Aquameh

So, based on most of what I've seen and heard, the fans seem to like the Aquaman movie. Probably the 2nd best received of the whole DCEU behind Wonder Woman.

I wish I saw that movie.

The origin movie for the character who was previously the worst part of the Justice League movie, this movie is maybe the all time example of overkill. You hear some blockbusters be tabbed as "nonstop action" but they really aren't. This is. And not in a good way. In nearly 2 1/2 hours this thing can barely go 5 minutes without some kind of big action set piece. Many interrupt the few quieter scenes. There are at least 3 times when a dialogue scene between 2 characters is cut short by an out of nowhere explosion. It's too much. It's WAY too much.

The story has a lot of standard stuff you've seen before. There's a lot of Black Panther here, a lot of Thor here. Nothing happens that will surprise anybody.

The movie is not cast well. We're stuck with Jason Momoa, who is a poor man's Dwayne Johnson(a VERY poor man). He doesn't have much to offer as an actor, and his charisma can't make up for that. He was way worse in Justice League, where he was nothing but a cocky dudebro. The main female character is played by Amber Heard, who again is not much of an actress, and doesn't have much charisma, but looks slick in her costumes. And Patrick Wilson, who can be good in things, is terribly miscast as the main bad guy. Those 3 get the bulk of the screentime and really do not help elevate the standard story into something compelling. By contrast, Willem Dafoe, Nicole Kidman and Temeura Morrison(Jango Fett) all have much less screentime but are able to make real impressions. There's also a secondary villain who is well played but mostly superfluous to the already crowded story.

I feel like the filmmakers knew the story they had was mostly pretty dull so they went all out to create a visually stunning world and they did. The film is great fun to just look at. The costumes are kind of silly, but the creatures and fx in all the action sequences are neat.

But it's too much. You go see these kinds of movies you expect 3 or 4 big action set pieces. It feels like this movie has about 20. It wears you out. How can the climax feel important when it feels like you have already seen 5 movies of climaxes?

And I just wasn't invested in these bland characters blandly portrayed. The movie's official climax is another one of these massive battles between different factions of the sea kingdom or whatever they called it. I don't know why every DCEU film has to end with a dark, murky CGI mess. I honestly tuned out by this point. It's all taking place deep underwater, of course, and you can't fucking tell what's even happening. I didn't care what happened.

I honestly might like Batman v Superman more than this. BvS had more stuff in it that I hated, but it also had more stuff that I really liked.