Aquaman review

For Your Eyes Only!

I have been overly amped up for Aquaman, ever since the day it was announced. I liked the trailers and had a feeling of, “I want this to be good”. Somewhere, deep within me, to be honest, I was underestimating DCEU and was under an impression that I may walk out disillusioned.

I saw it on the very day of its release. I had to wait in order to write a review, as I wanted to see how much of it would stay with me besides the visuals that were so strikingly beautiful! Though I knew the answers, I wanted to see if I would want to watch it again any time soon and, or, if it remains at the forefront of my thoughts a couple of days later as well.

Aquaman, is the sixth film in the DCEU. This denotes the third appearance of Aquaman in the DCEU since Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017). This is his first full length solo ride as Arthur Curry.

This is a beautiful film! As a matter of fact, DCEU has always been excellent with the visuals! That’s no surprise! This one, with a new skipper, has been handled in a different manner. The opening of the film is adorable and it provides the required back story narrated by Arthur Curry, before we enter the present after about 10 minutes. We are then introduced to one of the bad guys before the hero saves the day and we take our first look at Jason Momoa in and as “Aquaman”.

Patrick Wilson as the Ocean Master

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta

I am somehow always more interested in the villain, than the lead. There is a great degree of pleasure I feel in witnessing a cruelly malicious and noxious character devoted to being wicked, underhanded and plain bad. Our superhero has to face double trouble in the face of Black Manta and King Orm. While the Ocean Master, is effective enough, Black Manta did not appeal to me as such.  He appears to be nothing more than just a reprobate missing profundity. The good part is, though it has two villains, it is managed alright, it isn’t that enormous a botch. I strongly felt that many of the flashback sequences were superfluous and just added on to the length of the film. Instead, the time could have been utilized to throw some light on the character of Black Manta.

According to Wan, his vision was to create a superhero film that is not like all the other traditional ones. And, he wanted to film the Sicily chase scene “Bond style”, which also happens to be one of the highlight sequences. That gives me a pretty clear understanding of the choice of music too. You are definitely not getting a film that has a similar tone to the previous films in this universe, in fact it will feel really different to everything that has come out till now.

The plot is the biggest negative. I was not expecting anything much on that front any which ways, so would not count that as a disappointment. They played extra safe and had a conventional approach to the storyline. Wan has added an emotional touch to the story along with a good message, which is pretty decent and not laughable or silly. As soon as you see the beginning of the movie, it takes hardly a few minutes to figure out where the film is going and how the characters are going to end up.

Jason Momoa is perfectly reasonable for this kind of a role. The character requires a certain amount of charisma and personality with a dash of appeal and charm, and he has that in him to be able to carry the film. I really enjoyed his stylish entry. He is at times confident and at times confused, born on the wrong side of the ocean, Aquaman has the power to win hearts. Amber Heard as princess Mera is good in her part and plays a vital role in the film delivering a fair performance. Though my favorite princess remains to be Diana of Themyscira and I feel more for the film on an emotional level too.

The soundtrack of the movie by Rupert Gregson Williams (who also did Wonder Woman), isn’t something that left a mark on me. I gave it a second chance too, I heard it separately as well, I could not feel a connect with it! “Arthur”, sounds like a track listed from the eighties, “Kingdom of Atlantis”, felt like something we have heard many a times already. In fact, that is how I pretty much felt about the entire soundtrack, with the only one that I liked, being “Black Manta”.  “Everything I Need”, did not pull my heartstrings, the way “To be Human” did in Wonder Woman. That is not something that would affect each one of you, it is just me, particularly invested in the music of a film!

The movie felt Game of Throne-ish, Harry Potter-ish, Fast and Furious like (also the director’s previous film), even Piranha-ish, fantasy, treasure hunt movie featuring a superhero. The fascinating submerged world that they have envisioned and created, is worth a lot of praise. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have seen the previous DCEU films. You can give this movie a chance, this is definitely worth the time and money despite the flaws it has.

People have already started comparing Aquaman to Avengers: Infinity war, which is absolutely unfair! You cannot compare a film that is the first part of the end result of eighteen previous films and ties in the stories and characters from all those films to a single film. Aquaman, for the vision of Wan, is a good film under the feather of DCEU, and we should just learn to appreciate that instead of coming up with comparisons every single time. I can say that, I would readily pay double the ticket price for something this stunning visually, whether it is MCU or DCEU. The hard work that has gone behind the film is conspicuous and I appreciate it wholeheartedly.

Aquaman

*** 3/5 ***

*** ⛄️ ⛄️ ⛄️ ***

Starring: 

Jason Momoa

Amber Heard

Willem Dafoe

Patrick Wilson

Dolph Lundgren

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

Nicole Kidman

Writer(s): Geoff Johns, James Wan, Will Beall

Director: James Wan

Warner Bros. Pictures

Runtime: 2hr, 22min

Disclaimer: I do not own the images provided.