Dive Into Aquaman!

Amnesty Bay….One Week Early

Last night I attended an exclusive Amazon Prime Member viewing of Aquaman.  I was very excited to see this film already, but the chance to watch it a bit early made me even more anxious to see the film.  I will admit that I was a tad nervous that the film wouldn’t be very good.  I was wrong…..very wrong.

No Spoiler Review Ahead!

The film opened with a brief greeting from director James Wan and film stars Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, and Patrick Wilson thanking Prime members for coming to see the film.  Then the movie began and opened with a quick but concise origin story for Aquaman based around the love of his parents, Tom and Atlanna.  From there, the movie swims into familiar territory for fans of the Aquaman comics, particularly the New 52 Throne of Atlantis story written by Geoff Johns.  There are some big differences that I won’t go into, but the film’s plot follows the comic’s basic story line of Aquaman being hesitant to become the rightful king of Atlantis and his brother, Orm, determined to maintain power over the seas and punish the surface dwellers for their crimes against the oceans.

The movie has a really solid balance of humor, action, and character development.  James Wan is known for his over-the-top action, and he didn’t disappoint with Aquaman.  The fight sequences are fast, often very brutal (particularly those involving Black Manta), and fun to watch.  Wan has no problem injecting laughs into tense moments either.  The humor gives the audience a quick break in a scene but doesn’t distract from the seriousness of the moment.  With that said, the overall tone of the film was much lighter than all of the previous DCEU films.  The pacing was much faster and character development was swift.

After seeing the film, I came to the realization that Wan is probably a better fit for the DCEU than Zack Snyder.  As much as I enjoy the gravity of Snyder’s work, Wan has a much better handle on the comic bookishness of the characters and it comes through in this film.  Wan keeps things fairly light, but does get serious when necessary.

With most of the action taking place underwater, the film was very heavy on CGI.  Industrial Light & Magic did a great job with the computer-generated effects in this film.  For comparison, the CGI wasn’t nearly as obvious as it was in films such as Guardians of the Galaxy or even Thor: Ragnarok.  It was clean, bright, and with a certain group of characters, downright creepy.  Some of the undersea creatures could have been cleaned up a bit more, but overall, I have no complaints about the CGI.

The film’s stars gave solid performances for the most part.  I’ve heard plenty of people criticize Jason Momoa as being unable to lead a film, but they are wrong.  As Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Momoa has a heavy lug with a heart vibe going throughout most of the film but cranks up the regality once he decides that it’s time to become king.  Amber Heard does a fine job as Mera although I do wish that she would have been given a few more vicious moments, as fans of the comic character know just how bad she can really be when necessary.  Patrick Wilson is believable as Orm/Ocean Master, but it would have been cool if he was a bit more bombastic.  Yahya Abdul-Mateen gives the most serious performance in the film as Black Manta.  He was manipulated and used as a tool for Orm’s ultimate goal in this film, but something tells me that we’re not finished with Black Manta just yet.

The supporting cast featured some heavy hitters, literally and figuratively.  Dolph Lundgren was brilliant as Mera’s father, King Nereus, and proved that his acting chops go well beyond uttering lines like, “I will crush you.”  Nicole Kidman has a small but strong role as Queen Atlanna and she has great chemistry with Temuera Morrison who portrays Tom Curry, Aquaman’s father.  Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of Vulko is more loving than I expected, but still very good. Be sure to listen for a very special cameo from Mary Poppins herself, Julie Andrews, during the film as well.

The costumes for major players like Aquaman, Black Manta, Ocean Master, and Mera are extremely loyal to the comic books.  If you’ve ever read an Aquaman story featuring Ocean Master, you know how flamboyant his costumes can be, and this film embraces that in the film’s third act.  I actually heard a chuckle in the audience from an obvious non-comic book reader when Ocean Master puts on his full armor.  Myself and a few others, however, were glad to see the character come to life right off of the printed page.  I won’t post a picture of Ocean Master in all of his glory, but the photo below gives you a little hint of what he’ll look like later in the film.

Nitpicks

Overall, this move is excellent fun.  It’s the best DC film since Wonder Woman and in its own way, it’s just as good.  With that being said, there were a few things that I didn’t like about the movie that I’ll briefly mention now.

Music

The film’s score was excellent, make no mistake about that.  Rupert Gregson-Williams’ score flowed well throughout the film.  If you’ve seen Wonder Woman or Hacksaw Ridge, you’re already familiar with his work.  Had his music been the only music to touch our ears in the film, it would have been a flawless wonder.  However, someone thought that throwing in a few pop and rap tracks into the film would be a good thing.  It wasn’t.  While the inclusion of Roy Orbison and Depeche Mode was great, the tunes derail after that.  All of the tracks are forgettable fluff, but the purest poison to my ears in this film was Ocean to Ocean, a wretched cover of Toto’s classic Africa by Pitbull featuring Rhea.  God, who allowed this chum to litter the blue waters of this film?  It’s horrible.  It’s terrible.  It needs to be removed entirely from the film.

Acting

Patrick Wilson and Amber Heard seemed to be held back in their performances.  Whether this was due to direction, actor performance, or some other device, this pair seemed to always be wanting to do more with their roles but didn’t.  They weren’t bad at all, but I believe that they could have been better.

Well, there you have it.  That’s my take on the Aquaman film.  It’s loud, funny, full of action, and in the end, proves to us all that Arthur Curry really is deserving of the title of King of Atlantis.  It’s not a perfect film, but it’s positives sink its negatives to the Mariana Trench.  I recommend it and I plan on seeing it again, hopefully in 3-D.

Thanks for reading my post.  I plan on reviewing Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse in the very near future.  See you again real soon!