Aquaman first appeared in More Fun Comics #73, published in 1941, and he continued to appear in that comic until 1946, when he was shifted to Adventure Comics. He’s one of the few superheroes who continued to have his adventures published regularly through the 1950s, when the popularity of superhero comics was waning.
He was also the butt of jokes for a long time after his run in the animated Super Friends series where he came across as the weak link of the team. Then he was rebooted in the 1980s by Robert Loren Fleming and in the 1990s by Peter David as a force to be reckoned with. Thirty years ago, casting someone who looks and acts like Jason Momoa as Aquaman would have been laughed out of the room, but in the 2010s, it made sense.
Aquaman has never been one of the major players in the DC universe, but he’s been a fairly consistent supporting presence. He worked with the All-Star Squadron during World War II and was a founding member of the Justice League of America in 1960, remaining a major part of the team for much of its history.
Most notably, Aquaman was the leader of an incarnation of the Justice League that was very radical for its time in the 1980s, as Aquaman rewrote the bylaws so that team members had to be 100% dedicated to the team, and then joining with the Martian Manhunter to assemble a team of newcomers and untested heroes to form the League’s membership. The team also relocated to Detroit.
Even though the character’s no more or less ridiculous than any other superhero—hell, he’s practically the same superhero as the Marvel’s Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner (created two years earlier in Marvel Comics #1)—he became DC’s punchline superhero for a long time.
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Fleming, David, and later Erik Larsen and Geoff Johns all worked to change that, leaning into Aquaman’s role as both a ruler of a kingdom and the fact that being able to communicate with fish can be a pretty impressive power in the hands of a writer who actually thought about it for two seconds. (One of the greatest Aquaman moments was early in his mid-1990s solo comic book, written by David. He faces Superboy, one of the “substitute” Supermen who appeared in the wake of Superman’s temporary death in 1992, and one who, along with Steel, continued to have a heroic career after Supes’ resurrection. Early on, Superboy makes a derogatory comment about Aquaman and how he’s just the guy who talks to fish. “I’m not impressed,” the young hero opines. Several pages later, a big tidal wave is heading toward Hawai’i, led by Aquaman riding a blue whale, accompanied by two more blue whales, and Aquaman shouts toward the shore, “Hey! Kid! You impressed yet?”)
After a cameo in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Jason Momoa—having made a name for himself in genre circles as Ronon Dex on Stargate Atlantis and Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones (not to mention playing the title role in 2011’s Conan the Barbarian)—made his first full-on appearance as Aquaman in Justice League. While an Aquaman film had been in development since the early days of the millennium, it didn’t really take hold until Warner Bros. started putting together the DC Extended Universe following 2013’s Man of Steel. Aquaman was always intended to be part of that.
Will Beall and Kurt Johnstad were both hired to write scripts and Warner intended to take only one. James Wan of Saw, The Conjuring, and Furious 7 fame, was hired to direct, using Beall’s draft which was rewritten by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick.
Back from Justice League along with Momoa is Amber Heard as Mera, who tasked Aquaman with fighting Steppenwolf in that film. They’re joined by Willem Dafoe (last seen in this rewatch in the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man films) as Vulko (who had a part written and filmed for Justice League, but it was cut), Patrick Wilson (last seen in this rewatch as Nite Owl in Watchmen) as King Orm, Dolph Lundgren (last seen in this rewatch as the title character in 1989’s The Punisher) as Nereus, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as David Kane (who becomes Black Manta over the course of the film), Michael Beach as Jesse Kane, Nicole Kidman (last seen in this rewatch as Chase Meridian in Batman Forever) as Atlanna, Temuera Morrison (previously seen in this rewatch in Green Lantern and Barb Wire) as Thomas Curry, and Djimon Honsou (previously seen in this rewatch in Constantine and Guardians of the Galaxy), Natalia Safran, and Sophia Forrest as the royal family of the Fishermen. In addition, the vocal talents of greats Julie Andrews and John Rhys-Davies (last seen in this rewatch as the Kingpin in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk) are utilized to voice Karathen and the Brine King, respectively.
The film grossed over a billion dollars, and a sequel is currently on Warner’s schedule for December 2022. Wan is being courted to come back and direct, and Momoa is already signed for it, as is Johnson-McGoldrick to write it.
“I’ve done nothing but get my ass kicked this whole trip…”
Aquaman
Written by Geoff Johns & James Wan and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall
Directed by James Wan
Produced by Peter Safran and Rob Cowan
Original release date: December 21, 2018
In Maine in 1985, Thomas Curry, a lighthouse keeper, takes in a woman he finds washed up on the rocks during a storm. She turns out to be Atlanna, a native of Atlantis. They fall in love, and have a child, but eventually the forces of Atlantis show up at the lighthouse to take her home. While Atlanna kicks their asses, she knows that they’ll be back eventually, so she goes home to marry the king as she is supposed to.
Their son, Arthur, is raised by Thomas, but is sometimes visited by Nudlis Vulko, the Vizier of Atlantis, who trains him in how to use his Atlantean abilities: strength, night vision, and more. Plus, he can also communicate with aquatic life, which is unique even among Atlanteans. Vulko keeps promising to let Arthur see his mother, but eventually he’s forced to admit that his mother is gone, sacrificed when it was revealed that she’d had a half-breed son.
In the present day, a Russian sub is boarded by a mercenary team led by the father-son duo of Jesse and David Kane. Arthur shows up to rescue the surviving crew (the Kanes massacred most of them). The Kanes fight Arthur, and Jesse is trapped under a metal beam. Arthur leaves them, refusing to save people who murdered innocents. David manages to escape and swears revenge on Arthur.
Every morning, Thomas goes out to the dock where Atlanna promised to some day return. After rescuing the sub, Arthur shows up at the dock and he and Thomas go out for a morning beer. Some goons approach Arthur, but they’re not looking for a fight, they want selfies with the famous Aquaman.
