Topic: Aquaman *** No spoilers yet, but they are inevitable! ***

[Grand Master Lomandalis]

Just got home from watching Aquaman, and if you were on the fence about seeing this movie because of DC's track record so far... you need to go see this movie.

The best way I described it to friends was that I thoroughly enjoyed watching Wonder Woman, and that I enjoyed this movie a hell of a lot more.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that, although he has been introduced into the DCEU in Justice League, this movie is still very much an origin story.  Unfortunately, that means that there is some degree of predictability to the story line which, I believe, comes from the fact that we have seen sooooooo many super hero origins over the past ten years that we all know the formula that is going to play out.  Aside from the predictability, my only complain about the movie comes from the CGI being rather meh compared to Marvel's quality.  The issue there, though, is that Marvel has ready access to ILM to do their CGI, and DC doesn't.  That does make a huge difference.

Now, enough about the negatives.  Let's get to the good stuff!

It really feels like DC is stepping away from the dark and brooding that they initially tried for, and is moving more towards following the success of Marvel in that the movie is much lighter and funnier.  The one concern I had was that they would really gloss over the whole Atlantis back story, but they do a good job of keeping the history relevant and making sure the audience understands what's going on.  The action is solid and brutal, and Jason Mamoa has no issue selling Aquaman as a bad ass because... well... Mamoa does an awesome job at being a bad ass that makes women cream their pants, and straight guys question their sexuality lol.

So, if you are looking for a movie that is going to carve new roads with originality, don't go looking for that here.  If you want to see a fun, action packed super hero movie, then this is the movie for you.  Or, if you are thinking you are going to get lucky because your woman is so turned on by the sheer masculinity of Mamoa, there may be a good possibility after seeing this lol.

[Starrakatt]

Ok, scheduling to go and watch this with the wife.

o7

[Calamity]

This movie sits nicely alongside Wonder Woman as a decent DC flick.  Here's hoping that the trend continues!

[Wyddr]

It wasn't bad and it had its moments, but I didn't love it. The movie had about 3 half-movies in it--
a hero origin, an artifact hunt, and a revenge story--and it couldn't decide where the focus should be, so it didn't really deliver on any one plot.

Everyone but Black Manta was kinda wooden, the dialogue was *awful,* and about 50% of the conversations were interrupted by an explosion. That last became so pronounced that me and my friends started giggling every time a heartfelt line delivery was happening, because we just knew that wall behind them was about to blow up.

[Grand Master Lomandalis]

It wasn't bad and it had its moments, but I didn't love it. The movie had about 3 half-movies in it--
a hero origin, an artifact hunt, and a revenge story--and it couldn't decide where the focus should be, so it didn't really deliver on any one plot.

Everyone but Black Manta was kinda wooden, the dialogue was *awful,* and about 50% of the conversations were interrupted by an explosion. That last became so pronounced that me and my friends started giggling every time a heartfelt line delivery was happening, because we just knew that wall behind them was about to blow up.

So... It was a DC movie?  Lol

[Wyddr]

So... It was a DC movie?  Lol

That's no excuse.

Ordinarily I wouldn't have seen it, since I knew I was going to walk into a sloppy mess of a film, but it wasn't my turn to pick a flick this month and the guys I go with were down between this or (shudder) Mortal Engines, which looked really, really bad. I put my finger on the scales for the C+ effort and...saw a C+ movie.

I knew it was going to have trouble the moment the film started, in which scene a lighthouse keeper in the middle of a storm is working really hard to tie is storm shutters open. That stunning attention to detail pervaded the whole film.

Was it fun? Sometimes. Most of it was fairly stupid and it had 2-3 good scenes.

One had to laugh when Willem Dafoe holds out a five-pronged spear to our young protagonist and says, straight-faced, "this is a trident." Hell of an actor, that Dafoe.

[Sir_Godspeed]

I also got to see it a while ago, and I thought it was overall an enjoyable movie.

It did feel like it was checking off a list of adventure tropes, you know, "cutesy quarreling between the leads (check), split between two worlds (check), ancient prophecy (check), main character is at first kinda dumb and irreverent, but lovable (check), etc. etc.

I think my main gripe with it was that whenever they got into the whole "Behold, the true king!"-stuff, especially towards the end, I couldn't help thinking of movies that do this sort of thing a lot better, like Lord of the Rings. The amount of pathos they managed to create felt a bit... meh.

Some of the comedic stuff was a bit hit or miss, but hey, it's a family movie.

What felt really well was the realization of the underwater environments, and the varying cultures of the underwater people. That was visually very well done and diverse, and it really felt like these were cultures that had adapted and lived out their own existences, for the most part. Not a huge of Dolph Lundgren in this, but oh well.

Overall, I had a good time.