Aquaman

And so, everyone, we've finally arrived at the last comic book movie of 2018 and the only DC movie of the year, Aquaman. This is a movie I wasn't looking forward to that much because I've personally never been a fan of the Aquaman character. That's sort of a thing with this hero. For a long time, this hero has just been something people have been making fun of for a long time. And so, this was definitely an interesting movie and it even had a pretty talented director working on it with James Wan, despite some... let's just say some major downs in his career. But, while I didn't necessarily think the trailers were anything amazing, I was going into this with lowered expectations, but still pretty hopeful. And, so, what did I think of it? Personally, it's still another mess like a lot of these DC.E.U movies. It is kinda fun and it has a lot of things fun about it, but I don't know if I can say it's actually good. And, just like always, I'll get into no spoilers first, and then go into all the spoilers after a warning. Let's start with the story first. What's the story? It opens up with a lighthouse keeper named Tom, played by Temuera Morrison, meeting a woman named Atlanna, played by Nicole Kidman, who claims to be the ruler of Atlantis. They fall in love and have a child named Arthur. When some people in armour attack them looking for Atlanna, she agrees that she has to go back to Atlantis promising to come back some day. Years later, she still hasn't come back and Arthur is all grown up, played again by Jason Momoa trying to help the sea and stopping pirates. One of these is led by a guy named David Hyde, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen. Arthur is also just sorta not liking his heritage all that much considering his mom never came back. In Atlantis a person named Orm, played by Patrick Wilson, is hoping to get the Atlantians and other creatures to join to destroy the surface world, and all this is possible because he has the possibility of becoming the king of Atlantis. That night, during a strange storm, it almost kills Arthur and his dad when the waves start going crazy. They're saved by a woman named Mera, played by Amber Herd, who says the only way for this to stop is if Arthur becomes the new king of Atlantis. They also meet a character named Vulko, played by Willem Dafoe, who's trying to help them. And, I'm gonna stop right there. The rest is just Arthur trying to stop Orm from becoming king and destroying the surface, with a kinda adventure aspect in it too. So first, positives, stay positive with it first. The cast is, honestly, kind of a mixed bag. Jason Momoa I do think is good here and he clearly looks like he's having fun. Sometimes he chewed up a bit too much of the scenery, but I say he's good. Amber Herd is pretty good as Mera. I thought she did fine, there just didn't seem much to her to me, though she does seem to have more to her than some of the other characters, so, yeah, I say she's good. Willem Dafoe might actually be my favourite part of the whole movie. The performance is really good and I really liked his character. I think he does great and I really like him. Some of others, we'll get to later. The action in this is insane. There are so many crazy action scenes here and I liked almost all of them. Some did get too C.G.I heavy and did get kinda hard to follow sometimes, but I had a good time with most of them. And I really liked the adventure aspect in this when Arthur and Mera were looking for the trident. That's not really a spoiler considering it was in the trailer. And that was a fun aspect to add, plus, the actual directing in this and the C.G.I and designs here are mostly really good. I think James Wan did a really good job directing the movie. I can definitely say he's very ambitious when it comes to this and it really shows. There is also a few funny moments that land. None of them were knee-slapping, but there were some chuckles. All that being said, there are a lot of problems with this movie, as to be expected. Firstly, the other performances. Patrick Wilson, I think does a good job with his character, but, for me, he goes way too over the top. A lot of the characters in this spend a lot of the time yelling in really over the top ways and this is the main example. Some of this over the top stuff reminded me a lot of over the top anime with characters yelling loud and showing their muscles a lot, which, I guess isn't that much of a problem, just something I found kind of odd and a little amusing. The pacing is also not that good. Especially the start of the movie. It goes by way too fast. Back on the cast, we already knew it was here, but, Black Manta is in this and he's wasted entirely. It reminded me of Venom in Spider-Man 3 in the sense that he's there but he doesn't get a lot of screen time. He's completely wasted. The opening with him I thought was kinda nice. They gave him a reason for wanting to kill Arthur, but, after that, he's totally wasted. He fights Arthur at around the middle, but then he just disappears for the rest of the movie. There's also some C.G.I that looks... not amazing. These DC.E.U movies always have some C.G.I that's very noticeable. The ending also gets too clichéd. For one, the battle isn't that great, but also, the whole movie, especially the ending, is really predictable. I'm not gonna lie, there were no surprises in this movie at all for me. Whenever it tried to have a surprise, I could predict it, even down to just lines. And the entire movie on a whole reminded me a lot of Black Panther. In the sense that the story's similar and it had similar scenes in it that felt like they were exactly the same. So, overall, this is another just okay DC.E.U movie. I can't really say this is a good movie, but it's not bad by any means. There's a lot of bad things in it, but I still found it kinda fun and it did have some directing choices that I thought were kinda cool, but it's another DC movie that's not very special. I guess I would recommend it, but don't go in super excited in my opinion. And so, everyone, that's my review of Aquaman. Thank you all for reading, I hope you all liked this and please comment down below to tell me what you think. Okay, now we're getting into the spoilers.
Spoilers:
So first off, I just want to talk about the adventure aspect I mentioned. That's when Arthur and Mera are off looking for the first king's trident. That aspect I enjoyed quite a bit and thought it added a bit more because the pacing before that was really poor in my opinion. The movie itself is kinda sloppily paced, but I thought it did it better than the first half. The whole thing with Orm was also clichéd where he was just some guy who wanted to be king despite not actually being the rightful heir. He just wanted to be king, and that was another aspect that reminded me of Black Panther, just done in a really clichéd way and less good way whereas Black Panther handled that aspect much better. The other surprises in this, as I said, didn't surprise me at all like the whole scene where we see that Arthur's mother was still alive. I predicted that long before it was revealed. I also kinda liked how this movie felt really self-aware of itself and sorta embraced what it was with being ridiculous and over the top, so, that part was pretty fun. The whole ending climax was kinda cool, but I thought the resolution at the end was kinda random with Atlanna coming and Orm stopping because of it. And finally, let's talk about the end credit scene. I guess I kinda like how Black Manta wasn't just forgotten about, they bring him back for the end-credit scene and he's probably gonna return. Hopefully they can give him more of a role in the future movies because his appearance here was really small. That opening with him and his dad in that submarine I thought was kinda touching and even kinda sad. Obviously, they're bad guys, but I kinda felt something for them, but yeah, he was pretty wasted like I said. And I think that's about it for spoilers. And so, everyone, that's the spoilers for Aquaman. Thank you all for reading, I hope you all liked this and please comment down below to tell me what you think.