King Orm—Atlanna’s son by the king of Atlantis—meets with King Nereus of Xebel. His intent is to unite what’s left of the seven kingdoms and become Ocean Master and then declare war on the surface, who have polluted their home for too long. As if to prove the point, the Russian sub from earlier attacks them. (We soon learn that Orm hired the Kanes to capture the sub for him to use as an attack to “prove” the mendacity of the surface dwellers.)
Mera, who is the daughter of Nereus, wants Arthur to challenge Orm for the throne of Atlantis. Arthur has no desire to be king—he only went after Steppenwolf to save the world, not to save Atlantis—and he says that if Orm attacks the surface, Arthur will fight him then.
And then Orm sends a massive tidal wave onto the coasts of the world dumping garbage and warships onto the shores. Said tidal wave nearly kills the Currys, but Mera’s water-manipulation abilities saves them. Arthur thanks her, and agrees that Orm needs to be stopped.
They head to Atlantis in Mera’s ship. She’s allowed access to the city because she has diplomatic standing as Nereus’s daughter—and, we later learn, as Orm’s betrothed. They meet with Vulko, who explains that the one true king of Atlantis can retrieve the trident of King Atlan. They unearthed a recording device that should tell them where to search for the trident, but it’s old tech and they don’t have the means of reading it.
Before they can form a plan, they’re attacked by Orm’s forces. Vulko and Mera hide so that the bad guys only see Arthur, and he’s captured and brought before Orm. Arthur challenges Orm for the Atlantean throne, and their trial by combat goes very badly for Arthur, with Orm shattering Arthur’s trident (the same one he used in Justice League and, we learn, was Atlanna’s, which she left behind at the lighthouse).
Mera interferes in the fight before Orm can kill Arthur, and the two escape in her ship, then dump the ship in the lava hoping it will fool Orm into thinking them dead. Arthur tells a whale to hide them, and they pull a Pinocchio and go in the whale’s mouth.
One of the seven kingdoms was where the Sahara Desert is now. They have the old tech that can read the recording. Arthur hires a plane to take them there, and Mera jumps out of the plane when they’re over the right spot. They eventually find it, and the recording gives them clues where to find the location of the trident: a map of Sicily and a bottle that, in the hands of a true king, will reveal the location.
They head to Sicily. However, Orm knows that Mera at least is still alive because he put a tracker on her (the bracelet that sealed their engagement). Nereus insists that his daughter be brought back alive, and Orm agrees to that, then turns around and hires Kane again, this time giving him Atlantean tech and telling him and a team of Orm’s soldiers to kill Arthur and Mera both.
Orm asks the Fishermen to join them, but the philosophical mer-people refuse. So Orm kills the king and his guards and forces the young princess to join his alliance.
Arthur and Mera figure out that the bottle—which has coordinate indicators in the bottom that you can see when you stare down the neck—needs to be put in the right spot to find the trident. There are a bunch of statues in the town of figures from the Roman Empire, but the only king is Romulus. When Arthur puts the bottle in Romulus’s hands, they have their location.
Then Kane attacks. His weapons can actually hurt Arthur now. They fight all over town, doing significant damage to this beautiful old Italian village, but our heroes are eventually triumphant. Mera destroys the bracelet and then steals a boat (not deliberately—she assumed the boats in the marina were for general use), which they head out to the coordinates on.
When there, they’re attacked by the amphibious Trench creatures, the nastiest of the surviving seven kingdoms. They manage to hold them off using flares—the Trench are creatures of the deep, and so are sensitive to bright light—and swim downward, finding a vortex that leads them to the center of the Earth. They’re separated, and Mera is attacked by a sea creature—but then saved by Atlanna!
She was sacrificed to the Trench, but she managed to survive in this place at the Earth’s core—but she can’t get in to where the trident is because she has a uterus, and only the one true king can enter. After a joyous reunion with Arthur, the latter goes in to claim the trident.
It’s guarded by a leviathan, but Arthur can actually communicate with her—the first supplicant to try to claim the trident who actually had a conversation with her. She allows him to take the trident.
Orm’s forces attack the last of the surviving seven kingdoms, the Brine, to suborn them and make himself Ocean Master, so he can attack the surface with all the kingdoms united behind him. (Well, except the Trench.) The Brine King defies him, and then Arthur shows up with the leviathan and a ton of other sea life on his side. He also is able to turn Orm’s mounts (sharks, mostly) against them.
At Mera’s urging, Arthur leads Orm to the surface where they fight again. This time Arthur shatters Orm’s trident. Arthur refuses to kill Orm, and then Atlanna shows up, and Orm breaks down at the sight of his mother alive.
Arthur is now king, and Orm is imprisoned. Atlanna returns to Maine and greets Thomas at the end of the dock like she promised.
“Redheads—you gotta love ’em!”
When this movie came out, I reviewed it here on Tor.com, and my general opinion of it hasn’t changed significantly: the film is very much like its star, a big dumb goof of a movie.
On this rewatch there was one thing I appreciated even more, which is James Wan and cinematographer Don Burgess’s superlative work showing us the lush world under the sea. I was married for eight years to a scuba diver and underwater photographer (since our divorce, she’s gotten her doctorate in oceanography), and so I got lots of good looks at the world underwater through her photographs and those of her colleagues and friends, and I was consistently blown away.
It is to Wan and Burgess’s credit that they so beautifully capture so many different facets of undersea life, from the peaceful to the beautiful to the turbulent to the dark and scary. The movie is a visual feast, and the transfer to the smaller screen does nothing to mute that. It’s a beautiful, glorious film to look at.
Unfortunately, rewatching the film does the rest of the movie—the plot, the acting, the script, the music—no favors, as they were all harder to take this time than they were the first time five months ago.
The music is a total mess, going from one extreme to the other, even doing music that sounds like an 8-bit videogame while Mera is being chased across the rooftops of the Sicilian town (because the whole thing wasn’t enough like Super Mario Brothers already?). Coming right after Justice League with its multiple callbacks and great use of covers of classic songs, this is a major disappointment.
