Aqua­man

At this point, putting aside excep­tions such as Won­der Woman and Black Pan­ther, it might seem futile to still hold out hope for a super­hero film that feels like a gen­uine artis­tic cre­ation. But the way DC’s Aqua­man overex­tends itself – in all direc­tions – feels just as dispir­it­ing as self-evi­dent­ly ​‘safer’ entries in the ever-expand­ing canon of super­hero sequels and remakes.

The film’s obvi­ous and faint­ly des­per­ate attempts to please every­one weighs down its gen­uine­ly fun aspects – and even makes those look engi­neered them­selves. What is inten­tion­al, and what isn’t? Could any­thing in this mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar machine have escaped the scruti­ny of focus groups and the care­ful cal­i­bra­tion of fun?

Torn between being a seri­ous com­ing-of-age adven­ture, a rompy bud­dy com­e­dy, and a vio­lent epic, the film decides to be all of these things, but mess­i­ly, and one at a time. A grue­some scene on a sub­ma­rine is rem­i­nis­cent of the dark­est moments from Bat­man v Super­man: Dawn of Jus­tice. An Indi­ana Jones-esque set piece in the Sahara recalls the worst comedic exchanges from Jus­tice League, only a lit­tle more polished.

A bat­tle scene seems inspired by Lord of the Rings, and an under­wa­ter sequence recalls both Har­ry Pot­ter and the epic para­chute drop from 2014’s Godzil­la. For Aqua­man to con­stant­ly jump from one allu­sion and reg­is­ter to anoth­er could be fun, part of a pur­pose­ful­ly dis­ori­ent­ing, any­thing-goes aes­thet­ic. But the film itself seems unable to keep up with these con­stant shifts, result­ing in moments so absurd they appear inci­den­tal, per­haps even accidental.

One such inci­dent sees an octo­pus bang­ing on some drums before a big bat­tle. Lat­er, a sol­dier loads water in an Atlantean weapon in the same man­ner one does with a house­hold iron. Such flour­ish­es do not add any­thing to the nar­ra­tive and are nev­er com­ment­ed on with­in the film. If one is will­ing to dis­re­gard the pos­si­bil­i­ty of mere incom­pe­tence of the part of the film­mak­ers, the only expla­na­tion behind these moments appear­ing in a mas­sive­ly bud­get­ed block­buster must be pre­cise­ly what I am doing right now: telling peo­ple about these fun­ny bits, and mak­ing the film sound like the crazy ston­er com­e­dy it sad­ly isn’t.

On at least five occa­sions in the film, a scene is inter­rupt­ed by vil­lains explod­ing through a wall. There are sev­er­al tri­dent sword fights. Dolph Lund­gren is present, as are Nicole Kid­man and Willem Dafoe. Aqua­man has all the con­stituent ele­ments of a camp clas­sic, but this glo­ri­ous poten­tial is dis­tilled over 143 long min­utes, in the bor­ing non-sto­ry of a rather unlike­able hero.

There are shades of King Arthur’s leg­end, and even a sequence direct­ly inspired by Pinoc­chio. But Aquaman/​Arthur Cur­ry remains an opaque and con­fus­ing pres­ence, sur­round­ed by char­ac­ters with their own clear goals and char­ac­ter­is­tics. The ille­git­i­mate son of Atlanna (Kid­man), Queen of Atlantis, and of a human light­house keep­er (Temuera Mor­ri­son), Cur­ry feels respon­si­ble for his mother’s exe­cu­tion in Atlantis. But noth­ing in his per­son­al­i­ty or atti­tude betrays any of that self-doubt or guilt, and the film’s attempt to present his becom­ing King of Atlantis as the cul­mi­na­tion of a per­son­al jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery falls flat.

This is even more of a shame con­sid­er­ing the refresh­ing­ly sim­ple nar­ra­tive that the film is going for. Play­ing with the ele­men­tal mate­r­i­al of the adven­ture com­ing-of-age sto­ry could have rather eas­i­ly led to some­thing ter­rif­ic, in equal parts fun and mov­ing – there are suc­cess­ful tem­plates for that kind of sto­ry­telling across com­ic book films and fan­ta­sy. But Aqua­man seems too afraid of falling into the much derid­ed grav­i­ty of Snyder’s Man of Steel and BvS, and does not have the courage to take any of its stakes seriously.

The war between the ocean and the sur­face world that Curry’s half broth­er Orm (Patrick Wil­son) threat­ens to begin feels rather vague and abstract­ed. Despite tacked-on lines of dia­logue try­ing to remind us of the conflict’s sig­nif­i­cance for Aqua­man – as half-Atlantean and half-human – the threat feels lit­tle more than an excuse for a series of rushed bat­tles and adven­tures for our hero.

Some of these sequences are dynam­ic, over-the-top and enter­tain­ing; a great set piece in Sici­ly feels like an old-school adven­ture film action scene. But the rest of this very long film is too tedious and joy­less, with only just enough absurd and fun­ny moments to keep us awake. As super­hero movies go, Aqua­man isn’t a dis­as­ter, but it’s still a disappointment.