I wanted this to be an "A" like "Wonder Woman" and "Guardians of the Galaxy 2," but despite the raved-about CGI, there's just too many shortcomings. If 75% is the threshold for pass/fail, I would summarize it's a pass for 13 and under but a fail for older viewers than that, the theme of mercy being handled especially well for the youngsters.

Here's where I dock the points, keeping in mind the similar IMDB avg. score and expectations from the huge budget: (1) -5 points for the intro of the human villain Black Manta: just stupidly violent and full of nerve-grating yells of agony. Five writers let that get past their gatekeeping? (2) -5 again for on-the-nose references to things never shown--and almost impossible to even with a near-infinite budget--again how the frig did the five writers allow that nonsense? The kings float as they brag about wonders only to cut to blank response as a reaction, or the eldritch sea-demon brags and fact-drops one zinger after another...ugh, just no excuse for it. (3) Speaking of floating, in corny X-Men & Avenger tradition; the sea-kings float and jerk about as if dimestore puppets on a string, needing but to "will" their bodies to propel through the water, as if a minor leg push is beneath both their and our consideration--not to mention even basic laws of physics (dry heave and -5 again). (4) Next, the locations are poorly introduced and rely on yellow text labels that rarely work and are often downright painful to take in. So -5 there...being generous. (5) Then there are about 5 songs with $10 plastic drum tracks and/or caterwauling vocals that just KILL the film. Why isn't the singer from the end credit sequence featured throughout the film? She's mesmerizing.

So that's -25 not counting several times Aquaman's mumbled lines are indecipherable even on rewind and playback (with some lazy curse words too), or that awful "Fight Club" film reference that highlights the weak chemistry between the "Fishman" and the princess Mera. Lastly, one might expect some slack to be cut for the above infractions because the visuals are so darn crisp, but even these work against themselves at the climax, overwhelming with an overkill of detail that tries to cop the best beats of 10 other films in about a 3-minute span. (Hmm, in rough order: "Tron Legacy", "Resident Evil 5", "Starship Troopers", "Pacific Rim", "Ender's Game", "War of the Worlds", "The Matrix 3", The Hobbit", "Hellboy", and even "Jumanji". --A film is supposed to mash-up TWO main influences, NOT TWENTY+!) So I agree with the IMDB score of 71% as dead-on. In sum: hire a few more consultants and the sequel could SO easily be improved (email me, I'm available).