Aquaman Isn't All Wet

Jason Momoa as Aquaman, DC's King of the Seven Seas

On my way to see Aquaman, I grabbed some clothes at random and found myself seated in the cinema wearing my orange sweater and green pants.

The movie was good fun. Even though the undersea kingdom scenes were as silly as one might expect, they offer a certain fairy-tale wonder to the eye.

Much of the dialogue is of the declamatory-predictable variety with sentences that you can finish before the actors do (“The two worlds … are one!”). The single exception is Jason Momoa’s refreshingly cheeky bro-witticisms.

We get two romances for the price of one — Aquaman and Mera’s meet-cute and the lost-love heart-tugger of Aquaman’s father and mother (with Nicole Kidman playing Aquamom).

The character’s comic book origins are faithfully served. A lot of the plot is video game quest stuff. You must seek the thingie that solves the puzzle of the whatsis to find the other thingie. The best parts play on the same “fish out of water” theme that worked so well in Wonder Woman.

For all that, much of the film sweeps you along like a big, friendly wave, with Momoa carrying it on the strength of his broad shoulders and considerable bad-boy charm.

I think, however, that what with Aquaman, Thor, the Black Panther and Wonder Woman, we’ve had enough superhero royalty to satisfy us for a while. No more “true kings,” please. That quasi-racist notion never fails to irritate me.