This shouldn't have worked. Aquaman wasn't supposed to be an awesome movie. The common wisdom was wrong as usual. Director James Wan has made the kind of movie that has entertained generations of movie goers, a rollicking adventure that transports us. Aquaman is big screen magic.
There are going to be those who just can't wrap their heads around it. Wan embraces everything about what is supposed to make Aquaman not work. He talks to fish. He rides seahorses. He talks underwater. And it's all amazing. Wan embraces the B-movie, comic book elements, imbuing them all with a sense of grandeur, legend, legitimacy. When he signed on for this film he said he wanted to make an old school swashbuckling adventure. Clearly he knew what he was talking about. Aquaman most resembles the Saturday Serials of the 40s with their larger than life plots and fantasy scenarios. Wan doesn't shy away from any of it. Instead he grabs it all by the tentacles and rides it to a stunning conclusion which had the audience I saw it with cheering.
Aquaman is a big screen film. This is what 3D was made for. They use 3D for everything but originally it was this sort of popcorn fun that used it exclusively. And watching Aquaman you feel like you're underwater. Wan's world immerses you.
Mamoa has star quality written all over him. It's hard not to be endeared to him and he also embraces all of the roll. It is mostly his full dedication to the character that makes it work as well as it does. Also great are his villains, both Wilson as the scenery chewing old school villain and Abdul-Mateen as the more post-modern baddy with a beef present strong counterpoints to Mamoa's outright heroism.
While the film doesn't try to get too deep (pun intended) its message is still one that is easy to get behind. Mamoa's outsider, denigrated character defying all odds and offering the culture what it needs to transform itself into something greater is the hero we need. Sure the story isn't a developed as previous installments of this franchise, it focuses in a more straightforward direction taking a more classic approach. And the script does fall into the trap many superhero films do of throwing awkward jokes in occasionally, not as much as a typical Marvel movie, but still enough to take me out of the film a few time. But even that fits with the film's pulpy roots and helps its connect to that simpler time.
I never thought I'd be cheering on an Aquaman movie but Wan and Mamoa and the rest of the team proved us all wrong.
Aquaman
Starring: Jason Mamoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Willem Dafoe, Nicole Kidman, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison, Djimon Hounsou, and yes... Julie Andrews
Director: James Wan
Writers: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, Will Beall
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