‘Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom’: Sometimes Bad Writing Is Good

Storytellers are aware of ways to improve their craft. There are tons of literature out there on the do’s and don’t’s in regards to writing. Of course, there aren’t any set rules, but instead reasons when and why these guidelines get to be broken that separates good writing from bad writing. A great example is the expression, “show, don’t tell.” This means that writers should show things unfolding rather than just spelling them out for the audience. Typically, telling is not a good thing and is considerate bad writing. But sometimes bad writing can have its purpose. This was on full display during Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom.

Starring Jason Momoa, the film sees Aquaman breaking his brother, Orin (Patrick Wilson), out of prison in order to stop Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) from using a cursed trident to destroy the planet. After Manta finds the trident, the movie skips ahead to when he has a full army with ancient technology at his disposal. In order to explain the situation and Black Manta’s goal to hijack the fuel needed to run the tech, one of the characters dictates a journal entry of pure exposition that communicates this to the audience.

This is clearly bad writing. There’s no showing going on at all and the audience is being told what happened. But it would have taken a lot of screen time to develop the story. And it’s plain to see that this movie isn’t about following every creative nuance. It’s a popcorn flick with crazy fish people and wild superhero action. The story is best served getting to these action set pieces as quickly as possible. In this way, the bad writing was a correct choice as it allowed the story to skip ahead to what the audience actually wanted to see.

Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom is now streaming on Max.