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Awix (3310 KP) rated Aquaman (2018) in Movies
Feb 12, 2019
DC Comics adaptation boasts a colour palette that will make your eyes bleed and some casting decisions that will leave your mind near-permanently boggled (Julie Andrews and Dolph Lundgren, together at last), but still manages to be one of their better recent films - I'm aware that probably isn't saying much, so let me clarify it: Aquaman is a lot of fun. Jason Momoa plays the scion of Atlantis as a slightly dimwitted bro, which is a curious but entertaining take on the character; he has to go off on a quest for plot coupons in order to stop a war between the underwater world and the surface nations.
It probably takes a bit too long, and if you don't like wall-to-wall CGI this is definitely not the movie for you, but it ticks all the boxes and manages to be jolly popcorn-blockbuster fun, unsaddled by references to other DC movies. There's a bit of dead wood along the way (Black Manta is just there to facilitate a big action sequence, and allow the designers to get away with one of the most ridiculous costumes in living memory), but this is a surprisingly confident and epic-feeling take on a perennially second-string character.
It probably takes a bit too long, and if you don't like wall-to-wall CGI this is definitely not the movie for you, but it ticks all the boxes and manages to be jolly popcorn-blockbuster fun, unsaddled by references to other DC movies. There's a bit of dead wood along the way (Black Manta is just there to facilitate a big action sequence, and allow the designers to get away with one of the most ridiculous costumes in living memory), but this is a surprisingly confident and epic-feeling take on a perennially second-string character.
Sarah (7799 KP) rated Aquaman (2018) in Movies
Jan 8, 2019
A little too cheesy
I really badly wanted to like this film, but for me it was a little too bad in places to really be anything other than just ‘ok’.
As stated by virtually everyone else who has reviewed it so far, the CGI is fantastic. For the most part, this film looks visually stunning. There are a few instances though where I thought some of the sets and costumes were a little too lurid and garish and looked a little bit ridiculous. But mostly it looked great. And I give a huge thumbs up to the fight scenes - I’m sick of watching shaky camera fights that give you motion sickness, so it was freshing to watch the brilliantly shot and choreographed scenes in this, the flowed very well. Jason Momoa is also fantastic, he plays Aquaman perfectly with just enough charm, brashness and charisma to make him funny and likeable. I even found myself liking Amber Heard, which is odd as I’ve never liked her in anything else. The rest of the cast though are hit and miss; the excellent Willem Defoe is underused, Patrick Wilson is misplaced and hamming it up far too much, and I can’t look at Nicole Kidman anymore without seeing all of the fakery and plastic in her face... and Black Manta? When he turned up in his fancy suit, he just looked like a goth version of Alpha from the Power Rangers. Very poor choice of bad guy there.
Where this film really falters though is the script and parts of the plot. Whilst this film is obviously meant to be silly, the script is horrendous and stilted in parts and the plot is beyond predictable. And I also thought the runtime is much too long. The cast, effects and director do their best, but it’s let down by the writing.
Also, did anyone else think the Karathen looked like a Kaiju? Didn’t clock she was voiced by Julie Andrews though until afterwards.
As stated by virtually everyone else who has reviewed it so far, the CGI is fantastic. For the most part, this film looks visually stunning. There are a few instances though where I thought some of the sets and costumes were a little too lurid and garish and looked a little bit ridiculous. But mostly it looked great. And I give a huge thumbs up to the fight scenes - I’m sick of watching shaky camera fights that give you motion sickness, so it was freshing to watch the brilliantly shot and choreographed scenes in this, the flowed very well. Jason Momoa is also fantastic, he plays Aquaman perfectly with just enough charm, brashness and charisma to make him funny and likeable. I even found myself liking Amber Heard, which is odd as I’ve never liked her in anything else. The rest of the cast though are hit and miss; the excellent Willem Defoe is underused, Patrick Wilson is misplaced and hamming it up far too much, and I can’t look at Nicole Kidman anymore without seeing all of the fakery and plastic in her face... and Black Manta? When he turned up in his fancy suit, he just looked like a goth version of Alpha from the Power Rangers. Very poor choice of bad guy there.
