I initiate Aquaman with an asterisk because it’s good but it just isn’t terribly original while succeeding in making one of DC’s least interesting superheroes watchable, today, in a few years I doubt it. Sure, the character started becoming more appealing when Peter David wrote for the comic in the early Nineties and then others kept the ball rolling, namely Geoff Johns (who is also a producer to the DC flicks). Casting a popular actor from Game of Thrones didn’t hurt. My complaint are the overlapping elements I already saw in Ant-Man and the Wasp, Guardians of the Galaxy and probably every other successful Marvel movie. Poor DC just can’t get a break. Hell, three people who were in better superheroes are present, you’ll have to guess them and if you wish, post in the Comments. Warning, two of the three are probably subjective on the “better” listing but it’s my opinion.
Aquaman takes place after the boring slog Justice League was so the world knows of Arthur’s existence as he rescues a Russian submarine crew from the future Black Manta (his real nemesis over the years). Could it be WB/DC trying to curry favorable treatment from Putin with the Russian film market? Meanwhile, his half brother King Orem is planning a war against the surface world but needs all the seven underwater kingdoms to align with him. Thus the main story is Arthur and Princess Mera traveling around the world to find the means to stop Orem as his backstory is interlaced between scenes. Much like every other superhero film, you are left wondering a bit about the absence of the other members of the Justice League given these characters being part of a shared universe. Maybe Aquaman didn’t know about Henry Cavil/Superman being fired and Ben Affleck/Batman being on the fence.
The acting is fine. The effects are impressive especially how digital techniques can get the underwater elements to look impressive. The explanation for why certain Atlanteans can breathe without needing water as the medium was a bit elitist to make a plot point, not the case in Marvel since only Namor and Namorita can breathe in both. I just wish DC would just stop, take a couple years off, regroup and find a fresher approach to tell these stories instead of utilizing Instagram filters, giving them a Marvel knockoff feeling. Have to see if they avoid it in the upcoming Shazam!
Alamo Extras: We got there late, my fault but…scenes from a Jackie Chan movie with real underwater fighting; the underwater gag scene from Top Secret (totally forgot about that); the Stingray show (a marionette show like Thunderbirds Go! and Supercar); a music video for Bobby Freeman and this weird Italian Europop entry from Tom Hooker; the opening to the super cheap Hanna-Barbera cartoons of Superman/Aquaman Show; Trailer for Atlantis: The Lost Continent; the horrible UCLA film made in the Eighties of Aquaman; finally, a scene from the Sid & Marty Kroft show The Lost Saucer when the gang travelled back in time to see Atlantis, a rather weird song/dance number performed by its stars Ruth Buzzi and Jim Nabors!