AQUAMAN

CRITICAL REVIEW

25TH APRIL OF 2019

ADEBISI ADEYANJU ADEYINKA
PRE -MED 2
 On a stormy night in Amnesty Bay, Maine, just outside the lighthouse and on the rocks,
an injured woman is found by Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison). He found out that she was Atlanna
(Nicole Kidman), Queen of Atlantis, who fled an arranged marriage; when he had taken her in
to tend to her injuries. Both of them soon fell in love and had a child. A few years later,
the Atlantean King's soldiers finally found Atlanna and resorted to using violence in an attempt to
return her back to Atlantis. Atlanna, with a heavy heart, realized that the only way to save her family
is to leave them. Her son, Arthur (Jason Momoa), grows up to be called "Aquaman," a local legend.

The movie starts with Arthur battling a group of pirates that infiltrated a government ship.
This seemingly unobtrusive clash, throughout the story, was one of the major plotlines. When the
battle is won, Arthur corners the group's leaders–a father and son who continues to fight despite
being offered an escape. The father met his end at this point, and his devastated son swears revenge
on Aquaman. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that a war brims between the different underwater
nations in Atlantis. The main advocate of the war is the King Orn of Atlantis, Arthur's half-brother on
the side of his mother whose main goal is to seize the other six underwater kingdoms and claim the
title of Ocean Master, giving him the power to rule over the whole ocean.

Queen Mera, an Atlatean woman engaged to King Orn, goes to the surface to ask for help
from Arthur to prevent the war. Although Arthur initially refuses, after his father is injured in an
Atlantis attack, he agrees with her demands. Then Arthur follows Mera into the ocean and for the
first time officially enters Atlantis. He fights King Orn for the throne upon his arrival and loses badly.
He's on the verge of death when Mera rescues him, and they set out on a quest to find the
lost trident belonging to Atlantis original ruler, described by Vulko as the only weapon that could be
used to defeat Orn and reclaim the throne.

This is a classic adventure story in which Arthur and Mera travel the seas to find the lost
trident, guided only by a mysterious prophecy, ancient technology and navigational capacity. Along
the way, the man whose father Aquaman had killed, appears to exert his revenge, having received
Atlantean technology from King Orn with which he crafts a warsuit, and assumes the identity; Black
Manta. Manta is defeated after a long confrontation and falls into the ocean from a cliff, damaging
his suit beyond repair. Arthur finds the trident, and apparently stumbles on his presumed deceased
mother by chance. He saves the day by defeating Orn and reclaiming his rightful place as King of
Atlantis.

It starts with a quote from Jules Verne, a high aspiration for this epic fantasy. However, this
is followed by a series of dreadfully generic, phonically theoretical observations like "Life, like the
sea, has a way of bringing people together." Sometimes after the introduction of the Queen of
Atlantis, anguish increases; it is apparent that "Aquaman" has no interest in trying to relieve people
into its fairy-tale world. Instead, it assumes that everybody will be on board automatically to collect
a bland myth; not even a small attempt is made to preserve any appearance of realism or sincerity.

Right from the onset, Tom doesn't seem interested with Atlanna's mysterious presence;
even when she went on raving about a hidden kingdom under the sea, it didn't really matter to him.
Of course, the movie pushes the screen with action just as fast as the origins of Aquaman are
revealed. In such predictable ventures, illustrating with a rush of violence must be halted. This
technique is hilariously reused–and quite by accident–several times; characters talk calmly only to
be vehemently cut off by a sudden explosion. It so often happens that soon it will become absolutely
funny.
 Maybe that's best, given that the development of characters is so simplistic that random
destruction is the only thing which could jar audiences out of hypnotic confusion. Antagonists
ominously remove their helmets to show their ruthlessness, with deep bass tones resonating in
the background. Or they're going to perform a random extra, simply to reiterate they're bad guys.
The worst of the offenders is Black Manta, so ludicrous that he looks like an intolerable bobblehead
doll, tumbling as if he's almost certain to roll over.

It doesn’t help that the heroes of the picture are all invincible, which means that they’re not
only immune to true danger, but also devoid of sympathy. A shirtless Momoa, repeatedly striking a
poster-worthy pose, simply isn’t an effective way to generate an emotional investment. And the
continual posing by nearly every main character accentuates the pitiful physics of a predominantly
CG-rendered world – made more obvious by anticlimactic slow-motion in all the wrong spots.

Fortunately, some of the creature designs and ideas, including seahorse dragons, alligator
monsters, and sharkback riding, are moderately amusing. Plus, if for no other reason than the
ridiculousness of its name, the Kingdom of the Brine is indulging, which seems more appropriate to a
civilization of sea cucumbers or some pickled entity. But each time a slightly more wonderful image
is generated by complicated visuals, "Aquaman" reaffirms its goofiness by employing horrendous
dialogue, or taking components from numerous other science fiction extravagances (not only is this
film repeatedly like the live action, "The Little Mermaid," from Mera's Ariel styling to a octopus
drummer to an Ursula counterpart to combat with tridents -but it also steals generously from the
"Clash of the Titans," "The Abyss," and many others).

The story is moved into something in the same lines as the "National Treasure" or the "Da
Vinci Code," with quests based upon ancient recordings, treasure maps, and oft-told legends; as it
floods the screen with flashbacks, detonations, combat sequences, vivid outfits (a jellyfish clothing is
one of the more laughable), special effects, the crescendo background opera singers, bad stern
expressions and conspicuous sidelong glances. It is here that "Aquaman" feels as if 20 people wrote
it, or perhaps a dozen co-directed it. The sound and the script are so awkward that every scene
seems as though it was written as it was filmed.

One meaningless battle after another assaults the senses, until even the action sequences
appear dull. And with such one-note characters, none of the adventure, destruction, romance, or
peril have any impact. At one point, when Mera comments, “It’s a long story; I’ll tell you later,” I
wished the same was true of the entirety of this movie.
 References

Aquaman full movie (2018). Retrieved from www.yesmovies.net

Aquaman Movie Review - Common Sense Media. Retrieved April 24, 2019, from

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/aquaman

Josh Wilding (2018). AQUAMAN: Everything the Latest Issue of Entertainment Weekly Tells Us About

the Movie. Retrieved from https://www.comicbookmovie.com/aquaman/aquaman-

everything-the-latest-issue-of-entertainment-weekly-tells-us-about-the-movie-spoilers-

a161414