WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Aquaman, in theaters now.
Aquaman is a strange film. Even in the endless wave of superhero features, it's a strange anomaly. For every tired trope it explores (the hero was inside him all along!), the film takes two crazy elements and crashes them together with the goofiest impulses of director James Wan.
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It's the only blockbuster ever to feature war seahorses, an octopus playing war drums during a coliseum battle over a pit of lava, an Indiana Jones riff and Julie Andrews as a nigh immortal sea behemoth. This is a film that includes a Pitbull cover of Toto's "Africa," and that's only, like, the 10th-weirdest thing to happen. Aquaman is bonkers, but by committing to the earnest goofiness of the original character instead of fighting it, the movie manages to embrace the silly to become one of the most entertaining blockbusters in recent memory.
The King Of The Sea
There are lots of strange elements to the original Aquaman stories from the comics. They're about the half-human/half-Atlantean heir to the throne, so of course the film was never going to be as simple as other superhero narratives. Previous takes on Aquaman have been defined by their attempts to tone down or compartmentalize the character. In shows like Smallville, the character was retooled to be less "ridiculous." Other takes on him focused solely on the big-time king, such as the Justice League cartoon. It was about making him more believable, if not compelling.
Aquaman instead explores what it would be like to be the half-human heir to the throne of Atlantis and then all the ridiculous things under the sea that get in his way. Arthur (Jason Momoa) is a plain person with simple needs, who is doing heroic things more out of habit then actually caring about them. But he's still this big, jokey mountain of a man, even as he tries to claim his birthright. There's an enthusiasm to Momoa's performance as Arthur that doesn't just invite the audience to come along for this adventure, but dares them to try and look away.
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The Trenches (And The Things Within)
One of the best aspects of the film is its willingness to just go big and not worry about it. Arthur and Mera head to the Sahara Desert before going to a scenic Italian village where Black Manta shows up in a flying suit with a giant helmet and starts shooting lasers at their heads. It doesn't give the audience the time think too hard on everything before throwing our heroes into a massive storm to fight a piranha man. And that's when the film introduces Julie Andrews (yes, the original Mary Poppins) as a giant sea monster.
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She's a behemoth that makes a series of threats against Arthur, but he calms her down by talking with her. And they don't try to change the look of it or update his powers for a new generation. Just as it was in previous Aquaman stories, the communication between Arthur and the monster is visualized by a bunch of rings moving away from his head. It's strange and silly, but because it's surrounded by things just as weird and silly (which, again, Julie Andrews as basically Cthulhu), it's not distracting. It's not stupid. It's just part of the world. The entire film operates on a similar pace, asking the audience to focus on the characters and the spectacle instead of the story. There's no time for realistic descriptions of ocean life if we want to get to the sharks versus submarine fight we never knew we always wanted.
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Yes, Golden Globe nominee Patrick Wilson is just floating there and monologuing at one point. Yes, that is a CGI de-aged Willem Dafoe revealing that Atlanteans just have the power to talk underwater and you shouldn't ask questions about it. Mera has a gown made out of jellyfish, Dolph Lundgren is a king of the sea and we haven't even gotten to the race of "fat poet" mermaids or the seemingly dwarf-lite crab people. That's just what this movie is, and it has the same kind of swagger as its star in how it tells the audience to get on board or get out.
By the climax, the audience has either already given up on the crazy altogether or just accepted the spectacle for what it is: A highly visual, well-directed and impressively performed epic that chooses to embrace the fairy tale inspirations for the story just as much as it draws from the original DC comics. It is a strange movie, but a visually compelling one, with a strong core of characters at its center.
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Aquaman is, for good or bad, one of the most unique films of the year. It commits to the goofiness of the source material and runs with it. If you're willing to just accept the weirdness for what it is, it's also one of the most fun films of the year.
Directed by James Wan, Aquaman stars Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Amber Heard as Mera, Patrick Wilson as Ocean Master, Willem Dafoe as Nuidis Vulko, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta, Temuera Morrison as Thomas Curry, Dolph Lundgren as Nereus and Nicole Kidman as Queen Atlanna.