Quick Reviews: Aquaman (2018)

Am I reviewing this on the day it comes out on Video?  What a coincidence.  Oh well...

In 1985, the Queen of Atlantis flees a marriage and ends up with a Lighthouse Operator.  They have Arthur aka Aquaman.

She has to leave when she realizes that they'll be pursued.  Well, that or just move to Utah, so...leave it is then.

In 'Present Day,' Aquaman is a semi-famous Hero.  He battles some Pirates and leaves one of them to die, setting up a villain for later.

As for his Justice League Armor, he never wears it- ever!

Abruptly, Ocean Master appears on a giant Sea Horse, signaling that the Movie is now full-on crazy.

He's trying to start a War with the surface and recruits one King- Dolph Lundgren- by way of obvious subterfuge.  The King never sees through this either!

Mera- knowing of his plans- goes to the surface to recruit Aquaman, but he'd rather hang out with his Dad.  To be fair, his Dad is Jango Fett.

I also checked the Justice League Scene (all 2 minutes of it!) and, no, she doesn't tell him her name there.  I'm sure that the glorious Snyder Cut fixes that though...

He goes to Atlantis- which is vast and secure- and challenges Ocean Master.  He seems to lose the fight- since he's not trained for underwater combat...I guess- and has to flee.

Can he rise to the task?  Can he unite the Kingdoms?  Will a nearly-comics accurate Black Manta make up for any issues I might have?

To find out (well, the first two), watch the Film- now on DVD, etc.

A big, flashy adventure that is somewhat shallow.  To be fair, the Film has glimpses and nibbles of deeper stuff.  We get Mera being friendly to a little girl.  Aw, how cute.  We get 'talking heads' debating whether Atlantis exists.  Thankfully, this is less insistent than BvS and doesn't feature Neil DeGrasse Tyson.  We get a fairly-nuanced motivation for Black Manta to want Aquaman dead.  Seriously, he was truly just being a dick for no reason there.  For every bit like this, there are problems and/or silly things.  Like I joked about, they jump RIGHT INTO giant Sea Horses and guys riding Sharks.  Is there a segue for that you could have used?  There's also the digitally-de-aged face of Willem Dafoe, which looks less like his face than his Green Goblin mask.  There's all of the random 'look at this' tech that just suddenly appears, including Manta's energy blaster.  The Film raises many questions about Justice League too.  What happened to his suit between then and now?  Why didn't he know Mera if he knew Vulko for Decades?  Why didn't they hide the Mother Box in Atlantis when it has ALL OF THAT SECURITY.  Side-note: Atlantis is clearly trying to be both Asgard and Wakanda.  Plus, if we're being honest, this is just inverted Black Panther.  Arthur is Killmonger (but he's good) and Ocean Master is Black Panther (but he's bad).  I could spend a while critiquing lots of the little points, but the Internet has enough of that and I'm already 'a Marvel fanboy,' so what merit do my comments have anyhow?  Aquaman is a fun, generally-well-made Film.  It just has LOADS of exposition, some tonal inconsistencies and goes 'to 11' by the end.  If you like DC Films, this will make you happy.  If you think Comic Book Films are too silly and too dense, this will only prove 'your point.'  I should also mention that they kind of borrowed heavily from, all of Films, Dario Argento's Phenomena...

 ****

A Movie that can be fun and has a strong visual style.  Unfortunately, the Plot is all kinds of dense and the visuals often overtake, well, everything else.