Despite the fact that I know next to nothing about Aquaman outside of some timely Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy jokes (today, I had to Google to clarify when this film took place in the DCEU timeline), I am beyond hyped for his solo feature. Aquaman has pretty much everything I could want: elaborate royal backstories, Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman being badass, weird sea monsters, and James Wan’s fabulous direction and color scheme. I’m in love already.
We’ve had teasers, trailers, and several clips, and now Warner Bros has released a final trailer to guide us into the home stretch for marketing. This trailer hits the same plot beats we’ve seen before—Arthur must fulfill his destiny and take up his mantle as king of Atlantis before his villainous half-brother Orm begins a war with those on land—but teases enough so that it still seems fresh.
We see Atlanna telling her baby son about a trident that could be used to bring Atlantis back to the surface, which I assume will be a major plot point. We finally meet Vulko, who’s been training Arthur since he was a child. Orm gets a few more snide, villainous lines as we build towards an epic battle with giant Evil Crabs. I have no idea where those crabs came from, but they seem to be on a mission. Can Orm control the crabs?
The music in the trailer is excellent and epic. I know that trailers oftentimes have different music than the final film, but I hope this is vaguely inspired by Aquaman‘s own theme. An epic like this needs a thrilling score to make us all cry and cheer at the appropriate moments. No one wants a wishy-washy score leading us through the ocean’s depths.
Even as an Aqua-newbie, I’m excited by the fact that they’re leaning into the concept of this being so weird and mythology-heavy. One of the reasons I first fell in love with Marvel’s first Thor film was that it didn’t bother to make Thor a gritty, realistic figure. He’s a space Viking, and they owned that.
Similarly, Aquaman seems to be owning the bizarre nature of the source material. The film eschews the dull colors of other DCEU films for a comic book palette of blues and oranges. The characters make grand declarations. As I’ve mentioned a million times, sea monsters exist.
I would hate to see a “realistic” take on the Aquaman mythos that veers towards the overly serious, but I would also probably be annoyed by a take that’s just making fun of the source material. Some things lose their charm when you make them too serious, or when there are too many wink-wink nudge-nudge moments for the audience. Wan seems to have avoided that, delivering a film that looks humorous while not verging on parody.
Watch the trailer below, and let us know if Aquaman will be your holiday movie of choice this December!
(vi io9, image: Warner Bros)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
