Living Water: The Christology of DC’s “Aquaman”

Among the many traditions of Christmastide in 21st Century America, few are as enjoyable as the annual Twitter slugfest over a certain action movie’s status as a member of the season’s cinematic canon. I speak, of course, of John McTiernan’s 1988 classic Die Hard.

That a vociferous dispute over a Bruce Willis actioner’s right to call itself a Christmas movie should attract so many combatants is usually dismissed as a quirk of American movie fandom. But I suspect something deeper is at work: A hunger – particularly strong among Catholic men, perhaps – for the martial side of Christianity, well understood by GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, and severely neglected in modern catechesis. As boys, we longed for tales of knights carrying sword and banner into battle with fire-breathing dragons, and as grown men we will settle for John McClane and his trusty semi-automatic.

If the manly virtue of courage is to be instilled in the hearts of men at any age, harrowing stories of good versus evil on poetically exaggerated battlefields are a necessity. Such were many of the fairytales of old, and well did they serve their purpose.

However, the fairytale having mostly languished in the 21st Century (the remains being divided between the Tolkien-based Hobbit and Lord of the Rings franchises and HBO’s adults-only Game of Thrones), comic book films have risen to fill the void. Despite this shift in popular genre, there are apparently still some in Hollywood who see fit to harvest their story ideas from the deeply Christian soil from whence the fairytale itself sprang forth.

Which brings us, at last, to Aquaman.

Picking up where Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon’s Justice League left off, Aquaman follows the adventures of Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), a seagoing “metahuman” whose royal bloodline makes him the rightful ruler of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. Initially disinterested in the politics of his ancestral home, Arthur hears a call for help from Mera (Amber Heard) – herself a princess from a different Atlantean bloodline – and his old teacher Vulko (Willem Dafoe), who together implore Arthur’s help to stop his half-brother Orm from seizing the throne and declaring war on the surface.

What could have easily been just another superhero movie is elevated by director James Wan, who fills the proceedings with impressively staged action sequences. These are marked by special effects that could easily have ended up as just another CGI eyesore in the hands of a less-skilled filmmaker, but are here nothing short of delightful to behold. In a franchise whose previous entry was marred by lackluster computer effects, this is no small victory. Aquaman’s costumes and underwater shots are brilliantly realized, drawing the viewer into a compelling world that the child in each of us will long to explore. Wan clearly wants this to be fun, too, and the tone of the film could be described as an endearing mix of Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

Apart from his attention to technical detail, Wan also happens to be the director of the heavily Catholic Conjuring films, and anyone familiar with that horror franchise knows that he is no stranger to religious imagery. Aquaman isn’t much deeper than the average comic book movie, of course, but Wan drizzles it with enough implicitly religious ideas along the way to make this a welcome addition to DC’s pantheon of superhero films featuring Christian themes.  While religion is noticeably absent in Marvel’s super-powered blockbusters, DC has taken a different route. Man of Steel, Batman V Superman, and Wonder Woman each utilize Christian themes to a different extent, with all of them telling stories that can easily serve as a doorway to a Catholic understanding of good, evil, spiritual warfare, and Christ’s role in the final battle.

(Be warned: Spoilers for Aquaman ahead.)

Like Christ, Arthur is royalty: A king, but also a bridge between two worlds. In this film’s case, we can view the “surface” is the visible world, while the undersea depths – with its otherworldly characters, sights, and sounds – stand for the invisible, or spiritual world. Arthur is linked to both, a king who by his very nature makes the invisible world visible. Arthur is also the son of a Queen: Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), who teaches him his ancient heritage’s ways in his youth. Sound familiar? In case the idea wasn’t clear enough, she is at times framed numinously, and in one particular scene she is illumined by bright sunlight, her arms extended toward another character deeply in need of mercy and maternal love.

At certain points, Arthur’s journey carries unmistakable echoes of Christ’s Passion – or, at the very least, echoes of the life of a saint. At one point, while he is helping a group of townspeople take shelter in a church, he is wounded in battle. Pierced by his fearsome opponent, his arms are spread outwards, while meanwhile a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is visible in the background. The meaning here isn’t communicated quite so bluntly as when Zack Snyder filmed Superman seated beneath a stained-glass representation of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, but the message is clear enough. Following this, Arthur and Mera journey to the Trench: The deepest, most dangerous region of the ocean, where they plunge into the depths and are surrounded on all sides by fanged subhuman predators that fear nothing besides the light. It is only after this descent – into what can be fairly described as the film’s image of Hell – that Arthur can grasp King Atlan’s Trident: A sacred artifact bearing the shape of a cross beneath its golden prongs, and which only the true king can hold.

Here, at the lowest point of the ocean, Arthur realizes that not even the true king can seize this Trident unless he humbles himself. And humble himself he does: On his hands and knees, he declares that he is “nobody.” It is only after this display of humility that Arthur is clothed as King of Atlantis, and in a thrilling sequence, he emerges from the depths emblazoned with royal garments, the king’s Trident in his grip and with which he then ventures forth to battle his enemies (Revelation 2:27, anyone?).

Another character remarks as he looks on: “The king has risen.”

Every superhero – and many a fairytale, for that matter – also needs a good old-fashioned villain, and Aquaman doesn’t disappoint when it introduces Arthur’s half-brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson). Orm is heavy with pride, and longs for nothing more than absolute power over his own kingdom. As Arthur contests his brother’s claim to the throne, Orm is especially disgusted at the true king’s “half-breed” nature. The notion that Atlantis could mix with the surface world is repugnant to him and his followers, as they resent the surface and would see it brought to ruin for its many sins. Here recall that Lucifer, we are told, is a prideful spirit who wished to rule over the kingdom that rightly belongs to God, and is utterly disgusted that God would lower himself by becoming incarnate as Christ in human flesh and blood.

We should, of course, bear in mind that these parallels, however numerous, are still adorning what is at bottom a superhero movie. In other words, while it’s marvelous to contemplate these themes in a comic book film, this doesn’t mean that audiences will watch Aquaman and leave the theater with biblical imagery in mind. Lewis and Tolkien this is not, much as this author may wish it to be.

Nevertheless, Christian themes lie at the heart of our culture’s greatest works of art, literature, and film alike. While Aquaman is content to be little more than a well-directed action movie (and that it most definitely is), it is nonetheless also a successor to this venerable thematic tradition. And, for the record, it also just happens to be one of the most enjoyable superhero films in years.

“The king has risen.” The visible surface and the invisible depths are bridged, and an unseen war has taken a decisive turn in favor of the good. 

Whether on land or sea, Aquaman, the new king of Atlantis, will make all things new.

Michael Saltis

A proud native son of Akron, Ohio, Michael currently teaches English to business professionals in Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic. While he doesn't often get away from the "City of a Hundred Spires," he enjoys exploring the rest of the Old Continent whenever possible—especially those storied corners that help him recall the vividly-imagined knights and dragons of his youth.

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