Aquaman

The Neon Depths of Earnestness

Making Aquaman look cool was always going to be a fool’s errand. The character spent decades as the butt of superhero jokes, a guy who talks to fish and seemed permanently one step away from a seahorse entrance. James Wan’s answer in Aquaman is smart because he doesn’t really chase cool. He goes for excess. The movie is loud, damp, garish, and proud of it. Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry arrives not as a mythic nobleman but as a bruising outsider who drinks beer and throws his weight around. Coming off the fearsome physical presence of Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones, Momoa brings a heavy, slouched confidence that suits a hero who has never quite fit on land or undersea.



Wan seems almost giddy with the size of the sandbox. You can feel the horror director in him stretching out. The ocean becomes less a realistic environment than a fantasy cosmos, crammed with creatures, glowing kingdoms, and pulp-adventure nonsense. The influences are obvious in a good way: Ray Harryhausen monster energy, a little Jules Verne, plenty of comic-book neon. Structurally the movie is messy, sometimes very messy, but it never feels dead. It has this hyperactive, sugar-rush pulse that keeps dragging you along.