Maddie Nagai

I’m going to brutally honest and admit Aquaman is totally underwhelming. I like most of the actors and actresses of the cast individually, but almost no one besides Momoa matches their role. Despite my admiration of them, Patrick Wilson and Willem Dafoe just don’t feel like they fit in this world, but I suppose that could just be because Wilson feels more like an elf the whole way through (think Thranduil from The Hobbit). I’m not going to say that I expect a superhero movie to have a lot of realism, especially when it’s about a famous myth, but the visuals are far too Avatar-like. Atlantis can look however they wish, but the entire ocean looking like a glow rave is undeniably wacky. I know it’s difficult to explain every detail when world-building, but very little of even the basic technical stuff makes sense (once again, I know it’s fictional, but frankly some of their world is downright silly). The fight scenes tend to have shots that are overly dramatic and choppy. I think the intention was to go for a more comic book style of conflict (with severe zoom-ins, comedic smirks, and etc.) like many of the latest adaptations are doing (ie. Wayne and Deadpool), but does so unfortunately poorly (to the point of wooziness or motion sickness). Many of the backgrounds, look like very cheap and stock-quality CGI. I can’t believe that most of the praise for this movie was for the visuals, for me that was the worst part. Most of the laughs are cheap and juvenile, not unlike many other movies though. The characters who get the most screen time are the best developed and most funny, so basically only Heard and Momoa. This fact alone is why Marvel continues to beat DC at the box office. After Wonder Woman, I was just expecting better than this, not the same quality as WW even, but just not as disappointing as this. The costuming looked a lot like actual Halloween costumes (the Atlantian guards look like they took the suits from Power Rangers villains and painted them white, Mera’s green suit is very cheap-looking, and Black Manta looks like a squashed version of Ant-Man). Even my own mother, who knows nothing of comics and is generally easily pleased by action movies (especially with main characters played by guys she thinks are hot), had to say the music choices were far from the best (I mean an Africa cover, seriously?) and often disruptive to the scenes rather than building them up. For me the most promising thing in the DC Universe now is Ezra Miller’s goofy and relatable Flash.