Despite No. 1 spot, Aquaman fails to deliver

On Dec. 21, DC Entertainment released its newest disaster: Aquaman. Directed by James Wan, the movie follows Arthur Curry, or Aquaman (Jason Momoa), as he fights for the throne in Atlantis. This movie is a mess of cliches, plot holes and bad CGI, or computer generated imagery.

The movie starts off on a bad note. When Queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) fights off a series of villains in her living room, the graphics are so terrible they look like they’re out of a bad video game. The action looks more like animation than actual fighting, so it just looks cheesy.

The pattern of bad CGI continues through the whole film, which makes it hard to enjoy the movie. Once Arthur returns to the sea, the whole thing starts to go downhill. Anything that takes place underwater looks awful. For example, characters’ hair floated around them in an obnoxious, repetitive fashion. There was also giant seahorses and sharks that roared.

Plot holes are another major issue as well. During promotions for the movie, Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) appeared to be the main villain. He appears briefly at the beginning of the movie, and again towards the end, but he never is a major source of conflict in the movie. He was an unnecessary plot point and a waste of screentime. There was also no explanation of where he came from or his attachment to the story.

While the costumes in the movie were beautiful, creative and intricately-designed, they were unfitting to the film. DC is known for its visually dark movies — often so dark that audiences have a hard time seeing what is going on. So when this movie turns that stereotype on its side with characters in flashy neon colors, it leaves the audience confused. One IMDB reviewer called it, “ridiculous in a comic booky way.” Amber Heard, who plays Mera, wears a bright red wig that looks like it’s from Party City. But it could be worse — Aquaman could still wear yellow spandex and ride on a seahorse.

As bad as the first three-quarters of the movie is, the last quarter starts to pull the movie back around. But by then, it is too far gone to save. The main conflict is seemingly resolved, until the plot reveals that Black Manta is still alive. This sets up a path for him as the villain in the next movie, but ruins anything that had been resolved up to that point.

As of Jan. 9, the movie held the No. 1 spot and has an average rating of 7.5/10, according to Box Office Mojo. While the movie may be a hit for DC, it certainly doesn’t deserve that rating. However, Aquaman broke presale ticket records, beating Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther, according to Variety.com. Amazon Prime partnered with DC in a deal that allowed viewers to pre-purchase tickets and see the movie a week early — a smart marketing move on DC’s behalf.

As hard as DC might try, the company lacks the talent and initiative to make a good movie. They seem to be stuck in a rut of plotholes, cliches and poor production. These pose an issue for any movie, and for Aquaman, they earn it a 2/5. DC should stick to making their dark, disappointing movies, and continue to let Marvel make movies that people will actually enjoy.