a less-known actor was cast in the place of Defoe. Defoe is a great actor whose talents were absolutely wasted in this one-dimensional emotionless character (though he would have been good spread out with more screen time in my 2 movie idea). Again, no fault of the actor, but definitely a fault of the screenwriter.
If it seems like my review is overly harsh, its because the superhero genre has given us a high standard to expect. This movie fell short in every single aspect, and it is definitely the fault of the poor screenwriting. Warner Brothers shouldn't have hired two relatively inexperienced low-budget writers for such a high-budget film.