Review: Aquaman

CAUTION: Minor spoilers ahead:

I swear my tendency to review Warner Bros movies on this blog is purely coincidental, it's just that these have more of a habit of being notable in my opinion, whether they're good or bad.

I guess it's also because, as an unapologetic nerd for the superhero...would you even say "genre" anymore? DC Comics movies are more of a curiosity these days than Marvel ones, don't get me wrong, I love me some Marvel movies, but you can be pretty sure they're gonna be good to serviceable, it doesn't seem to need saying. I still endeavour to review them, I have started drafts of Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Thor: Ragnarok reviews on this blog which will probably never be finished, because I just never got around to it when they were relevant, (I'll incorporate them into an updated ranking listicle after Endgame to finish that particular business) and I'm not sure why that is exactly.

I guess the process of pinpointing where the creative decisions of the DCEU fall apart, or in the case of Wonder Woman why it's so refreshing is a more engaging and cathartic exercise than saying a film I was sure was going to be at least pretty good, ended up being pretty good. or it might just be that I find it easier to stave off procrastination when I'm angry or surprised, at this point who the hell knows? Anyway, Aquaman.

So right off the bat this looks a lot more lighthearted than most DC fare, which suits me right down to the ground, Temuera Morrison falls in love with the queen of Atlantis, who, upon stumbling, injured into his lighthouse, immediately impales his TV with a trident, and you know he likes her, because, after seeing that, and her eating his pet goldfish, the words "what the fuck!?" are not even implied,

Anyway, they have a kid, and she's ambushed by Atlanteans, and decides it's for the best that she leave to keep her lover and son safe. Said son grows up to be Jason Momoa, and, through flashbacks, it is revealed, received training from Willem Dafoe (I don't remember the character names, I'm sorry)

So he's already saved the world once, and we see that he means business when he lifts a submarine out of the water in the setup for the secondary antagonist, After a trip to a bar with his dad, he's visited by Amber Heard who tells him that Atlantis is on the brink of war with the surface and only he, as a child of both worlds, and son of the queen, can claim the throne and prevent global catastrophe.


All in all, this is a pretty standard superhero plot, complete with the premature boss-fight, humiliation, and McGuffin-hunt and personal epiphany before round two. all wrapped up in one prolonged King Arthur reference. That said, I'd be lying if I didn't say that what this film does, it does well.

The visuals are worth the ticket price on their own, Atlantis is a visually stunning creation full of inventive designs for technology and striking backdrops for action setpieces. There's plenty of lore to satisfy those that go for that woven into the film without feeling too cumbersome, even if it is frontloaded a little at times. The soundtrack is...basically fine, with the notable exception of the single worst use of Toto's Africa that has ever happened in any medium, and the whole thing carries itself with an air of humour that lets it ride the goofiness of the setting without being overpowered by it.

The Characters, underdeveloped though some may be, are likeable enough, the main villain is pretty generic and the secondary antagonist, while slightly more interesting, just ended up making me laugh at the fact that his costume makes him look more like a villain from Power Rangers than any Superhero movie I've ever seen. The plot is boilerplate and you'll figure out where it's going more or less immediately, but the execution is solid enough that predictability is fine.

All in all, Aquaman is a perfectly watchable Superhero film, it's not quite on the level of Wonder Woman but it's leaps and bounds ahead of Man of Steel it is, if you'll pardon the incredibly cheesy analogy, a respectable fish, in an adittedly understocked, but still noteworthy pond. I would definitely recommend giving this one a watch.