Aquaman succeeds wildly where so many other comic book movies fall woefully short: The third act.
Audiences expect a lot from of superhero and comic book movies.
We want them to have the scope and spectacle worthy of the big screen, but still be emotionally grounded enough to keep us invested. We expect to see the history and lore to remind us of their comic book ties, but with enough new material to keep us surprised. We need characters who resonate enough to keep us interested, a story that we can enjoy, but also makes us think, all wrapped up with fight scenes so exciting they keep us on the edge of our seat.
Not many comic book and superhero movies have delivered on all of these. And even fewer have managed to deliver on them throughout the entire run of the storytelling. In fact, even some of the best superhero stories, while excellent in nearly all of these categories for most of the film, falter in the final act of storytelling.
It’s as if after putting so much work and energy into the first two acts, the creative team runs out of steam for the final act.
With the best movies, it’s not enough to derail the entire quality of the film — only enough to make you wish that they’d kept the momentum going through to the finish line rather than stumbling a bit before crossing it.
Fortunately, this is definitely not the case with Aquaman.
Whatever else you might have thought about the first two acts, Aquaman’s third act is superb in every sense of the word. It gives us eye popping spectacle and white-knuckle action without sacrificing its emotional character arcs or storytelling. It’s a comic book come to life on the big screen, while also reinventing many things about a comic book character that many viewers thought they knew.
And it give us Julie Andrews voicing an honest-to-God kaiju.
What more could you really want?
(Tons of spoilers for Aquaman, obviously)
Although the Trench sequence is probably technically still part of the second act of Aquaman, I had to include it in here because it is just so damn good and I’ve been dying to talk about it.
I’ve seen Aquaman four times — twice on a standard screen, once in IMAX and another in IMAX 3D — and each time the Trench scene still takes my breath away. In fact, seeing it in IMAX was akin to having a religious experience — one where I had to remind myself to breathe. It’s a moment in Aquaman where James Wan’s horror movie expertise so clearly shines through and which I thank him for because he provides us with one of the best comic book movies scenes of all time. You will not change my mind on this.
Then, James Wan follows up that truly magnificent scene of comic book spectacle and horror movie madness with an intimate scene of genuine emotion that’s made me cry every single damn time I watch it.
Arthur’s reunion with his mother is the moment in this film where we see his carefree, gruff exterior drop, and see him as the young boy who has spent his whole life missing his mother while also blaming himself for her death.
James Wan’s Aquaman doesn’t limit itself to one emotion any more than it limits itself to one genre. This is a movie — and a third act — where you can be astounded at the on-screen visuals and on-screen emotions at nearly the same time.
One of the things I like most about Aquaman (one among the many, clearly) is how prominently it features strong female characters. Queen Atlanna and Mera are both more than capable of taking care of themselves and, oftentimes, taking care of Arthur as well.
This trend continues into the third act as well, when Arthur befriends a lonely kaiju who is voiced by none other than the iconic Julie Andrews.
As Arthur tries to procure King Atlan’s trident and take his place as the one true king, he is waylaid by a monster so giant that we can only see her massive tentacles. This is a monster who tells him how unworthy he is to be king, what a disgusting mongrel half-blood he is, who reaches back to smash him into the ground —
Only to be stopped by the one ability of Aquaman that has long made people laugh at and mock him: his ability to communicate with sea animals.
With this ability, he is able to keep himself from being crushed and also reveal that the Julie Andrews-voiced Karathen has spent thousands of lonely years talking shit to people who couldn’t even understand her.
But it’s not just this ability that gives the Karathen pause, but what he chooses to tell her with it. That he sees himself unworthy of being king, that the power of Atlan’s trident is both a burden and responsibility — one that he takes on for those he loves, rather than for the love of power.
And it is this very idea of power and responsibility that deems Arthur worthy of the trident and to be king in Atlan’s eyes. He takes hold of the trident, puts on the clothes of a fallen king, and rises to become the bridge between land and sea that his mother and father always knew he could be.
From the descent into the Trench, to the reunion with his mother, to the befriending of the Karathen, and then to Arthur stepping out from behind that waterfall in full Aquaman garb, the movie only continues to push the momentum forward and reach upwards toward greater heights.
The forces of Atlantis, Xebel, and the Fisherman kingdom combine to face the crustacean-like creatures of The Brine and the ensuing battle in a visual spectacle on par with the best battle scenes from Lord of the Rings. In fact, it is in watching this large-scale battle that I could easily see why so many of the cast and crew involved in Aquaman often referred to it as Star Wars underwater.
The graphics in this scene are stunning — a brightly colored war between nations that excites, awes, and makes you feel like a little kid again. If you told me that half the VFX budget was spent on this battle sequence alone, I would have no trouble believing you. Everything is crisp and clear, the effects drawing you into the world rather than taking you out of the story as so many third act comic book movie effects tend to do.
The Ocean Master’s mask emotes as he jumps off his giant underwater dinosaur, ready to kill a talking crab-like being. To the side, Dolph Lundgren’s King Nereus stops him while riding atop a giant seahorse decked in war armor.
Then a gigantic Julie Andrews voiced kaiju bursts from beneath the ocean floor, a man wearing an bright orange and green suit and wielding a trident sitting atop her, his ability to call to underwater animals — from sharks to sea lions to sword fish and even the deadly creatures of the trench themselves — literally turning the tide of war.
It is ridiculous and bombastic and ambitious. It is heart-stopping and heart-pounding and just plain fucking cool.
It is what the big screen was made for.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Even after a claustrophobic trip to the depths of the sea, and the befriending of a lonely kaiju, and a large scale battle only seen in movies like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, James Wan decides not only to swing for the fences, but to drive the ball beyond the stadium walls itself by giving us one of the greatest final fights in modern comic book history.
(Sidenote: I realize I’ve said that this third act has delivered a lot of the ‘greatest’ this or that scene because, well, it absolutely has.)
When Orm shoots out of the ocean and lands on the top of that wrecked Atlantean ship stranded on the surface of the ocean, then turns around in slow motion with his cape billowing out behind him, I nearly lost my damn mind.
That shot alone deserves awards. Actual real ones and ones I’ve just now made up — like ‘coolest villain shot,’ ‘best living comic book scene,’ and ‘movie moments I want projected on my tombstone when I die.’
From there, we get a fantastic final battle between the two sons of Atlantis that is not only well-choreographed and exciting, but one that has real emotional stakes. It rounds out Arthur’s arc as a man and as a king, brings the central conflict of the plot to a close and once again highlights the importance of women in this film when Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna emerges from the ocean, bathed in light and clothed in white like the ethereal goddess she truly is, and helps to bring about peace to both her sons as well as to the surface world and the underwater kingdoms.
And after all this comic book movie goodness, the film still has more to give us in terms of its storytelling and spectacle. It reunites Atlanna and Tom (the true love story in Aquaman and a scene that has made me cry more each time I watched the film), then wraps up with Aquaman proclaiming himself the king and protector of the deep, ending with a stunning shot of Arthur as Aquaman that I demand we get as a poster in the near future.
So thank you, James Wan, Jason Momoa, and the rest of the cast and crew, for making Aquaman a hero to admire, fear, and love, and for giving us a movie — and specifically a third act — that reminds us why going to the movies is so much damn fun.