Aquaman - Problems, Questions and Concerns

I never much fancied watching Warner Bros/DC's Aquaman when it had its cinematic release. Lack of time and apathy conspired to rob me of the opportunity. So it was with some interest that I was loaned the DVD by my friend Eddie. That interest died a small death when he commented that it was one of the worst superhero films he'd ever watched and made Green Lantern look average. Oh hell. But, in the interest of fairness, and being suitably forewarned, my good lady and I settled down last night to watch it. We are never getting those two hours back. Ever.

Let's start with the problems. The film begins by describing how Arthur Curry's (Aquaman) parents met. Played by Temuera Morrison and Nicole Kidman, this is a brief intro, and the filmmakers have used digital de-ageing techniques to make them look younger. This has some pedigree in superhero movies as the MCU has used the technique a few times, most notably (and brilliantly) on Samuel L Jackson in Captain Marvel. Here, however, the effect is terrible. I have seen more realistic CGI character in videogames and at best, it looks weird. At worst, it's scary. Bad stuff happens and the movie moves on.

Then the film cuts to Arthur as a child and a school trip to an aquarium, where he gets to demonstrate his communication abilities with sea life. Then it cuts to the present day. That's it. No further explanation or examination of the consequences of this. Nothing.

Now we have the introduction of the adult Aquaman, and an action sequence set on a Russian submarine. Decent enough, but the film clearly has no idea how submarines work (ballast and floating are an issue) and when you see the submarine in action a bit later, they've forgotten that there was a massive explosion in the torpedo room (from which it is firing torpedoes!) and it sank due to having several holes in it (ballast tanks, the hatch through which Aquaman entered and left, etc).

I could go on, but nah, I really can't be bothered to go into that much detail, so here are the high (low)-lights:

• The music - a cheesy Vangelis-style rip off that really doesn't much suit the tone of the film.
• The tone of the film - is it heavyweight drama, or a Flash Gordon style adventure?
• If it is a Flash Gordon style adventure, and that's the tone of it for much of the time, Flash Gordon did it much, much better.
• CGI - aside from the de-aging already mentioned, let's bring up the sets. It's pretty obvious where they used green screen for some outdoor scenes and by god does it show! It's pretty common now and even the rather good Black Panther suffered a fair bit from this. The overall effect looks cheap.
• Physical sets - the Sicilian village looks like it's been stolen from Mamma Mia 2.
• The fight in Sicily - Black Manta's costume and dialogue, as well as the fight scene itself, would make the Power Rangers TV show blush in embarrassment. He looks terrible. 
• The drumming octopus(!)
• The Karathen - they couldn't seem to get the rights to use the word Kraken. WTF?
• The final battle - a CGI mess (to be fair, most of the "underwater" bits are decent enough). The final battle though, is just terrible. And they stole from pretty much every Godzilla movie with the use of the Karathen in actions and sound effects.
• Aquaman's intelligence - is he clever? Stupid? Playing dumb? And he ends up being King Arthur. They stole from Arthurian legend. There is not an original idea in here.

In fairness, most of the cast do well with what they've got, and Jason Momoa is fun on-screen, but every time I see Amber Heard and that god-awful wig, I just think they really wanted Scarlett Johansson and couldn't get her due to Marvel commitments.

Questions: Why? What was the point of this movie? Why did it make $ 1 billion plus at the box office? What the hell were they all thinking? (Naturally, with that billion comes the promise of a sequel and a spin off).

Concerns: If this is the future of the DC cinematic universe, count me out. I liked the Nolan "Dark Knight" series, despite their logic gaps, and I wanted to like the rebooted version of Bat-fleck, but after wasting time with Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, I am not sure I want to keep up with it. True, Wonder Woman was brilliant but the sequel sounds a bit iffy. I have never seen Man of Steel (not that big a Superman fan, he's just too... boring). I have no interest in Justice League, and Shazam, well, meh!

I get what DC are trying to do, and that is to equal Marvel and Disney with their slate of films - but the issue here is that Marvel planned their course carefully: standalone titles followed by team ups and a strong continuing story, culminating in Avengers: Endgame that looks, at the time of writing, of hitting the frankly ludicrous goal of an opening weekend of $1 billion worldwide. Extreme, I know, but there has been a lot of hard work (and 21 previous films in the series) to get to that point, and that is something the DC tried to circumvent and boy, have they been burned because of it.

So, my recommendation: avoid like the plague. I hear Eddie is trading his copy in at CEX...