Aquaman (2018) Review

After Justice League, the first solo movie we got was Aquaman and I have now rewatched the film and here is my review for it. The premise of the film sees Arthur Curry forced to travel to Atlantis in order to attempt to stop his half brother Orm from starting a war with the surface.

Main Character

Jason Mamoa plays Arthur Curry/Aquaman and he is really good in this film, I enjoyed him in Justice League and he is further fleshed out in this film. He has plenty of personality and charisma to him to play a leading superhero but there is an added depth here that makes you care about him and want to see him succeed.

Supporting Characters

There has been plenty of controversy about Amber Heard but this film came out before it so I will judge her on her performance and I thought she was a good character. You can see how she is different to Mamoa and that leads them to have good chemistry in the film and makes them a fun pair to watch. Patrick Wilson plays Orm and he is a really interesting character, you can tell he is not evil an that he really wants what he believes is best for Atlantis. His dynamic with Aquaman is great to see and it leads to an above average antagonist who we can kind of see the point of view of. Nicole Kidman, Dolph Lundgren & Willem Dafoe play roles in the film and are all good, they play important parts and fit their roles very well. I have to talk about Black Manta though, the character was heavily marketed and his costume looks amazing but it feels like he was just here to possibly set up a sequel. He has interesting motivations but he is basically a cool looking henchman here and I wanted a bit more if we were going to see him.

Story

The story is well done, it's a story that has been seen before with the reluctant hero having to step up but it is done well enough. The dynamic between our hero and villain is well done and rises the story above other comic book films. Though the story has a bit of a pacing issue, it gets a lot less interesting in the middle act, the first and last arcs are great but the middle arc isn't as interesting or at least wasn't for me.

Script

The script is great here, the humour is well done and fits Mamoa's naturally funny personality in making Aquaman a fun hero to watch. It was also suprising to see how well done the drama was done as I felt something in the dramatic scenes and cared about Aquaman's personal relationship's in the film.

Style

Now after Justice League people were worried about the style of Atlantis but it is so much better here. The underwater scenes look great and the bright colours make this feel like a different style of DC film in recent memories. The action scenes are also very good, the underwater and land scenes feel very different and it makes them feel appropriate to the situation. Though as mentioned there is an issue with pacing here, the film could have cut like 15 mins off to make it an even better 2 hour film.

Overall

Overall, this is a great film, it is truly unique with the underwater scenes and is visually a film to be watched. It doesn't do anything really new but what it does it does well and is worth a watch.

Rating - 8/10