Pretty to Look At, but Rushed, Badly-Written, and Weightless

Rating: 4/10 (18 December 2018)

Aquaman's New52 run was a fantastic moment for the character, so it was definitely the best choice of story to adapt. Now here's the thing, the entire run covered four graphic novels - 25 issues - which is roughly two years of storytelling, including a crossover with Justice League (which added another five or six issues). That's huge. It's an epic story involving multiple smaller stories that all come together. For the movie, they came up with a story that was a combination of that entire 25-issue run. That's like trying to squeeze all three Lord of the Rings books into one movie.
Okay, I get it, it was a loose adaptation for this very reason; cliffnote the important parts and tie together into a cohesive narrative, and I fully understand that things had to be moved about or cut out entirely in order to keep it manageable. Problem is, that's an antagonist per graphic novel, and we all know how the overabundance of villains affected Spider-Man 3. The Aquaman movie wants to squeeze in his origin and the fate of his mother, the Trench, Black Manta with his revenge for the death of his father, and Orm and his war on the surface world as antagonists (thank goodness they gave up on the idea of squeezing in the Dead King as well, and never even bothered with Vulko's betrayal), explore all seven kingdoms, and establish a romance between Arthur and Mera. It's too much to put into one movie, especially one as crazy and outlandish as this. It devolves the plot into a series of checkpoints that are all rushed through to get to the conclusion, meaning no moment is given time to breathe. None of the villains feel particularly well developed, Arthur and Mera's romance comes off as forced, the effects of everything on the outside world are completely forgotten about early on. Aquaman is just ferried from point A to point B to point C.
Compounding this lack of space and atmosphere in the storytelling is the overdone formula of interruption. By which I mean if you took a shot everytime a serious moment was undercut by a cheesy one-liner, or a section of dialogue gets interrupted by an explosion, you'd be paralytic by the time the credits rolled. It was cool and unexpected the first time it happens, but by the third time it just got boring. I know! A movie featuring armoured sharks and a drumming octopus felt boring! How do you even manage that?!
To continue the criticisms, what little immersion I had in this movie was completely broken by the nonsensical choice of licensed music. The use of Sigur Ros early on was a masterstroke I was completely behind, really suiting the scene it was put over. But then they lost their way and put in upbeat Depeche Mode over Black Manta building his suit after the death of his father, or getting Pitbull to sample/cover Africa by Toto (what?), and Skylar Grey's Everything I Need made the film feel like a Rom-Com once the credits rolled. For one, these songs were awful, but secondly they were just completely wrong for their scenes. The music's not all bad though. Rupert Gregson-Williams' score is actually pretty good. Not Hans Zimmer, Johann Johannsson or even Michael Giacchino levels of good, but by the halfway point it was his score that was keeping my sole interest going. Yeah, in a way it does sound like they saw Thor: Ragnarok and frantically tried to squeeze in as much 80s synth as they could, but I'll be honest, I think Gregson-Williams melded the 80s synth into the typical orchestral score much better than Mark Mothersbaugh did.
And that's not my only praise either. The opening ten minutes or so sold me instantly that this could exceed my admittedly low expectations. The scenes between Nicole Kidman's Queen Atlanna and Temuera Morrison's Tom Curry were so charming and brimming with chemistry that you couldn't help but root for their romance. When Atlantis eventually came calling, we got a kick-ass fight scene with Atlanna acrobatically bouncing all over the house in a composite longshot, fending off the attackers and saving her family all at once. Unfortunately this was just about the highest point for me. Arthur beating on Manta senior and junior, and their crew, was pretty badass too, but after that all the action scenes lost their gravity. Literally. Underwater battles should be super cool, right? But I actually got kind of bored of them because there was no weight to any of the choreography. They just "fly" all over the place. None of the punches felt like they landed, and the breaking of Atlanna's trident was only impactful because of its emotional implication for Arthur.
Another mote of praise I have, this time without any kind of criticism attached, was the visuals. Rushed story, awful music choices, and weightless action scenes aside, Aquaman is a devastatingly pretty movie to look at. The use of bright neon colours really gave it its own visual identity. Each of the seven kingdoms are designed so uniquely from one another that you can tell where you are at a glance. Arthur and Mera diving deep while being swarmed by the Trench is wall-mountingly gorgeous imagery. Of course there's the inherent concept of Aquaman's world as well, with armoured sharks, a drumming octopus, and soldiers riding giant seahorses. Atlantis looks truly mythological. And the CGI underwater hair is flawless, far better than other attempts in the likes of Inhumans or even the otherwise fantastic Arrival.
I can't say I was disappointed in Aquaman, as I already had pretty rock-bottom expectations. It starts out incredibly strong, but it quickly goes downhill as they try to squeeze way too much into the story, forcing it to rush from plot point to plot point. It's formulaic and badly written, with some truly cringeworthy dialogue, a forced romance, and lofty action sequences that were frankly boring to watch. It's a really pretty-looking movie though, with some fantastic CGI and set designs, and every character is brought to life visually. I give Aquaman a bad 4/10. It's not the worst you'll see, but goddamn I wish I had gone to see Into the Spider-Verse instead.