Aquaman (2018)

[Flack]

I'm starting this review by stating that I have never read a superhero comic book, and haven't seen most of the Marvel or DC movies. My only prior knowledge of Aquaman comes from the 70s/80s Superfriends cartoons, in which Aquaman was a blonde-headed, sea-horse riding dude who could telepathically control fish. I have no idea how loyal Aquaman the movie is to Aquaman the comics.

In the film, Aquaman is a surfer dude named Arthur, the halfbreed offspring of the Queen of Atlantis and some lucky dude who lives in a lighthouse. Arthur has the ability to breathe underwater, talk to sea creatures, and possesses super strength in the water. Like, pretty early on he wrestles a nuclear submarine and pushes it up the surface which... wow. Anyway, one day a bunch of aquatic soldiers arrived at the lighthouse in an attempt to take the queen back to Atlantis. She beat them all up and said she wouldn't go, but once they were all beat up real good she went on her own accord. After that, dad went back to tending the lighthouse and Arthur seemed pretty content being a surfer dude who made the ocean a little safer for everybody.

Then one day a chick with red hair showed up and was like, Arthur, you gotta come to Atlantis and be the king, because your half-brother is going to declare war on land dwellers. And Aquaman is all, "nope." But then the aquapeople cause a big tidal wave and Aquaman is all "bro!" and so he agrees to go to Atlantis with Mera, she of the red hair. A lot of this movie is about people saying no to things and then changing their mind. Along the way, Mera tells Aquaman that to become the king he has to go pull a magic trident out of a rock and I was like... wait... is this THAT King Arthur? Is Aquaman the king of Camelot? Did someone just watch Monty Python's Holy Grail and think, what if we got a surfer dude with muscles to be King Arthur?

So Aquaman and Mera go to Atlantis, but to get the magic trident they have to take this key to a magic cave to find out where the magic trident is located. So they take the key to the cave and find out they have to take a bottle to this island, so they go there. When they get to the island they use the bottle and discover they have to do out into the ocean, so they go there. At some point they went to the desert too, but I don't remember why. So anyway they get out to the ocean which is kind of where they started and they find a magical crevice so they go there and uh oh the crevice magic door was only one way! And Aquaman finds his mom there and he's like "mommy!" and she's like "son!" and I'm like "hey is that Nicole Kidman?" And then she says welp the magic trident is over there but this giant mythical creature is going to judge you and if it thinks you are not worthy it will kill you and I was like, wait, is this the Neverending Story? I think Arthur is the kid from the Neverending Story! But then he pulls the trident out of a rock and is all "I have the power!" and the monster is like "bro you are King Arthur!" so I was right, Aquaman is the King of Camelot. And also He-Man.

If you like PlayStation games you will love this movie because the entire movie looks like one. It's two hours of people swimming around and glowing sea creatures and people shooting lasers (there are a lot of lasers in Atlantis). You know how some directors use wipes to transition between scenes? This one uses loud surprise explosions. At least four times in this movie there were surprise loud explosions out of nowhere. At one point my subwoofer was like "bro! you gotta warn me!" and I was like "I know, right?" I am kind of like Aquaman except I can talk to subwoofers.

After 30 more minutes of CGI (this movie is two hours long) Aquaman is deemed the King of Atlantas. Hooray! Oh I forgot, Black Manta showed up to fire some of his own lasers but Aquaman gave him the old aqua-fu chop-socky treatment. Oh, and there was an octopus playing the drums at one point which made me thing I had fallen asleep and dreamed that part, but it really happened.

[AArdvark]

Damn, this sounds like a Hanna-Barbera joint

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Black Manta is probably my favorite bad guy ever. I'm sad he wasn't the main antagonist. I was in a WB movie museum last November with Walrustitty. They had the Black Manta suit there and lit up, it was great, looksmso good. He was made for the screen.

I have other Aquaman stories I'll tell later today.