Movie Review: Aquaman (2018)

I think it’s pointless to suggest that an Aquaman movie is dumb. Of course it’s dumb. It’s incredibly dumb. But I’ve got to hand it to James Wan; he made a pretty entertaining movie. The man created the biggest horror franchise of the 20th century from about $10, and he’s the most important person behind probably the second most successful cinematic universe. I’m not putting anything past him. He can do anything.

Now that’s not to say this movie is perfect. It has more problems than I can count, mostly concerning the plot. But the strength and creativity of the visuals really helps.

Wan’s always been a stylistic filmmaker, going back to Saw, which has a dated but pretty revolutionary style. The Conjuring movies always have some great camerawork, and I’d say the same about this here, although camerawork may not be the right term, when almost everything is digital.

This is the kind of visual style that I normally can’t stand. It doesn’t look particularly real. It can’t with all the stuff going on. But the visual effects are very nice, and the movie is well shot, far more so than something like Avatar, which has the similar almost-everything-is-digital style.

Sure, the best action scene of the movie is the one that has the least visual effects, but that’s fine. The movie is a lot of fun. Call it a guilty pleasure.

Rating: 6/10