The DCEU has had precisely one good villain so far—Michael Shannon’s Zod in Man of Steel. (Caveat: I have not, as of this writing, seen Shazam! yet.) This film continues the streak of awful started by Jesse Eisenberg and Robin Atkin Downes in Dawn of Justice, and continued with David Thewlis and Danny Huston in Wonder Woman and Ciarán Hinds in Justice League.
Patrick Wilson is simply dreadful, snarling his way through the spectacularly uninteresting part of Orm, who pretty much follows every cliché of the evil monarch with nothing to mitigate it or make him in any way, shape, or form interesting. He’s not even charismatically evil, he’s just a snot. Wilson can be an effective bad guy—his dudebro CIA agent in The A-Team was fantastic—but he brings nothing but a blank stare to the role of Orm.
Dolph Lundgren is actually nuanced as Nereus, but we only get hints of his greater plan. I like that we discover that he knew Orm was manipulating things, but he had his own agenda—which we never actually learn. As with “Dr. Poison” in Wonder Woman, this movie would’ve been far better off focusing on Nereus than Orm or Black Manta.
Speaking of Black Manta, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is even worse than Wilson, as his attempt at vengeful anger feels more like a teenager who’s just been told he’s been grounded. This is made worse by putting him next to Michael Beach in his first scene. Beach is a great actor, and he brings depth and nuance to the role of Jesse Kane, and you kinda wish it had been the son who died and Dad who became Black Manta. If nothing else, that would’ve made the mid-credits scene actually effective. As it is, this movie was about fighting for the crown of an undersea kingdom in order to save the surface from an invasion by a technologically superior force, and the mid-credits scene promises that Aquaman’s next foe will be—erm, the doofus he already defeated twice in this movie and a crazed conspiracy theorist? Really? Bit of a comedown, that…
The character of conspiracy theorist Dr. Shin, played by Randall Park, is just weird. I mean, this is a world that’s already been invaded by Kryptonians and Steppenwolf, and Aquaman’s pretty famous at this point, so why are people having trouble believing Shin that Atlantis exists? And now that Aquaman’s king of Atlantis, they’re probably going to be more public anyhow. It’s just a weird inclusion that feels out of place, like the movie’s pretending the other DCEU films didn’t happen (beyond the token Steppenwolf mention). Which shows up elsewhere by not a single hero reacting to Orm’s dumping of trash all over the coasts of the world. Couldn’t we at least have seen Flash speed-cleaning a beach or something?
The plot is right out of a quest video game or a role-playing game: our heroes go from place to place and either get clues or have random encounters, eventually working their way to the quest item in order to save the day. When Mera and Arthur are on the boat, you can practically hear the DM say “roll for surprise” before the Trench creatures show up.
My biggest problem with the film upon rewatching it though is something I touched on in my review, and which is even more annoying now. There are two very capable women in this movie, who are two of the three smartest, bravest, most competent characters in the film (the third being Vulko). Yet Mera has to drag Arthur along in order to claim the throne, and Atlanna is stuck in the center of the Earth for thirty years, because they’re just girrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrls and only the One True Penis can lead the seven seas. Sigh.
(I also repeat my question from that December review: are mothers trapped in another realm for decades being played by female leads in 1990s Batman films gonna be a trope now? First Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet van Dyne in Ant-Man & The Wasp, and now Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna here.)
The saving graces of this movie are the visuals, as I mentioned before, and Momoa. His relaxed charm, his yeah-whatever attitude, his snarkiness, all make the movie watchable, plus the movie never loses sight of his heroism. The one time he isn’t heroic—when he declines to save Jesse’s life—it comes back to haunt him, and to his credit, he realizes it. But overall, he’s in this to save people, not to be a leader, even if he does have the crown thrust upon him in the end. I also love the fact that he doesn’t always go along with the entire chosen-one plan. When Mera dings him for challenging Orm before they’ve found Atlan’s trident, he just shrugs and says, “Shit happens.”
Still, at the very least, this movie is fun, an adjective that rarely applies to DCEU films.
For the next few weeks, we’ll be going pulp-ish, starting next week with the four 1940s Dick Tracy films.
Keith R.A. DeCandido has thoughts on Avengers: Endgame, but you have to subscribe to his Patreon to read them (though it’s only $1/month to read the movie reviews). Or, of course, you can just wait until this rewatch hits that movie in October. Keith’s next two novels will be out in June and July: Mermaid Precinct, the latest in his fantasy police procedural series; and Alien: Isolation, based on both the movie series and the hit 2014 videogame.
I really liked this movie. I don’t see many movies in cinemas anymore, but ended up seeing this one on the big screen when it came out. Hadn’t seen Justice League, so didn’t know about that backstory(but did it matter? No) and I knew this was a DC movie so went in with low expectations. And I heartily enjoyed. A gorgeous movie and Momoa was phenomenal in it. Very much agree with you about this movie being a “visual feast”. Pretty much every underwater scene was just delightful!! Yeah, some of the story beats were predictable and the villain was a bit too over the top, but…this was a fun movie.
One thing I also loved about this movie was the moment at the end with Orm and Atlanna. Genuinely made me emotional. Orm has been defeated and we think that’s that – “Hurrah, bad guy gets his comeuppance!” Then Orm sees his mother and…there is hope for him? We see there is a possibility of redemption for him, and that moment continues to stick with me.
Sonofthunder: True about that final moment, though it was entirely carried by Nicole Kidman. Patrick Wilson just looked constipated…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The whole thing with Black Manta just lost me- my father and I are vicious terrorists, but I’m going to be mad when you won’t save him? Yeah, no.
So is “Magic Carpet Ride” in the soundtrack of either of AquaGuy’s movies?
Much like Wonder Woman, if you set the bar low enough then anything can be a great achievement. It was better than JL, BvS, MoS, SS, etc, but that is a hella low bar to clear. I dunno, I liked the Superfriends version of Aquaman. I always felt that the overreaction to that by a(n insecure) portion of the fanbase demanding that Aquaman be more cool/badass was the thing that made the character mockable rather than the loveable goof nature of the character himself. If you have to keep on telling people why a character is cool/badass then they are not cool. So, I kinda just see this as an extension of that. Keep on pushing the Aquaman is so cool you will admit he is cool, etc and meh. That is just me though.
