Movie Review – ‘Aquaman’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Out of all the DC Comics superheroes I know of, Aquaman is one I don’t know very much about. Hence why I wasn’t really interested in seeing the film ‘Aquaman’ when it was released at cinemas in December 2018! At that point, I was more interested in the Marvel superheroes than in the DC ones.

But since then, and because we’re currently living in a pandemic – please keep safe – I’ve been able to take an interest in the ‘DC Extended Universe’ again. I’ve also realised that ‘Aquaman’ became a crowd pleaser when it was shown at the cinemas in 2018. So, I checked this film out due to curiosity.

I’ve seen Aquaman before since he was in the film ‘Justice League’, which I haven’t seen in a long time. He also appeared in ‘Scooby-Doo! Batman: The Brave and the Bold’. It was interesting to see ‘Aquaman’ and how the titular superhero would fare in his own film after debuting in ‘Justice League’.

The character Aquaman was created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris for DC Comics. Like I said, I don’t know much about Aquaman as a superhero character and even though I’ve seen him in the aforementioned ‘Justice League’ and ‘Scooby-Doo’ films, it’s not enough to know him. But I was looking forward to seeing ‘Aquaman’ as a film and hoped to judge it on its merits than on its flaws. 🙂

After seeing ‘Aquaman’ at home via Amazon Prime Video, I greatly enjoyed this film. I can see why people rate this one highly. It has some traditional superhero fun going on. In many ways, Aquaman works well as a superhero alone, very much like how Wonder Woman works well in her own movie.

Jason Momoa returns to play Aquaman following ‘Justice League’. The film is directed by James Wan. In the movie, Arthur Curry/Aquaman finds himself setting out to lead the underwater kingdom of Atlantis. He must confront his half-brother King Orm who wants to rage war on the surface world.

Despite not having read any ‘Aquaman’ comics, I was able to get into the superhero world of Aquaman easily. It was fun to get into the underwater worlds and see what Atlantis looked like. The origins of Atlantis and how it ended up underwater is pretty different to how ‘Doctor Who’ did it! 😀

Incidentally, I know this film was released by Warner Bros as DC Comics is associated with that film company. But ‘Aquaman’ could’ve easily been made by Disney since the underwater worlds featured in this movie put me in mind of Disney films like ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Finding Nemo’. 🙂

Jason Momoa is great to watch in this film. I enjoyed the journey Arthur Curry went on in order to find out whether he was worthy to lead Atlantis and be its king, since he’s half-human, half-Atlantean. The relationship Arthur has with his love interest Mera was nice to watch during the film.

Speaking of which, Amber Heard stars as Mera, who is the princess of Xebel, Arthur’s love interest and the warrior daughter of King Nereus. The film also features Willem “Spider-Man! This is why only fools are heroes!” Dafoe!!! Wow! I was very amazed to see Willem Dafoe appear in a DC movie!

I’m disappointed he didn’t play a villain in this movie, but I enjoyed his performance as Nuidis Vulko, Atlantis’ vizier who mentored young Arthur in his training as Aquaman. Incidentally, Willem Dafoe voiced a character in ‘Finding Nemo’. I’m surprised he didn’t call young Arthur Curry ‘Sharkbait’ when he was training him to be Aquaman. ‘Aquaman’ even has a ‘ring of fire’ like ‘Finding Nemo’. 😀

The film also features Patrick Wilson as King Orm Marius/Ocean Master, who insults Aquaman, calling him a ‘half-breed’, and thinks himself the better king of Atlantis. There’s also Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus, Mera’s father; and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as David Kane/Black Manta. I didn’t expect David Kane to come back later on during the film and become a super-villain for Aquaman. 😀

There’s also Nicole Kidman as Atlanna, the Queen of Atlantis as well as Arthur Curry and Orm’s mother. It was nice to see Nicole Kidman in this film. This is the second time that Nicole has done DC superhero movie. The first one was ‘Batman Forever’ where she played Chase Meridian. You remember that ‘Batman’ film don’t you? With Val Kilmer as Batman and Jim Carrey as the Riddler…

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The film also features Temuera Morrison as Tom Curry, Arthur’s father. You might remember Temeura Morrison for playing Jango Fett in ‘Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones’. I liked the sweet love story featuring Arthur’s parents at the film’s start and how it was all resolved by the end.

The action sequences in this film are pretty amazing; especially during the climax when Aquaman and Mera thwart King Orm’s attempts to wage war. Aquaman does acquire a new suit as king of Atlantis, which is orange and green, which is short-of how he looks in the comics, despite not having blonde hair. It’s intriguing how the film progresses Aquaman to look like that by the movie’s ending.

Overall, ‘Aquaman’ has been a fun action-packed superhero movie to watch. I’m glad I’ve seen it and I hope I’ll get to see more DC superhero movies that have been made recently. I would like to see ‘Aquaman 2’ someday and hopefully I’ll get to see that movie when it comes out at cinemas soon. 🙂

I would like to check out the ultimate edition of ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ next! 😀 Incidentally, my Mum said that Aquaman is like the Thor of the ‘DC Extended Universe’. She could be right there. 😀 Another ‘Finding Nemo’ connection I found in this movie is that Aquaman and Mera hid inside a humpback whale. The same thing happened to Marlin and Dory with meeting a whale. 😀

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim. 🙂