Where this film really falters though is the script and parts of the plot. Whilst this film is obviously meant to be silly, the script is horrendous and stilted in parts and the plot is beyond predictable. And I also thought the runtime is much too long. The cast, effects and director do their best, but it’s let down by the writing.
Also, did anyone else think the Karathen looked like a Kaiju? Didn’t clock she was voiced by Julie Andrews though until afterwards.
Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Aquaman (2018) in Movies
Sep 25, 2019
Straight out of the blocks I want to say that there's excellent fluffy in the shape of a golden retriever puppy, and we also get some brilliant chompers in the form of an army of sharks... and you know how I feel about sharks.
The other thing I want to say, and I'm sorry in advance for the fact that it might annoy you if you haven't been to see it yet, but every wistful shot of the sky over the ocean seems to look like the Free Willy poster shot. Not even kidding. It was the first thing I thought when I saw it. Right there >>> they might have just photoshopped it in, I really don't know.
But I'm getting away from the reason I'm doing this... Aquaman.
I'm please to say that (as you can see from my rating) I thoroughly enjoyed this film. DC have really managed to pull it back. I was a firm believer that it was DC TV and Marvel films that were the winners, when they went off and tried the other side it wasn't such a success for either of them. DC seem to have found the magic formula though and hot on the trail of Wonder Woman and Justice League this feels like a real winner.
Yes I enjoyed Justice League, we're not going to argue about it now!
The attention to detail in the effects is impressive. You just have to look at all the minute details in the reflections on the glass to see that. We're also treated to a lot of ocean scenery that I'm sure you could comb over for hours and still not spot everything hidden in there.
There are moments where the effects become a little iffy though. The tremendous scene where Aquaman and Mera are being chased over roof tops for example. We get wide shots that leave little room to scrimp on the effort and they look visually stunning. At the same time though one of the bad guys is chasing Mera by running through the buildings below her and the graphics on him just don't hold the same impact at all.
Aquaman's underwater scenes actually didn't look a lot different than any normal film apart from the fact that everyone tends to be hovering in mid air/water with ballet pose toes. But just for a minute let us talk about the hair and the capes. Both floaty things in water. Both awful to look at on screen. It's bizarrely unnatural and really sticks out like a sore thumb from the first time you see it. At least it's not something that all the characters had, some of them had their hair tied back, and then they've got some kind of underwater hair gel (they could market that really well on land), both of those options gave scenes a little less distraction.
The first action sequence we get with Aquaman in the sub has some amazing camera work in it. We turn and flip with the characters following the motion of the body as it's being tossed around by our hero. It makes for an exciting scene, it's honestly not something I remember seeing in other films. This sequence also had a rather impressive use of a doorway as a lethal weapon.
While Aquaman is definitely a light-hearted superhero movie it does have it's deep moments. (And I'm not just talking about the ocean... no? Fine! No ridiculous jokes.) Manta and his father have a particularly moving moment that I wasn't expecting at all, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Michael Beach work so well together in that scene that it was a real shame it was over so quickly. Jason Momoa also gets some great speeches throughout the film, but in his case they are taken away from him at the last moment. I get it, he's an edgy no nonsense kind of a character that says it like it is. But let him just have one speech where he doesn't ruin it at the end by calling someone a dick.
Now I'll admit that it didn't hurt that this movie had some very attractive people in it that were wet a lot of the time... you know you were thinking it too! I do however want to call them out on their Bond-esque emerging from the water scene... it didn't work, find your own niche.
I'm honestly amazed at how many notes I wrote, I've got so many thing I want to talk about but honestly we'd be here all day so I'm just going to highlight the rest for your free interpretation: superhero landings, power slides, "little baby oceans", drumming octopus, killer narwhals?, bar montage, Ant-Man And The Wasp rip off credits, rip off Bifrost, stop pollution the oceans it's pissing off the Atlantians. Oh, and Julie Andrews was in it!