Obviously it did well enough to keep the gradual course correction away from the other movies, and for that I am glad even if this Aquaman is neither my Aquaman nor an actually cool and badass Aquaman. Frankly, I liked the Aquaman we could affectionately parody on Family Guy and Big Bang Theory.
You missed one very important moment. The goat on the plane with his doubletake of Mera jumping out of the plane without a parachute. That goat was robbed not to receive an Oscar nod.
I never got the opinion that Atlanna couldn’t get the Trident because she was a woman. Maybe I’m remembering wrong since it’s been a while since I saw this, but I thought she at one point says she’d tried to claim the Trident multiple times and failed, which we learn later was because she couldn’t communicate with its guardian. I suppose Mera could have tried, but she’d have fared no better and frankly she seems to respect the royal bloodline too much to step in and do so.
Anyway, my fondest memories of this film are all from its worst moments. I initially hated some of the groan-worthy writing such as “the ocean washes our tears way”/”up here, we need to feel them fall”, but in retrospect I had so much fun repeating those lines to people as a complaint that I now retroactively love them. Likewise, even including Shazam which was half comedy, the biggest laugh a DC movie has gotten from me is still Orm declaring “YOU WILL CALL ME . . . OCEAN MASTER!” It’s such a goofy title and he delivers it like he’s in some sort of serious Shakespearean play, for all your complaints about his acting I loved how tone deaf he was.
I’m just happy Jason Momoa got a role where he wasn’t the Stoic Warrior.
I’ma be honest…I went to see this movie for the beefcake, and was surprised that it was surprisingly not terrible. I had a good time. But I think you hit it, it’s a big, dumb, gorgeous goof of a movie.
I need to see Aquaman again since I started falling asleep in the theater towards the end despite my best efforts (I was a lot more tired than I thought going in).
The disappointment with the villains is interesting to me since I’ve seen other articles and reviews praising Orm and Black Manta (or maybe they’re just glad the movie didn’t kill them after so many other superhero movies killing their villains off).
I found this movie fun and didn’t pay attention to many of the things noted in Keith’s summary. I do note that Mera demonstrates that the Atlanteans are more closely related to dolphins than to fish, as she is flagrantly mammalian throughout the film…
“He was also the butt of jokes for a long time after his run in the animated Super Friends series where he came across as the weak link of the team. “
Always thought it was funny that he was outshone by the Wonder Twins. A bucket and mop beat Aquaman out!
I liked this movie alright and Momoa is a good fit for this iteration of Arthur Curry/King Orin of Atlantis, but man, the music was weird. The cringy hip-hop sample of Toto’s “Africa” while they’re flying over the Sahara and the weird vibe of the Depeche Mode song while Black Manta is building his power armor just sucked.
Everyone forgets that Jason Momoa got his break playing Jason Ioane on Baywatch: Hawaii for 2 years. Although I haven’t watched Superhero movies in well over 20 years, his early experience in water themed adventures may well have factored in the casting.
Shazam! which you should totally see ASAP has a pretty well written villian. His motivation and desires are completely human and understandable in his backstory. Much like Zod his villainy is grounded in his personality and background in a way that feels refreshing.
@3: That’s always been Black Manta’s thing, though (well, other than when he didn’t have a motive at all.) He’s just a naturally spiteful and vicious person who will use any sort of excuse to lash out at others, no matter how paper thin his motivations may be. There are lots of people like that, after all.
To me this movie is aaaalll about Jason Momoa; he is charismatic and charming as Aquaman. Visually it is amazing as well and most of the time it doesn’t look nearly as computer generated as it must have been.
But for me, Mera comes close to ruining the movie. I don’t recall ever seeing Amber Heard’s work before, so I don’t know if it is her or the direction, but the spunky red-head demanded by the script just doesn’t show up on screen for me. Contrast her performance, with say, Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood.
In the end, I feel like this was like one of those Nicholas Cage ripoffs of Indiana Jones, just with super heroes instead of archeologists (wait, is there a difference? ^_^)
Edit: oh yeah, the Black Manta costume was epic… but why did Mera need heels underwater?!?
So….are we all REALLY going to ignore how ridiculous Black Manta looked with his “Bug-Head” helmet? I know that comic books create images that look much better on paper than they would in real life (i.e. the X-Men’s yellow tights and the old Ant-Man helmet) but couldn’t they have made this helmet look a lot less goofy?
There were several good ideas swimming (get it?) around in this story, like the seven separate Atlantean kingdoms, requiring a warlord to unite them all, but this movie was really kinda dopey, as we have noted. I pretty much shrieked at the stupidity of the plot right about the time they get to the bit about the statues.
(however, I did get all swoony at Mera’s Portuguese Man-o-war gown. That was really weird and beautiful).
I enjoyed this movie in the theater, and I enjoyed it again when I re-screened it at home this weekend — because, whatever minor faults the script may have, its heart and the movie’s color palette are in the right places.
Re: CLB’s repeated observation on prior movies in this series that superheroes should save people: this movie has that. In Sicily, while fighting Black Manta, Arthur repeatedly moves bystanders aside; later, during the ruckus against the Brine, Mera urgently observes “too many casualties.”
Moreover, everybody lives and there are happy endings. The mother-presumed-dead returns to her first love. The two main antagonists survive — Arthur has no interest in killing his half-brother, and with Black Manta, this movie (unlike most in the MCU) doesn’t establish an antagonist merely to dispose of him.
“Ocean Master” is a goofy villain name in isolation, but here it makes sense, as the title for the elected leader of all seven (well, four) rival sub-sea kingdoms. Rather like “tyrant” in ancient Greece. (Also, the outfit looks a lot less goofy in CG than cel animation — see the version in Young Justice — possibly because CG can do reflective metal.)
