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The young A. C.(Arthur Curry) gets separated from his mom by beams of light blasting up from the ocean as they fly over. Flash forward to A. C. as a young man, bailed out of jail after rescuing some dolphins from captivity. Lou Diamond Philips does a nice turn as A. C.'s dad. A. C. Works with beautiful Eva running a dive shop/cafe on the beach. A mysterious woman Nadia (Adrianne Palecki) seeks him out, and salty old McCaffrey fills him in on his destiny. This Aquaman is young and hip, confident in his powers, flirts with friend and foe. The dialogue is maybe a bit more edgy than Smallville. Would have made a great series, but Millar, Beeman et al were still working on Smallville, and developed other superhero series' later.

There a lot of interesting elements here. We get peeks into the fantasies each crew member creates in their virtual reality headsets. The concept is that they try to create experiences they wish to have, but these fantasies often take sudden dark turns, and even after the session is over, some have to wrestle with the emotional scars. The crew is also being filmed reality tv style, and they throw around accusations that some are trying to boost ratings of the show. The camera keeps switching back and forth between crew members describing their feelings for the tv camera, living out their fantasies in VR, or discussing the various crises they are facing in real life. Very nice acting by the ensemble cast. It's too bad they stopped with just this movie. It would have made for an interesting series.

Akihiko is a quiet high school boy in love with the idea of being in love. His friend lures him into the girl's locker room, where he gets trapped when four beauties, Komugi, Mishio, Namie and Natsumi come back from gym class. He overhears their plan to work at a beach-side yakisoba stand, and then applies for a job there himself. Neither the girls nor the brusque Kosuke take kindly to Akihiko stepping into their lives, but forced to work together they slowly get to know each other, and become friends.

Yoshikazu Okada is the screenwriter here, and he'd just started in on Beach Boys, and this touches on some of the same themes: strangers becoming friends and the appeal of life near the sea. The actor, Yoshinori Okada does an excellent job portraying our browbeaten hero, so eager to be liked. Yoshihiko Hakamada also brings just the right degree of snark to his role as the manager of the cafe. Sayaka Yamaguchi probably was the strongest of the actresses, all quite young, but later Akiko Yada and Asami Mizukawa(the friend of the boy who almost drowns) would go on to become stars in their own right.