Perhaps it is on the behalf of my upbringing that I never really wondered as to why Aquaman was always the butt-end of the Justice League’s line-up. Needless to say, I didn’t grow up watching Super Friends, so there might’ve been a divide hidden somewhere in there, but I still couldn’t quite grasp the validity of criticizing his character based off of one joke; and it’s a really lame joke, if we’re being honest. He talks to fish. Why is this funny? Is it to insinuate that he has no one else to talk to in the ocean, so he resorts to talking to fish? If so… that’s not true. There’s literally an entire civilization of people just like him and even if he were all by himself, it’d be like talking to any other animal, so yeah, this joke never made sense to me. Regardless, no matter how you look at it, Aquaman was always the laughing stock of DC’s lineup and it wouldn’t be until writer Geoff Johns, and artist Ivan Reis, had rewritten the character as part of the New 52 in 2011, that he would truly be considered capable of holding his own and crushing the criticisms of his past versions. This was certainly not the first time Aquaman had been reimagined successfully, but Johns’ run is certainly the most well-known amongst casual readers and it is certainly for this reason that many people turn to it when discussing the character: it deconstructs the majority vote on the character’s practicality and attempts to do more to include him amidst the pantheon of other great heroes from DC, while also being capable of maintaining his own standalone title. For this reason I have to admit that I have an admiration for Johns’ Aquaman, even if, overall, I’m not the biggest fan. Don’t get me wrong: I think that his stories are decent, but they lack any kind of real dynamic to offset it from all the others. They mostly consisted of secret histories locked within the annals of Atlantis’ past, that were once hidden but are now made known because a big bad water-villain is going to attempt to rule the earth and assert the ocean kingdom’s superiority over the land. Meanwhile, Reis’ layouts were pretty standard and not really interesting to look at, but the detailed widescreen approach, coupled with his expansive landscapes gave for an incredibly cinematic experience. In this regard, I surprisingly find the New 52 series to be the proper run to use in the character’s first page-to-screen adaptation.

Of course, there is much more to James Wan’s massive two and a half hour long CGI epic than just mimicking Johns’ story. Every aspect of the Aquaman mythos is touched upon here, from the pervasive political dialogue of Abnett’s current run, to the lush, sprawling, colorful sci-fi of Gleason’s Atlantis from the 2003 series. The film knows how to mix its influences in a way that creates a unique and progressive fantasy world, hidden beneath the world that we all live and breathe within, while still maintaining its ludicrous exterior: one scene will have an octopus playing bongos, another will have a massive planetary sea god protecting a trident and another scene fully embodies the visual nature of Jules Verne’s center of the earth. Normally, the overuse of CGI would act as a deterrent, but with a film like Aquaman, where a majority of the story takes place underwater, it almost felt necessary. Besides, it looks good, and I greatly appreciated seeing so many sea creatures in the forefront, both prehistoric and simplistic. Meanwhile, Wan is still able to exercise his horror-muscles with the nightmarishly rendered film version of the Trench and the fluid cinematography, coupled with the boisterous synth-orchestra styled soundtrack by Gregson-Williams, offer beautiful action sequences with some of the best fight choreography in a comic book film to date.

Arthur, on the other hand, is very much a product of the ennui and brash scruffiness of Peter David’s Aquaman (my personal favorite). Here, he’s a bit less ruthless, though he has to learn a bit of humility and altruism from his mistakes of allowing a man to die on a sinking sub and challenging his half-brother, Orm (a sometimes humorously diplomatic Patrick Wilson), to a battle for the throne, if only to lose in front of an Atlantean crowd. Malmoa pulls off the character flawlessly and makes him a likeable, and sometimes unfortunate, man of two worlds with a good sense of humor and charm. One of Arthur’s unfortunate character traits is that he never wants to be the king of Atlantis, but it always falls upon him because the power of controlling one of the world’s greatest civilizations is bestowed upon someone else, who wants to destroy the surface world. He rejects the responsibility of his birthright, but still tries to do what only he can consider to be the right thing to do, in accordance to his sense of morality. It is only after the surface world is attacked, that he decides that it’s going to take more than dethroning Orm in order to retain a sense of equilibrium; it’s going to take an entire paradigm shift and in this new mindset, he is able to succumb to personal growth. The threat of global annihilation continues to raise the stakes in DC’s films, but here, it isn’t without reason and the villains are given a certain level of sympathy: Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) looks every bit his comic book counterpart and wants revenge on Arthur for letting his father drown (a reasonable motive), and Orm wants to annihilate the surface world for polluting the oceans (fair enough); he only has scorn for Arthur because their mother was sacrificed to the Trench for having a child outside of her arranged marriage. In the end, Arthur looks at his relationship with Orm and makes the argument that whatever disharmony existing between the two of them doesn’t need to be, and that once Orm is able to get over himself and his disregard for Arthur, then the two of them might be able to understand one another. Mera (Amber Heard) proves herself better than a base love-interest and utilizes her magic all throughout the film, and Willem Dafoe is a great Vulko (even if they did decide to give him a man-bun). While a great deal of criticism has been paid to the script, I didn’t exactly find it that idiosyncratic. Yes, Orm does call Arthur a “bastard” a lot and yes, the pacing makes the film move as if it’s moving at a hundred miles per hour, but it develops the chemistry between its characters well and it keeps the sense of adventure at the forefront, which—at its core—is what Aquaman is about. There is only one reference to the events of Snyder’s Justice League and the film doesn’t attempt to build an entire franchise beyond its first feature. Instead, it strives to do everything right the first time around and in this regard, it does.

On a technical level, the film excels in its visuals, though there were a few stylistic editorial choices that I wouldn’t have personally gone with: the parallels between a young Arthur training with Vulko, and Arthur with Mera atop a great cliff, wasn’t as smooth as it could have been and a few dated musical inclusions felt a tad out of place, specifically “Ocean to Ocean (feat. Rhea)” by Pitbull, which—due to the countless memes based off Toto’s “Africa”—was hard not to laugh at. But these pass very quickly and are quite frankly forgotten once the massive underwater Star Wars fight between Atlantis and the Crab Kingdom takes place during the film’s secondary climax, which ultimately leads into a totally satisfying resolution. If nothing else, beyond the huge story, the epic score and the grand script, Wan captures the totality of all the different elements that fans of the character can expect and respect: a fully-realized Atlantis, which—much like the ocean—we’ve only barely gotten a glimpse of and can see greater potential in exploring with future films, oceanic wars, the Trench, Black Manta, the Ocean Master, Mera, the suit and an adventure that transcends continents. In some respect, perhaps Aquaman does so well because it keeps its themes, its character-arcs and its symbolism vague in comparison to the grand adventure. It doesn’t pit Aquaman as a symbol of hope like Superman, a weapon of love like Wonder Woman, or a product of will like Green Lantern. He’s just a guy who does what he can to make the world a better place and to protect the ones he loves. Meanwhile, it immerses you in the environment and uses the main conflict to fuel its massive plot, all while through the eyes of a man coming to terms with his familial destiny. Reportedly, James Wan hasn’t signed on to a second film for the series, which isn’t surprising. However, if this is the only Aquaman film that I get, then I’m glad that I got it.