Similarly, this script makes an effort to explain its wild comic-book premises (well, most of them), or to show them consistently. Atlanteans are adapted to the deep sea, so they’re more durable than landlubbers. Only the “highborn” can breathe air. Everybody (maybe just the highborn?) has the torpedo-swimming power; Arthur’s only unique ability is talking to fish. Manta stole his sub from the USN (TV news in the background).
Some of the fight scenes, given their choreography and Atlantean armor-stylings, feel very much like Power Rangers.
The flashbacks are well integrated, both in providing backstory without infodumps, and their visual transitions.
I think the music’s generally effective, although I agree that it’s all over the place. The score is by Rupert Gregson-Williams, younger brother of Harry, both of them film composers.
@19/LadyBelaine, re: Mera’s gown with trained jellyfish(*) collar: there is a fashion doll version of it.
https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/81019
Reportedly, three versions of the dress were fabricated. Amber Heard wore green-screen leggings so the tentacle-skirt could be animated, but to me, it looks like the animators neglected to re-insert her human legs. I’ll admit that Atlantis has some wild tech, but “temporary removal of limbs for fashion purposes” I’m not gonna believe.
https://fashionista.com/2019/01/2018-aquaman-movie-costumes
(*) Taxonomically, Portuguese man-o-war isn’t a jelly. “A hydrozoan is a colony” seems to be half-explained in every reference I find, but I envision it like an anthill, but with even more dimorphism among the individuals, and they’re physically glued together.
For everyone who says Aquaman is a joke ’cause he talks to fish…
The moment that most made me laugh as a kiwi is when Tom tells Atlanna ruefully he was going to cook her some eggs. I think everyone in NZ has seen angry Tem in Once Were Warriors demanding his abused wife cook him eggs – it became a meme.
And I keep getting thrown out by the early aquarium scene, where everyone in the room sees Arthur being creepy with the fish. Like … no wonder he was subsequently raised in an isolated environment, I’d expect everyone in the room to want to know wtf happened there.
I still get a really strong Elric vibe from the dead king on his throne. Sure, it’s a trident not a black sword, but the long white hair swaying in the currents, the atmosphere – it feels like a homage to something I’ve seen before.
@22/ricarddavid, re: Cthulhu:
Among the early meet-cute scenes between Thomas and Atlanna, there’s a shot of a paperback copy of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror” under the snow globe in the foreground. That’s the one with coastal humans cross-breeding with denizens of the briny depths. Fortunately for this movie, the results are rather less batrachian — although I do have to wonder about the genetic flexibility that produced the Fisher Kingdom, Brine and Trenchers.
@23/Mayhem: Perhaps you’re thinking of Michael Whelan’s cover for Bane of the Black Sword?
@25 This one is probably part of it, but I’m definitely picturing a throne and my google fu is failing me.
Having grown up with the orange blonde version of the character, I was certainly caught off-guard by the casting of Momoa. Never in my life could I picture Khal Drogo in the role.
Fortunately, the casting of Momoa works in conjuction with DC/WB’s attempt to course-correct the current superhero universe. We get a lighter film anchored by the world’s most famous dudebro, his general take on every role he’s ever taken, from Baywatch to this.
Not all of Aquaman works, but enough parts of it do, especially the production design. Wan directs a world of vivid colors and contrasts.
No one’s ever gone wrong casting Willem Dafoe in anything, and he brings some needed gravitas to the mentor role. But to me, the biggest surprise was Temuera Morrison as Aquaman’s father. I knew he had range and nuance, given his ability to differentiate Jango from other clones in Star Wars, but I never saw him as someone capable of playing the emotional supportive type, which brings the necessary humanity in Aquaman’s story.
Overall, a flawed, but entertaining adventure. You can see a shift in DC/WB’s priorities with this one, and Shazam! takes this to the next level.
@24: The one you mean is “Shadow Over Innsmouth.” The Dunwich story is the one about some inbred hillbilly’s daughter getting knocked up by Yog-Sothoth.
Amber Heard. Would hug. I like Mera.
As someone who was upset over WB’s handling of the DCEU (Note: not of the creatives themselves, who did great work when they weren’t being hobbled and undermined) and treatment of Zack Snyder, I was hesitant about Aquaman. But Wan won me over.
Thankfully, Wan and Momoa followed the pre-Whedon characterization of Arthur and even took a jab at the attempted Aquaman-Wonder Woman shipping (Hint: look at the newspaper clippings). Like Themiscyra and Krypton before it, Atlantis is an imaginative marvel. How did this not even get nominated for Best Visual Effects? The DCEU solo films are much more epic and ambitious than Marvel’s Origin Story of the Month Club. And Patrick Wilson’s Orm is much better than KRAD gives him credit for.
It’s not deep (pun totally intended) and there’s maybe one or two things I’d change, but it is enjoyable. Two tridents up.
Oh yeah, and it made a sweet billion at the box office.
When I hear criticisms of this film, its predictable plot, straightforward villain, I… I just don’t know what some film critics want. Zack Snyder tried so hard to make his films dark and edgy, super complex and nuanced like The Dark Knight Trilogy, and we all know how his 3 DCEU movies turned out. But here is a movie that does the conventional things… and it’s ALSO criticised?
Aquaman is a case of ‘tropes are not bad’. It’s predictable, it’s cheesy, and so on, but it COMPLETELY sucks you in. I agree the script tried too hard to make Arthur comedic, but otherwise the sincerity and heartwarming nature of the story, especially given the movies that came before, they just make it WORK. And what’s wrong with a straightforward villain like Orm? Does every villain have to be super complex like Heath Ledger or a subversion now? Look at what Snyder tried to do with Luthor. Patrick Wilson NAILED Orm, he was every bit ENTERTAINING to watch shouting and screaming his way across the screen, and those words “Not ‘Your Highness’, call me: Oceanmaster” is the best line about the movie.
And as for Black Manta, he’s been a consistent criticism, but you’ve got to remember he’s COMIC ACCURATE. He’s a pirate, a mercenary, and as a psycho he’s hell-bent on killing Aquaman all for his fragile little honor. If he seems one-dimensional, it’s because it’s not his time yet as a supervillain, he’s just a mercenary. If he seems simplistic, wanting to avenge his father although he deserved his fate, that’s EXACTLY comic accurate.
