Aquaman

Aquaman

By James Davidson

Thanks to Amazon Prime, I was able to get tickets to see DC Comics, new movie “Aquaman”, a week early. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am an avid comic book collector and I love comic book movies. DC has a pretty bad track record with their superhero movies; however, most of them have been ok and some have been downright unwatchable. I was a little wary about how “Aquaman” would turn out, as I had seen most of the trailers and was expecting it to be one of the movies in the “ok” category.

When the movie started, I was worried that it wouldn’t even live up to my low expectations. The beginning of the film gives the origin story of Aquaman. He was born from an Atlantean queen and a humble lighthouse operator. His mother Atlanna, and father, Tom Curry, are played by Nicole Kidman and Temuera Morrison respectively. They meet when Tom finds Atlanna washed up near his lighthouse during a hurricane. The two begin a forbidden love affair that results in the birth of Arthur Curry, better known as Aquaman, played by Jason Momoa.

The beginning of the movie felt very rushed to me, there was a lot of information that was thrown at me in a very short time. All of the information is relevant and necessary to know, it just feels thrown together and not as polished as the rest of the movie. It also didn’t help that Kidman and Morrison have zero chemistry on screen. Both are great actors individually, but for some reason in this movie, they were very unbelievable as a couple and their acting left a lot to be desired.

After the slow beginning, though, the movie really changed the tone. The second and third acts were very exciting. Aquaman discovers that his mother, after being forced to return to Atlantis, gave birth to his half brother, Orm. Orm, played by Patrick Wilson, wants to start a war with the surface world to take revenge on the surface dwellers for destroying the ocean with their pollution. Aquaman must stop his brother and save the world that he grew up in.

I thought that the movie was visually stunning, there was a lot of Computer Generated Imaging (CGI), but it was well done for the amount that was in the movie. The underwater scenes showing Atlantis and a lot of mythical sea creatures were amazing to look at and really emersed the viewer in the underwater world.

There were a lot of action scenes, both under the water and on land, all of them were great and Momoa did amazingly as Aquaman. The fight scenes had me on the edge of my seat and were a lot of fun to watch. The movie did a good job at inserting humor in key spots that kept the movie from getting too heavy or from the fight scenes dragging on for too long. That is something that I think DC has been missing in their movies.

Much like the beginning of the film, I think that the filmmakers tried to fit just a little too much information in one movie. It didn’t take too much away from the movie for me, but there are a lot of characters to follow and each had their own backstories. The plot became a bit muddled with all of the characters, however it was still engaging. The filmmakers did a good job at handling all of the characters and keeping the plot from getting too bogged down.

“Aquaman” is rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and some language which may keep some younger viewers from seeing it. This is definitely not any worse than most superhero movies though, and also not as dark as the majority of the DC movies.

Although “Aquaman” starts off very slow, it makes up for it in the second and third acts with amazing visuals and explosive action scenes. There is a lot of information crammed into one movie, but it is handled well. I definitely think that this is one of the best DC movies to come out. I will be buying this on DVD to add to my collection and will watch it many more times. It earns 4 out of 5 stars.