Well... they succeeded in making a character I've always found remarkably dull, into what, at least potentially, could be an engaging movie. But I'm the wrong guy to ask, because I wasn't exactly lit on fire by the recent Batman or Superman movies. In particular the Wonder Woman movie was raved about as something great, and I thought was much ado about nothing.
Has anyone ever noticed that Aquaman (for DC) and Namor (for Marvel) despite looking different are virtually the same character. But between the two, I always found more interesting, as a brooding outsider who shuns and has a general contempt for human civilization (aside from his desire to shack Sue Richards).
In comics, there were some good stories in the 1969-1971 run by Aparo (revived in ADVENTURE COMICS and the AQUAMAN title in the late 1970's), A Neal Adams or Apraro BARAVE AND THE BOLD issue here and there over the same period, and a 4-issue AQUAMAN limited series in 1985, if I recall.
The Peter David run on a 1990s new AQUAMAN series was probably good too, but after sampling one issue of the larger run, it just didn't hold my attention. So I'm not saying it's impossible to make the character more compelling as a movie than in his previous 7 decades of appearances in comics, but the comic book efforts on the character don't make it my first choice. It's an uphill climb.