It was also nice to see the return of the Arthurian theme from the earlier DCEU movies, after it was stripped from JL. We literally have an Arthur who is the only one who can take up the magical weapon and become the one true king.
Aquaman is one of the worst movies in the history of cinema. The script is an embarrassment. Partially as a result of the terrible script, the acting was atrocious. Amber Heard should never be allowed to act publicly again. The film has no redeeming qualities. Zero.
“because they’re just girrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrls and only the One True Penis can lead the seven seas. Sigh.”
So because they’re don;t get to rule Atlantis that means they’re undervalued and misused? I don’t get it.
Like others have said, I enjoyed reading Aquaman features in Adventure Comics all through the 1950s. Until the Silver Age started properly with The Flash in Showcase, Aquaman was second only to The Blackhawks as a favorite. So, knowing absolutely nothing about how the character has been handed in comic books since circa 1970, I was not pleased by Mamoa’s look and that prevented me from even watching the movie.
This movie didn’t work for me at all. It’s hard to pinpoint where exactly it lost me because I have no interest in rewatching it to figure it out.
I started watching the movie already liking Aquaman (even though Justice League the movie was pretty mediocre, imo) and he was still likable here, but the story he was involved in was just not that interesting. I like character driven stories with characters whose actions and motives I can understand or sympathize with… One of the problems, I think, for me was that I couldn’t find such a character in Aquaman to follow along while the story was being played out.
It definitely had a lot of beautiful scenes.
You can add How to Train Your Dragon 2 to your list of recent movies with mothers being reunited with their sons after a long absence — although in that case she wasn’t trapped, she left of her own accord.
@28: Yeah, that was a missed opportunity. The Shadow Over Innsmouth would have been more thematically appropriate, but maybe the production designers thought it would be too on-the-nose. Or maybe, like Phillip, they got confused about which Lovecraft story was which.
@23: This is what comes to mind for me:
@37: Shadow Over Innsmouth would have been the wrong choice- it’s a story about a seemingly-ordinary person overwhelmed by otherworldly horror. The Dunwich Horror is about a child of two different worlds whose goal is to unify them. Aquaman is Wilbur Whateley, but since this movie wasn’t written by a racist xenophobe, he is a hero instead of a monster.
It took me a while to realise that Jason Mamoa is also famous for playing another fantasy monarch, except that culture had a superstitious dread of the ocean. It took me even longer to realise he was a regular for all five years of Stargate: Atlantis.
The “dead king on throne” image could also be a reference to 1982’s Conan the Barbarian, which in turn was inspired by one of the DeCamp/Carter Conan pastiches.
I was quite amused by the fact that once again we have a DCEU movie where a big fight scene is halted by someone’s mother. ;-)
@22 Aquaman is not standing on a fish in that picture. And being able to talk to someone is Not At All the same as being able to control them…
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@41: I thought it was “all the creatures of the sea”. I mean, whales aren’t fish either, doncha know? (Though as you say, telepathy doesn’t equal control, or else he’d be able to just take over Orm’s mind/body and force him to surrender.)
Here’s a detailed analysis.
Of course, the effects of telepathic contact with Great Cthulhu would be devastating, which leads to an even scarier thought: the Aquaman in that picture has gone insane…
My general sentiment on this film is ‘it’s a big dumb superhero movie, and it knows it’s a big dumb superhero movie, it doesn’t try to be anything it’s not and it plays to its strengths rather well.’ I have some individual agreements and disagreements on this or that, but I’d rather focus on one thing that hasn’t been touched on-
That moment when Arthur and Thomas go out for a drink. The very next shot starts on a huge and very full mug of beer, and my mind is immediately going ‘yeah, that looks about right for Aquama-‘ And then it zooms out and it’s dad. Aquaman, you are half-superhuman, but dad will still drink your butt under the table any day of the week. It was a wonderful moment and I loved it.
We just rented it so we could stay caught up with the re-watch and I basically agree with this – a big dumb, beautiful goof of a movie, lol.
It was okay – I actually glazed over a bit during all the battle sequences – and a nice diversion, but I doubt I’d rent it again.
Various observations:
-Temuera Morrison! During the whole prologue I was thinking, “Hmm, he looks like he might be Maori? Is that Temeura Morrison?” Eventually I did recognize him, but I didn’t realize they had de-aged him because in my head he still looks like Jango Fett, even though that movie is almost 20 years old. But I really liked all the scenes with him and Atlanta, and with Arthur. I just thought they did a really good job building up both of those relationships, and I spent most of the movie worried something would happen to him (I’m still kind of worried Manta is going to go after him in revenge).
-Willem DaFoe – I had no idea he was cast in the movie, so that was a fun surprise.
-I get they were trying to have a sympathetic villain in Manta’s case, and I really did believe the father/son relationship there, but at the same time, given that you just brutally slaughtered a bunch of other people (who may themselves have been fathers or sons), and Manta’s dad is the one that fired the grenade that trapped himself in the first place..my sympathy doesn’t go that far. Although, really, Aquaman should probably have just rounded them up for the authorities if he could.
-I LOLd at the ‘women in 90s Batman movies’ trope.
-I did overall really like the movie (and frankly, don’t totally blame them for throwing all the trash back on Earth. I think it’s kind of weird that most of Earth doubts the Atlanteans exist given that they know about metahumans. Plus I think it would be cool if the Atlanteans revealed themselves and actually worked with the land dwellers to improve their technology and got htem to stop dumping in the oceans) but I do find that nowadays I look a little more critically at plots that revolve around “we’ll all rally behind the guy with the artifact and bloodline as the one true ruler”.
