Aquaman movie

I finally got around to seeing Aquaman. I had been looking forward to it up until about the time I saw the first trailer. After that my excitement died down as I felt it looked rather cheesy. A few individuals also informed me that they had seen it and that it was just ok. But then the weeks passed and it continued to be the #1 movie at the box office so I figured I might as well check it out, plus, I had a few hours to kill last Monday.

My verdict? It’s just ok. There were things that I did enjoy, and other things that I felt were just so-so. There were several silly, cheesy moments that killed the momentum at times. Here’s some other observations.

 

Jason Momoa: He was decent, thought I found all the one liners and jokes became distracting and got old quite fast. Momoa can come off as intense and menacing, but the frequent humor in the script continued to ruin that and made it difficult to take him seriously.

Amber Heard: She’s very attractive and a decent actress, not great, but passable. She mostly played her role seriously, so that helped to stand out, at times making her seem like a stronger character than Arthur Curry/Aquaman. I also really did enjoy Mera’s powers. That helped to make her interesting. And the jellyfish dress she wore I found quite funny but not in a bad, distacting way.

 

Patrick Wilson: Very enjoyable. In the right role Wilson can be very good (Ed Warren in the Conjuring for example), and he was a memorable villain. Just the right amount of cheesy and serious to make it work well.

 

Nicole Kidman: She did a good job. The opening scene, where she wakes up in the lighthouse and goes a bit crazy came off as overkill, but after that, her character mellowed out and seemed genuine.

Dolf Lundgren & Willem Dafoe: I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Lundgren. I’ve never thought of him as a particularly good or stand out actor, but his performance was good enough that it took me a few minutes to realize it was him. And Dafoe gave his usual good performance.

 

Black Manta: A villain that I’ve always liked that was more or less wasted here. His story of being angry at Aquaman for the death of his father came off as typical cliché, and even his outfit was bordering on kind of cool but kind of cheesy. I think I read one review that mentioned this movie reminding the viewer of Power Rangers and that’s exactly what I thought when I saw Black Manta.

 

The visuals were nice, Atlantis looked great, there were some truly stunning shots. The story was just ok, nothing too interesting. I felt they overdid it by trying to have 2 villains when they should’ve just focused on one, and most of the action sequences were decent but also the type that you quickly forget about after you’ve walked out of the theatre. The final fight, however, was quite spectacular and I’m glad they at least ended things with a bang. As for James Wan, while I think he’s a very talented director, at least with his horror offerings (Saw, Insidious, the 2 Conjuring films), none of his skills were really on display here. There was nothing that made me think “this is definitely Wan”. It had the feel of one of Marvel’s lesser, generic offerings.

 

 

In conclusion, I found it to be just ok. It lacked that rush of excitement that stays with you long after you’ve left the movie theatre. It’s not a film that I would want to watch again, either. I felt Wonder Woman was a better film. It was much better than Suicide Squad and Justice League, but those 2 films were so bad that that’s not really saying much.