Director: James Wan
Distributor: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Duration: 143 minutes
Aquaman (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Nearly a year ago we saw Aquaman’s first real life appearance in the unfolding of the new DC Universe live action movies. Together with The Flash, Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman and Cyborg, he teamed up to form the Justice League and save the world from its impending doom. Like any good hero, Aquaman also needed a proper origin story, allowing him his time in the spotlight. After Wonder Woman and Superman, we had the chance to view how Aquaman rose to the occasion of saving the world once again.
Aquaman brings us the story of Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), who is the child of Tom (Temuera Morrison), a simple lighthouse keeper, and Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), Queen of Atlantis. Atlanna has fled her underwater city as she was promised to marry a cruel man she did not love. While her life with Tom looked quite peachy, the forces of Atlantis eventually tracked her down, forcing her to return to protect her young son Arthur. Time went by, and his mother never returned.
After the short introduction we are taken to events that occur after everything that transpired in Justice League. Aquaman has adapted to his role of being a hero, and once again finds himself saving a submarine in trouble. He won’t be able to celebrate his victory for too long however, as he is approached by Mera (Amber Heard), who asks him to claim his rightful place on the throne of Atlantis, because Arthur’s brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson) is about to unite the different underwater kingdoms to destroy the world known to man. At first Arthur tries to shove her off, but when his father nearly dies because of an ‘attack’ by Orm, he decides it is time to kick some ass.
Aquaman struggles to find its pacing, with some segments that feel too slow, and others going from one action scene to the next. The spread of information is okay-ish, and you’ll get a proper introduction on how Arthur came into this world. The movie feels as if it could have been a little bit shorter, which would have helped the pacing a lot, or at least spiced some things up a bit. While the movie does have some problems getting past its lengthy introduction, the second half of the film is certainly a lot better in terms of flow. The movie itself is still more than worth the watch.
There is no denying that Jason Momoa is ‘one of the hottest actors alive’, especially after his career got kickstarted thanks to his appearance on Game of Thrones. Momoa might not be a conventional choice to play Arthur, as in the comics he was a white blond haired man. Nonetheless, we applaud the choice and Jason plays a great, albeit scruffy, Aquaman. Mera is played by Amber Heard, who plays an eye stunning companion for the future king of Atlantis. The villain of this movie is portrayed by Patrick Wilson, which feels a bit off at times, but still, his character, Orm, feels like a great adversary. The movie also contains big hitters such as Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe, Dolph Lundgren and so on. You’ll notice that the movie did not save any expense in order to attract a great cast.
The Blu-ray edition of Aquaman comes with a load of special features. It has to be said that pretty much all extra content on the disc are making of sequences, that revolve around the creating of the movie, the characters, the source material and so on. You’ll get over 80 minutes of extra features, which is certainly a great way to extend your Aquaman experience. It’s cool to see how everything was created, how certain choices were made and to zoom in on certain items of the movie. We were quite impressed with the amount of content to be found on this physical edition.
Conclusion
Aquaman does not reach the level of quality of Wonder Woman, but still, this is a great origin story and shows that DC is truly making a great cinematic universe. It seems that the times of only making qualitative animated movies is over and that they are properly competing with Marvel’s live action adaptations of their superheroes. We can’t wait to see what DC has in store for us for their other characters, but in the meantime, you’ll have a lot of great content to swim through.
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