-Okay, so I’m half Sicilian, and got really excited when I saw the place on the map – it actually looked pretty close to Palermo, and then I wondered if it was Cefalu, which has a very similar look (a sea side village with a large rock/cliff overseeing the main plaza). A few years ago we went to both of those places. Looking at the map a bit more closely, it seems to be pretty clearly at the location of modern day Palmero (Cefalu is too far east) and was inspired by the town of Erice. Anyway, I was super excited to see it (and that Sicily is what made Mera start to think favorably of the land dwellers) – untill they started destroying all of it! Like, it was making me physically upset, lol. But I always hate those kinds of scenes in movies. At least you could see they were trying to push bystanders out of the ways, but there were os many scenes where I felt the heroes were needlessly busting through walls, jumping through ceilings, and destroying the entire inventory of some poor guy’s store.
I just read your review and it reminded me of a few other things:
1)Regarding Mera and Atlanna – I was definitely wondering why Atlanna couldn’t just come back and rule, but I do like how it at least said she tried multiple times, and in the end it was Arthur’s ability to communicate with the beast (Julie Andrews!!) that allowed him to get the Trident. Which, is in a way, symbolic of the theme of bridging two worlds. (Now, you can maybe still criticize the narrative for setting it all up that way. I get that on some level, it’s an Aquaman movie so of course it will center on him. That said, they also could have subverted the expected outcome by having Aquaman give up the throne to Atlanna (or even Mera) and continuing to be a hero, as they also understood the need to bridge both worlds. But then Atlanna wouldn’t be able to return to Thomas so…
2)I had the exact same thought about Orm and Vulko – if he knew all this time, why was he letting him train him, etc? It was just dumb.
3)How did they get from the desert to Sicily? It was like that scene in Dark Knight Rises where Batman somehow manages to make it back to Gotham after escaping Bane’s prison.
4)I might think too hard about this, but one wonders what kind of kingship Arthur will have. Honestly, Atlantean society seemed fairly racist/xenophobic, and just a few days ago, all those people were cheering for him to be killed because he was a half breed. It’s also apparently acceptable to sacrifice somebody for having a half breed child, and even Mera expects to be sacrificed if she goes back. Not to mention that when he came back with the trident, he spent part of that of that time rampaging against the armies with the Karathen. And now they’re all just ‘woo, he’s the one true king!’. Like…I don’t even know if I’d want to be king of a culture like that.
5)I actually really did like the ending where Arthur refuses to kill Orm, and then his mother appears. That was one scene I did feel was fairly touching and you could see where a lot of Orm’s anger/bitterness came from. Perhaps Orm will have a change of heart regarding his beliefs? Maybe Arthur will help usher in some new philosophies? It seems like there would still be a lot of people clinging to the old ways, though. In some ways I find it a litlte similar to Wakanda’s place in the MCU – a very advanced society that has hidden itself from the rest of the world, and also has a legitamate grudge against said world and elements that want to take a more aggresive stance, but with a new ruler who may eventually try to bridge that gap and ‘go public’.
I wonder if any of this will come up in the next movie, or of it will just be about Manta.
@47, I think we can combine #1 and #4 to reach a good conclusion.
Yes, Arthur is the king of Atlantis. And i’m sure he’s going to marry Mera which makes her the queen. Mera knows the politics, and is a known figure. She can handle the day-to-day workings of ruling the kingdoms. Arthur, therefore, will be the figurehead. Think of it as being similar to the Queen of England, and the Parliament.
“being able to communicate with fish can be a pretty impressive power in the hands of a writer who actually thought about it for two seconds.”
This is what I never got about his time in the animated Super Friends. Oceans cover how much of the earth? Sea life outnumbers land life by a significant margin. And here we have Aquaman, who can communicate with all of it? And they makes joke about him? Huh?
I have to chime in and say that I really enjoyed the soundtrack. The movie overall was kind of fun and pretty forgettable, but the choice of music combined well with the color riot visuals to amazing effect.
@49, the bigger issue was that Super Friends was made on a budget of about five dollars, under extremely heavy broadcast standards, which crippled Aquaman’s movepool harder than just about any of the other heroes (save maybe Hawkman). Green Lantern, Batman, and Wonder Woman all had cool gadgets that could translate reasonably well into simple animation, and Superman and the Flash managed to dazzle through scripts that jacked their powers up to absolutely insane heights (seriously, running around the Earth to spin back time was an opening act for these guys), but Aquaman, well… he might’ve been tough enough to survive the Mariana Trench, but he still wasn’t allowed to punch anyone, and all the creatures he could summon looked like kindergarten doodles.
@49 Not much help when 99% of all crime occurs on land.
@51 When nature evolves to survive in the depths of the ocean, it doesn’t do it by being “tough” it does it by being cartilaginous and gelatinous. Frankly, Aquaman’s biggest power ought to be managing not to collapse into a puddle on the carpet in the Hall of Justice. If he punches someone, his arm ought to collapse.
I haven’t seen Aquaman yet so I glossed over the plot summary here but I wanted to remark solely on the amount of business this film did. After the spectacular underperformance and critical disappointment that was Justice League, I think a lot of people felt the DCEU was in extreme peril. I myself saw trailers for Aquaman and thought it was going to be a huge bomb. So cue my utter amazement when it did bigger business than Wonder Woman and ended up making over a billion dollars worldwide. I guess all people want it just a fun popcorn movie. And it seems it also changed the direction of DC Comics films where the DCEU isn’t so important anymore. They’ll just focus on their individual characters as existing in their own separate franchises for better or worse. But at least this means we’ll still get more DC Comics movies for years and years to come. Plenty of interesting characters out there still ripe for their cinematic debut or reboot.
I finally saw it last night and yeah, it was dumb but mostly fun. And pretty in a Gunga City-meets-the-forest-from-Avatar sort of way.
Apparently, Aquaman’s mom was imprisoned for 20 years on Isla Nubar?
@23/Mayhem Maybe one of these Elric covers is what you had in mind?
http://fantasticflipout.blogspot.com/2009/11/michael-whelan-does-elric-of-melnibone.html
I agree with you. I recall Elric on a throne too… but it was from sometime during the 80s. Doesn’t seem to be any of the DAW illustrations. :/
His own site has all the book covers, not the album covers, and another I’d not seen, Shadow Prince. https://www.michaelwhelan.com/page/2/?s=elric&submit
Best of luck!
