If you’re sick of Marvel, here come DC Comics to make you sicker. Prior to the recent DC Comics movie adaptations, the only reason I had even heard of Aquaman was Steve Carrell’s joke about him in The 40 Year-Old Virgin. At that point I had confused him with Namor the Sub-Mariner, who is actually a Marvel character, but, frankly, who cares? The moniker tells you all you need to know about his marine proclivities, and you can pretty much guess the rest.
This origins story, which conceives the watery hero as a half-Maori, half-Atlantean fish-man who fights for his rightful place on the throne of Atlantis after it has been usurped by his half-brother, is a hybrid of Greek and Arthurian legend. Whether any of this was in the comic book I have no idea, and frankly couldn’t care less — it’s all nonsense. Superhero fictions occupy a similar space to religion, appealing as they do to wishful thinking, power fantasies and desire for justice, and how seriously you take them depends on how liable you are to denial of reality, stupidity or mental illness. The real question is whether this is entertaining nonsense.
The good news — much to my surprise — is that it is. The leads are objectively highly attractive — Jason Momoa as the eponymous hero handsome, rugged and enormous, and Amber Heard as his love interest, Mera, beautiful and feminine — and, unlike Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, I could actually follow the narrative, even if it would appeal, I imagine, mostly to pre-teens.
Early intimations that the title character is dark and complex, exemplified by some heavy drinking with a barful of bikers, are not exploited to their full comic or dramatic potential in the way that a Swamp Thing, Deadpool, or even Guardians of the Galaxy might have done, and the narrative is quickly pulled back to the staid moral certainties of the DC universe, and the US in general.
This is an interesting choice, since Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), in which Aquaman first appeared, albeit briefly, was extremely dark — in fact, all I can really remember of it is Batman grimly smashing Superman’s head against a wall — and my guess would be that this was felt to have been a miscalculation that should not be repeated. Notwithstanding the iconic nature of Batman and Superman, DC Comics are notorious for badly-drawn and lame superheroes, and film versions of their comics are not likely to rival the excellent adaptations of Marvel creations Iron Man and the X-Men any time soon, so it’s not surprising this has “mainstream” written all over it.
There is little here to interest adults who are not Marvel completists, except for nods to Stingray, and the Terminator movies. The hairpiece worn by Temura Morrison (in scenes as Aquaman’s father as a young man) rivals Robert Duvall’s in The Godfather for ridiculousness. The CGI airbrushing of all and sundry, but especially Nicole Kidman and Willem Dafoe, is also absurd, and takes you out of, not only the moment, but large stretches of the film, but I doubt kids will notice, or even know who these actors are.
But, somehow, the whole thing hangs together, and, against the background of an endless stream of indistinguishable recent comic book adaptations, even seems fresh. To paraphrase Mr Burns in an episode of The Simpsons, I know what I hate — and it’s not this.
FATAL VISIONS 