Even the hotness of Jason Mamoa does not compel you to see Aquaman, the sixth film in the DC Expanded Universe. It is a bloated, boring mess. The best lesson that you can learn from the movie is to believe in yourself in the same way that people believe in themselves right before they attack Aquaman and realize that they are wrong.

Aquaman is old-fashioned in a bad way. There are arranged, loveless marriages that no woman wants to enter in—thankfully only offscreen marital rape, but still. Only dudes get to inherit the throne, and only those of royal blood have certain abilities. The girls are smart, and the guys are dumb. The only trope that I bought was when Cher came out to sing “Half-Breed” (those underwater people are hella racist, including towards other Atlanteans, especially if they are not anthromorphic). Oh wait, not true because I fully expected the big twist, but was still happy when it happened, and the two fighters stopped trying to kill each other because they realized that their mother’s name was Martha because they have the same mother! People of the opposite sex who are initially antagonistic will accidentally touch then fall for each other, which I will sign a waiver because HAVE YOU SEEN MAMOA!!!!! It is the most credible part of the movie though drops completely out of the blue and is otherwise unearned.

Aquaman felt like a computer mashed together the scripts from Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Thor (the bad standalone films), Indiana Jones, The Wave and Pitch Black, among many others, then spit out this movie. They clearly snatched some Guillermo del Toro graphics and a page from Mad Max: Fury Road. Instead of a sense of wonder at the underwater kingdom, the CGI felt as computer generated as it was. The fight scenes were not elegantly shot. Here you have a gorgeous and physically impressive man, and you waste him by chopping up the fight scene in a chaos cinema style, not Fred Astaire. They also did not capitalize on Mamoa’s innate charm and energy by spending more time with him or giving him a better script. The beats between the action are just as important as the action, but the filmmakers are allergic to stillness and squandered this hot man’s acting ability, which he proved in Game of Thrones.

There is so much exposition about Atlantis, and I did not care. I was absolutely not invested. I don’t know how successful movies pull me into their fantasy world so that I actually care about who sits on the throne, and the names of the seven leagues playing underwater baseball to determine who will win the championship to go to the surface, but there is a way, and it did not happen. Just when I got slightly invested in how the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Shape of Water was doing, he was done, and it felt as if his daughter was supposed to do more because she was on the verge of discovering that she is actually a Skywalker, but it probably ended up on the cutting room floor.

Let’s talk about casting. Patrick Wilson was the villain of Aquaman. I like him. He is conventionally handsome. He has a lot of independent film and television credibility in Hard Candy, The Founder, Girls and Angels in America before he became the darling in horror films such as The Conjuring and Insiduous franchise, which is probably how he got cast in this film. I don’t care how good an actor he is or how much padding that you put in his costume, I’m not going to buy that Wilson could kick Mamoa’s ass if Mamoa was asleep, tied up and had the same weakness as Samson, and Delilah just gave him a haircut. Ellen Page can take Wilson. I can’t unsee that! No! She didn’t even know martial arts. She was just clever. Otherwise I thought it was totally considerate that he returned our things to us. Thank you! Also the magic words were, “Let’s talk.” Noted!

I liked the casting of Michael Beach because I automatically consider him a bad guy after his stint on The 100. I know nothing about Manta, but I do think that it is a smidge tone deaf to make Russian sailors into the innocent people that Aquaman is saving from black Americans. A Russian submarine was literally patrolling my coast, the Eastern seaboard, in 2017. I don’t want them dead, but it is as if you’re trying to get me to not like Aquaman. It bothered me. If Manta was not running people through with swords, I would have no problem with him pirating them, but I actually would have preferred if we kept Manta’s dad over Manta.

Amber Heard acted like she was actually in a good movie. Why are we pretending that he does not know her name? Am I supposed to pretend that Justice League didn’t happen? I loved Justice League. I can be mad at Nicole Kidman and still think that she was the best part of the movie. Even though it was completely cheesy and brief, I completely bought her relationship with Aquaman’s dad. She is so good at emanating love and directing it like a missile at someone. I’ve met people from Maine. How did he end up there? I was actually really happy to see Dolph Lundgren, but they wasted him. He still got paid so yippee! Willem Dafoe is a good actor, but would you trust that man to raise your son? I did like how the movie delivered on the training sequence flashback. The star from Upgrade has a brief cameo as the pilot over the Sahara Desert.

I learned a valuable lesson from Aquaman. If Wonder Woman isn’t appearing in a DCEU film, don’t pay to watch it and only watch it at home if you’re a completist. While I’m happy that Randall Park will be getting money, I don’t need a sequel.