ALL U CAN EAT FISH FRY.........WADING THROUGH "AQUAMAN"........

Aquaman (2018)     I think I liked  the idea of an "Aquaman" movie better when the HBO series "Entourage" used it as nothing but an elaborate, fictitious punchline..........

              A few of its episodes dealt with rising young movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) scoring the title role in James Cameron's "Aquaman", starring opposite one of Vincent's supposed ex girlfriends, Mandy Moore (played by....in one of the show's typical meta-tropes, Mandy Moore)

            I just know that Cameron's imaginary "Aquaman" with Vinnie Chase and Mandy Moore as AquaGirl would have turned out infinitely better than than the actual 2 & 1/2 hour monstrosity. that BQ recently endured..........

               Here are the only people who are worth mentioning in connection with this movie.......

               Production designer Bill Brzeski and his team of art directors and set decorators.....

               The costume designer Kym Barret and the army of make-up artists......

               With the aid of the usual suspects, the 300,000 digital animators, these people create an underwater fantasy kingdom that's truly a dazzling sight to behold.

                 Their artistry's truly breathtaking......(but not for the cast members, who have no trouble taking breaths and  talking while they inhabit these dazzling settings)

                 The movie itself?  Ugh. The usual, bloated depressing comic book blah, blah, blah......as if they don't use scripts anymore......just construction blueprints

                  The usual semi-snarky lines from the titular hero?  All in place.....you can tell how funny the screenwriters thought they were to make Aquaman grumpily mumble like he'd rather be somewhere else........(I feel you, Aquaman.....I'd rather be somewhere else too.....)

                   The usual, endless tedious bash-a-thons which send Aquaman and his adversaries bouncing around like human pinballs?  Check. You could take naps through any of these scenes and not miss a thing........

                    The usual inclusion of  a few big name quality actors, slumming it for a fat easy paycheck? Oh yeah. Nicole Kidman manages to maintain her dignity, but poor Willem Defoe looks like he's taken a full enema before the camera rolled.

                    But why go on.......as beautiful as the fantasy worlds are to gaze upon, they're in service to an all too typical paint-by-numbers, connect-the-dots movie.........minus the water, there's nothing in the story itself you haven't seen before in the last 25 comic book movies......

                    1 star (*) and that's only for Bill Brzeski and those other folks I mentioned. What you've got here.......a series of gorgeous laptop screensavers in desperate search of a movie to go with them.