When you think of it, MOS and BVS will feel like a huge Early-Installment Weirdness if they continue in this direction. Especially considering the number of plot points from BVS that were more or less dropped…
Saw it last night. It's fine. There are some scenes I feel could have been rearranged a bit, and I'd have personally Replaced the Pitbull version of "Africa" with the cover by Wheezer and polished up the delivery of the dialogue (very hammy), also Black Manta is used minimally, has an origin, then one big fight scene with Arthur, and then vanishes 'till the mid-credits
Did... Did I just came out from a DCEU movie, and enjoyed it? A movir featuring Aquaman wearing his orange suit and riding a seahorse unironically, and looking awesome at it?
In all honesty though, I loved this movie. Yes, it doesn't do anything new, and it's plot has it similarity to Black Panther's. But what it does is great, and it clearly has fun doing it.
I would say that because of the nature of Aquaman, it has some scenes that are unintentionally funny, but I for one believe those scene elevate the movie.
Black Manta also was great for the little time he was in the movie. And James Wan bring his A game in the horror scene of the movie.
But indeed, the greatest thing this movie did, was confirm that Anabelle is part of the DCEU
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Edited by eligram on Dec 15th 2018 at 10:48:35 AM
Really enjoyed this. The complaints about the plot being very rote and cliche were spot on, but the characters are all likable and the action and visuals are spectacular.
I was a little disappointed with the size of Black Manta's role, but they look to be rectifying that for follow-ups.
I really wanna see Wan handle Superman, now.
...Julie Andrews is still alive? Wow.
One Strip! One Strip!I'm back from this.
It's mediocre. The first thirty minutes or so are a smoking hot mess but it picks up once he goes into Atlantis. Regrettably, they then leave Atlantis and the movie proceeds to slowly die of dehydration for a bunch of scenes until Black Manta shows up. The bit with the Trench is probably the best single setpiece of the film (Wan's horror chops shine through), but the climax is when the film started to feel a little bit exhausting and worn out for me.
There are a lot of structural problems with occasionally choppy editing, some atrocious writing (Black Manta's grandfather machine gunning the backstory of Black Manta to Black Manta within like a minute has got to take the cake), but the fantastic art and color in many setpieces (particularly Atlantis itself) plus the charisma of the actors and Wan's occasional director flourishes keep the movie chugging along despite its many flaws. It's basically a mediocre movie that just escaped being bad by virtue of everything else going above and beyond to redeem the movie to a point of mediocrity.
I'd give it a 6/10.
I can definitely see a sequel smoothing out the flaws and ending up with a solid flick.
Edited by Gaon on Dec 18th 2018 at 7:45:16 AM
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Back from it. I liked it.
It might not be the best DC movie in terms of plot, writing or originality, but in terms of sheer fun and visual style none of the others even come close. I wasn't bored for a single of the film's 150 minutes. Many people mention the colors and action scenes, but I haven't seen anyone mention the remarkable attention to transitions between scenes in this film. The way the present scenes and the flashbacks bled into each other for example (notably the scenes between Arthur and Vulco) was just delightful. Enough to forgive some goofier gimmicks like the abuse of the "dramatic zoom before dramatic trailer line".
And yeah, speaking of that… the dialogue really made it seem like every line was written for the trailers at times. On the other hand the banter between Arthur and Mera was great, too bad there wasn't much of it.
I also really liked what they did with Black Manta. Sure he's a relatively minor presence in the film, but the little we see of him perfectly sets him up for the sequel while making him enough of a threat (albeit briefly) in this one.
…Now it's the character's story so it can't be helped, but I'd like to see just once a blockbuster like this where the aesop isn't "We need a True King© to lead and unite us" but "How about we stop relying on kings to decide for us?" The Last Jedi took a jab at the decrepit "Chosen One" trope, but it's not quite the same…
"The Last Jedi took a jab at the decrepit "Chosen One" trope, but it's not quite the same…"
Because it still feel a chosen one with rey even if the narrative dosent call as such.
Hey, is a internal issue with Kings, the same with waknda, it just sort of....exist.

Edited by Estvyk on Dec 12th 2018 at 3:34:40 AM