Anne*—
I guess I’ll just have to paste my comment from your original review:
“I will have to disagree, krad. Aquaman could have been fun, and certainly has fun parts, but it’s too damn bloody long. And it’s too dumb even for itself, making the two hours twenty minutes feel like a chore. Every single plot beat is predictable. The jokes are all over the place, badly placed, very stupid, and while I can accept this Aquaman has a different personality than the comics character, Momoa’s yelling, grunting underwater barbarian bro grows tiresome, even if I love Momoa.
The romance between Aquaman and Mera feels completely forced, only there because they’re a couple in the comics. And while Orm is a passable villain for the first 80% of the film, in the last 20% he becomes completely cartoony and cackling, even his armor looks cheap and stupid.
Visually, it’s beautiful (I love the soldier armors and Black Manta is comic-perfect), and it has some great action scenes (the submarine and Scicily)… though I’ll never understand why Mera doesn’t kill the pursuing Atlantean commandos in Italy by manipulating the water inside their armors… How is Black Manta able to heavily modify Atlantean technology he’d never seen before in like, two days?
What is up with his telepathy coming out of his hand? And how incongrous is to have the underwater kingdoms celebrate Arthur’s victory when he probably just massacred dozens if not hundreds of them? Arthur and the Karathe steamroll over the armies, his controlled sea creatures turn on their riders, etc. It’s the same kind of destruction caused by heroes that people complain about with Man Of Steel.
I do give it credit for resolving the Karathe scene (dude, that’s JULIE FREAKING ANDREWS voicing it) by Arthur talking to it. (EDIT: I’ll also say that having Atlanna stop the fight between her children is also nice.)
One thing: not all human-form Atlanteans are white. Murk is played Asian actor, and while he’s a bit exotic-looking (the character, I mean), he still looks pretty human.”
NEW STUFF: Yes, the music is awful, it’s disjointed, and makes no sense with the film. The plot seems like something out of a BAD videogame or RPG.
@8 – noblehunter: And he gets to play his other role, Dudebro Warrior.
@14 – Charles: No, I know Momoa was in Baywatch. It’s just not that memorable.
@27 – Eduardo: Ronon Dex and Khal Drogo were hardly dudebros.
@52 – random22: You bring to mind my solution for Atlanteans in my Marvel Superheroes roleplaying campaign. One of my friends is a big fan of Atlantis in any fictional universe where it shows up, so he wanted to play an Atlantean warrior. I did not want to give him “free invulnerability and super strength” (although he was a mutant and had a separate superpower: being amphibian), so I decided that in my book, Atlanteans survive deep ocean pressure by having gas bladders like fish use to control their buoyancy. Yes, it might not be the same use, or even pass actual scientific scrutiny, but for comic book logic, I think it works.
I finally got this from the library. My review is at my blog here: https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2019/08/23/thoughts-on-aquaman-spoilers/
One thing I didn’t mention there is that I was impressed how they managed to represent Aquaman’s telepathy in a way that evoked the classic concentric-circles depiction but didn’t look silly or cheesy. That was a difficult balance to strike.
Anyway, how exactly did Orm pull off that “tidal wave” thing dumping all the garbage and warships back onshore? Was that something that Nereus’s people did using their hydrokinetic abilities, like Mera’s?
Also, if Atlanna was trapped in the Earth’s core, does that mean she was in Skartaris?
@18/MrBigBillyB: “So….are we all REALLY going to ignore how ridiculous Black Manta looked with his “Bug-Head” helmet?”
I think they did a decent job rationalizing why it looked the way it did. Okay, sure, it’s totally unclear why he felt he needed to rejigger the experimental weapon into a helmet rather than just, y’know, using it as a gun like it was designed for, but the fact that it wasn’t meant to be a helmet helps explain why the helmet had to be so unwieldy.
Hmm, maybe he turned it into a suit because he knew how powerful Aquaman was and knew he’d need protective armor, and wanted an integrated weapon so he wouldn’t be easily disarmed. But it would’ve been nice if they’d said so somewhere.
@20/Phillip Thorne: I agree — the way they justified the Ocean Master title made it work. It wasn’t just one guy’s pretentious villain name, it was a traditional title for a specific role that meant literally what it said, the master of the entire ocean. There is a precedent for “master” or the equivalent being part of an administrative title, e.g. German Burgermeister for a town magistrate. “Ocean Master” was presented in the film as a similarly administrative title, someone who wasn’t a monarch but was placed in charge of administrating the ocean kingdoms. So it actually made sense that way.
@23/Mayhem: I would’ve liked more backstory on how Arthur met Vulko and became his protege. Did Atlanna send Vulko to find him and train him? Probably, I guess, but it seems like we could’ve used another flashback somewhere in there.
@39/Gareth: “It took me even longer to realise he was a regular for all five years of Stargate: Atlantis.“
Just the last four, rather. Ronon was introduced at the start of season 2.
@46 /Lisamarie
As a New Zealander I was wondering what an obvious Maori (he used Maori words and hongi – he’s canonically Maori) was doing in Maine. It made more sense when I learnt that James Wan had wanted to set the movie here. DC said that it had to be in New England because of the decades of law and, to be honest, the Atlantis/Atlantic connection would be weird if it was set in the Pacific.
@58/blw37: America is a nation of immigrants. Granted, the percentage of Pacific Islanders in Maine is minuscule, but there are some.
” DC said that it had to be in New England because of the decades of law “
Did you mean decades of lore, i.e. the stories in the comics?
My family saw this as our post-Christmas movie, and the consensus was “Very pretty.” Also super loud, but that’s on the theater more than the film. Several of us watched with earplug in, and those were the envied ones.
My main objection was: The mom had that awesome dino-scale armor down in the underneath place. Yet when she escapes and comes up to confront her kids, she’s changed into some dumb nightgown looking thing. If I had dinoscale armor you’d never get me out of it; I’d figure out how to sleep in it.