What you should do
This is a very good superhero movie. There's love, there's action, there's friendship, and more importantly they have a cute dog. You should definitely see it.
Movie thing you wish you could take home
I do love the water, so some Atlantian superpowers wouldn't go amiss. There's no way I currently look that graceful in the water.
The other thing I want to say, and I'm sorry in advance for the fact that it might annoy you if you haven't been to see it yet, but every wistful shot of the sky over the ocean seems to look like the Free Willy poster shot. Not even kidding. It was the first thing I thought when I saw it. Right there >>> they might have just photoshopped it in, I really don't know.
But I'm getting away from the reason I'm doing this... Aquaman.
I'm please to say that (as you can see from my rating) I thoroughly enjoyed this film. DC have really managed to pull it back. I was a firm believer that it was DC TV and Marvel films that were the winners, when they went off and tried the other side it wasn't such a success for either of them. DC seem to have found the magic formula though and hot on the trail of Wonder Woman and Justice League this feels like a real winner.
Yes I enjoyed Justice League, we're not going to argue about it now!
The attention to detail in the effects is impressive. You just have to look at all the minute details in the reflections on the glass to see that. We're also treated to a lot of ocean scenery that I'm sure you could comb over for hours and still not spot everything hidden in there.
There are moments where the effects become a little iffy though. The tremendous scene where Aquaman and Mera are being chased over roof tops for example. We get wide shots that leave little room to scrimp on the effort and they look visually stunning. At the same time though one of the bad guys is chasing Mera by running through the buildings below her and the graphics on him just don't hold the same impact at all.
Aquaman's underwater scenes actually didn't look a lot different than any normal film apart from the fact that everyone tends to be hovering in mid air/water with ballet pose toes. But just for a minute let us talk about the hair and the capes. Both floaty things in water. Both awful to look at on screen. It's bizarrely unnatural and really sticks out like a sore thumb from the first time you see it. At least it's not something that all the characters had, some of them had their hair tied back, and then they've got some kind of underwater hair gel (they could market that really well on land), both of those options gave scenes a little less distraction.
The first action sequence we get with Aquaman in the sub has some amazing camera work in it. We turn and flip with the characters following the motion of the body as it's being tossed around by our hero. It makes for an exciting scene, it's honestly not something I remember seeing in other films. This sequence also had a rather impressive use of a doorway as a lethal weapon.
While Aquaman is definitely a light-hearted superhero movie it does have it's deep moments. (And I'm not just talking about the ocean... no? Fine! No ridiculous jokes.) Manta and his father have a particularly moving moment that I wasn't expecting at all, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Michael Beach work so well together in that scene that it was a real shame it was over so quickly. Jason Momoa also gets some great speeches throughout the film, but in his case they are taken away from him at the last moment. I get it, he's an edgy no nonsense kind of a character that says it like it is. But let him just have one speech where he doesn't ruin it at the end by calling someone a dick.
Now I'll admit that it didn't hurt that this movie had some very attractive people in it that were wet a lot of the time... you know you were thinking it too! I do however want to call them out on their Bond-esque emerging from the water scene... it didn't work, find your own niche.
I'm honestly amazed at how many notes I wrote, I've got so many thing I want to talk about but honestly we'd be here all day so I'm just going to highlight the rest for your free interpretation: superhero landings, power slides, "little baby oceans", drumming octopus, killer narwhals?, bar montage, Ant-Man And The Wasp rip off credits, rip off Bifrost, stop pollution the oceans it's pissing off the Atlantians. Oh, and Julie Andrews was in it!
What you should do
This is a very good superhero movie. There's love, there's action, there's friendship, and more importantly they have a cute dog. You should definitely see it.
Movie thing you wish you could take home
I do love the water, so some Atlantian superpowers wouldn't go amiss. There's no way I currently look that graceful in the water.