The latest installment to the DC Extended Universe, “Aquaman” is visually breathtaking and incredibly fun to watch. While it is by no means a perfect movie, it makes up for its flaws with entertaining action scenes and surprisingly deep and nuanced characters.
The main plot follows Arthur, better known as Aquaman, who is half Atlantean and half human. When his half brother, Orm, becomes the villain known as Ocean Master, Arthur is is forced by the princess Mera and his former mentor Vulko to claim his birthright as the King of Atlantis in order to stop Orm from starting a war with the surface world.
While the movie takes place chronologically after 2017’s Justice League film, it also serves as an origin story for Aquaman. However, “Aquaman” distinguishes itself from the traditional and somewhat tiresome superhero origin story troupe by having his backstory not be about him but instead about his parents. The beginning of the movie focuses on the relationship between queen Atlanta and Arthur’s father, how they met and how she had to eventually leave him and their infant son. While this story serves as a prelude to the movie, it diverges from other superhero origin stories that simply show a tragic backstory or motivation for the hero. Instead, the relationship between Arthur’s parents is actually an essential part of the overall plot of the film and is not simply motivation for Arthur to become the titular Aquaman.
The film’s greatest strength is the entertaining and well-choreographed fight sequences. The large scale battles between CGI armies, which can sometimes feel boring or even derivative in other films, feel unique and look absolutely stunning. However, the film truly excels at the smaller actions scenes like Arthur fight against Black Manta and the one on one trident duels between Arthur and Orm. The excellent choreography of these smaller fights is supported by great camera work. For example, many of these fights have little to no cuts and simply track the action in one continuous shot. One moment you could be watching Mera fight Atlantean commandos and then the camera would smoothly pan over to Arthur’s fight with Black Manta. These epic actions scenes usually came unexpectedly and prevented to film from becoming to slow or boring. Furthermore, the different variety of fight scenes from underwater duels to rooftop chases made each encounter unique and prevented them from becoming monotonous and predictable. Of course, these fight scenes would be nothing without impressive adversaries for Arthur to fight, and the movie more than delivers with the main villains Ocean Master and Black Manta.
Both these bad guys are extremely entertaining to watch, but they are also very nuanced characters with their differing motivations and personalities. For example, Arthur’s half-brother Orm, despite being the main antagonist of the film, is not completely evil. While his intent and means of starting a war between the Kingdoms of the Seven Seas and the surface is reprehensible, his motivations for pursuing war is surprisingly relatable. Orm seeks to stop the surface from polluting and destroying the oceans and also believes that the surface will destroy itself and take Atlantis along with it. Orm’s strained relationship with his half brother is equally relatable. As the first-born son of Queen Atlanta, Arthur is the only thing preventing Orm from fully inheriting the Throne of Atlantis. This gives Orm a clear motivation for killing his brother. However, despite showing open contempt for Queen Atlanta’s half breed bastard child, Orm does not entirely hate Arthur. When the two brothers interact with each other privately before their first battle, Orm actually laments the fact that they have to fight and kill each other. Orm also blames Arthur for their mother’s death because she was executed for having him. Interestingly enough, Arthur also blames himself for his mother’s death. Their strained relationship and their mutual love for their mother makes the conflict between them all the more captivating to watch. Of course, there’s also a coolness factor to Ocean Master’s character because not only is he a physical match for Arthur, but he also rides a Mosasaur into battle, which is undeniably awesome. While this is not the most important detail of his character, it goes to show that not everything that makes a film good has to subversive or have a deeper meaning, sometimes adding a Mosasaur mount is just what you need to make a film enjoyable.
The other major antagonist is Black Manta, portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. While Abdul-Mateen did an excellent job translating Manta’s famous bloodlust from the comics to the big screen, his overall demeanor was a tad overboard and not in the good way. When compared to the leveled and intricate performance of Patrick Wilson, who played Ocean Master, Abdul-Mateen’s performance seems more erratic and a little over the top. To be fair, the character of Black Manta is supposed to be driven solely by revenge and that can be difficult to portray physically, especially when you have a big metal helmet obscuring your face. In this case, however, the opposite is true. I could not quite take Abdul-Mateen seriously at first until he donned Manta’s famous helmet. From that point forward, Abdul’s physical performance combined with the excellent combat choreography really brought the famous comic book villain to life.
Black Manta is more than a secondary villain in film and serves as a catalyst for Arthur’s character development. Without going into to much detail, Black Manta’s vendetta against Arthur stems from the death of Manta’s father. Arthur had the chance to save Manta’s father but instead left him to die. While this is justified by the fact the Manta and his father were murderers, by not saving him, Arthur created his one of his greatest adversaries. And when Manta returns to exact his revenge, Arthur realizes that his decision to let Manta’s father die was wrong and led to the endangerment of those he cares about. This teaches Arthur the value of mercy, which comes into play in the films conclusion. It also worth noting the uniqueness of Manta’s origin, in most superhero movies the villain is usually inadvertently created by the hero, like the Joker being drawn to Gotham by Batman’s existence in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, or is directly sought out by the hero, like how Wonder Woman sought to defeat Ares in her DCEU installment. However, Black Manta origin in supervillainy in a direct result of Arthur’s action. This adds a lot of depth to both characters giving Manta a legitimate gripe against Arthur and show there is consequences to Arthurs actions.
The excellent action scenes and well-choreographed fights combined with compelling villains made “Aquaman” a worthwhile movie experience. However, the film does suffer from a common flaw in many superhero movies and adaptation of long running series in general: trying to show too much at once. Trying to create the world of Atlantis and the other Kingdoms of the Seven Seas would be difficult in a television mini series, nevermind a nearly two and half hour long movie. To the credit of director James Wan, every little detail of the world he brought to life was stunning and unique. Each of the various undersea kingdoms were unique and looked amazing. But only so much explanation and exposition can be put into one film. For example, the kingdoms of the Brine and the Fishermen were both incredibly different and unique. However, the audience barely gets a glimpse into their societies or how they evolved to look like crab people and merfolk respectively. That being said if the film were to take the time to properly show all this, the movie would be extremely long, and all that exposition would bog down the action scenes, which make the movie so great. While this is a big problem in the movie, I think director James Wan found a good balance between world building, character development, and entertaining action scenes.
Despite a few flaws, “Aquaman” was a thoroughly enjoyable film that kept me on the edge of my seat. The well-choreographed and diverse fight scenes kept the story from becoming boring and monotonous. While the excellent character development and compelling villains added depth and complexity to the film. I would highly recommend seeing this film, especially if you are a fan of the Aquaman comics. Even if you aren’t, “Aquaman” is still an entertaining film with great visual effects and awesome characters.
