Aquaman.

- Aquaman (2018, dir. James Wan). The son of an Atlantean queen and a human lighthouse guard, Arthur Curry (alias Aquaman) is required to reclaim his throne as the rightful heir of Atlantis —before an alliance between the seven seas (well, what is left of seven underwater kingdoms, really) wage a huge war against the surface world. Unfortunately, Arthur has no interest in the throne or in Atlantis. Fortunately, he is interested in a globe-trotting adventure…

A superhero movie that is at once silly and spectacular, occasionally problematic and often loads of fun —so the quintessential Superhero story, really. Opting to ditch the dour cynicism of previous DC-based movies (“Superman vs Batman”), this one opts for a simple story that serves mostly as an excuse for adventures, spectacular fights and stunning landscapes, both above and below water. 

What makes it silly? It’s a movie that presents with all sincerity such sights as an armored shark roaring like a trained circus lion, an octopus beating war drums (something of a live-action interpretation of Disney’s version of The little mermaid, indeed!), a woman feasting on live goldfish and more. And that is fine, really —there is plenty of merit in daring to be silly. 

What makes it problematic? The tired cliché of a fantasy race (Atlantean) that consist almost exclusively of white people, while the one black person in the story (Black Manta) is the villain. The movie goes to great lengths to try to humanize Manta, but in a movie where most of the characters sound and act like they stepped out of an episode of “He-man and the masters of the universe”, it only makes the problem even more obvious. Add to that the casual destruction and unacknowledged massive death toll that is common to the genre and you have a movie that refused to learn the basic lesson: There is a lot wrong with being problematic due to slavishly following genre rules that were never meant to be followed at all. 

And yet, aside from elements that leave a really bitter taste on your mouth, the rest of the movie is still unabashedly entertaining, with grandiose overacting (on purpose) from a talented cast and a neat sense of spectacle and wonder.