2019-01-01_SciFiNow

Aquaman

It’s fishMAN, not fishboy

When DC announced that Aquaman would

be the first of the second-tier Justice League

characters to get his own movie, there was some

confusion. Aquaman? Really? Justice League didn’t

help to reassure us that the film would work – the

handful of underwater scenes in that movie were...

uninspiring. And, to be honest, Aquaman doesn’t

get off to the best start, with the first action scene

subscribing to DC’s most frustrating movie trope

• why use skilled stunt people when you can use
  eerily weightless CGI doubles instead?
  But then we catch up with Jason Momoa’s
  Aquaman in the present day, saving a submarine
  from pirates and hanging out at the pub with
  his dad, and the movie becomes something else,
  something different to the other DC movies. It’s,
  well, fun. The plot is simple enough – Arthur
  Curry, AKA Aquaman, AKA fishboy, is approached
  by Atlantean princess Mera to help stop his half
  brother Orm from launching a war against the
  surface. To do so, Arthur must be proclaimed the
  true king of Atlantis, which leads to a globe-
  trotting search – above and below water – for a
  mythical trident. Along the way he also gains a
  land-based enemy in the shape of Yahya Abdul-
  Mateen II’s Black Manta.
  Aquaman boasts a cast who are fully committed
  to the inherent ridiculousness of being in a movie
  about magical underwater creatures. Patrick
  Wilson delivers Orm’s supervillain lines with
  admirable gusto. Abdul-Mateen II is a similarly
  understandable villain, and does a lot with fairly
  minimal screen time. Kidman and Temuera
  Morrison are great as Arthur’s parents, making
  their love story believable in the space of a five-
  minute long montage. Amber Heard is fine as Mera,
  landed with the fairly thankless task of playing the

straight man to Arthur, but that just leaves Momoa

room to shine. Rather than the shambolic dude-bro

of Justice League, this Arthur is funny, kind of

dim, sweet, spontaneous and has a heart the size

of his biceps. He owes a lot to the imperfect heroes

the film’s director James Wan set out to emulate

with Aquaman (Indiana Jones, Romancing The

Stone, etc), and Momoa reveals himself as a pretty

excellent comedy action hero.

Thanks to the nature of the film’s hero,

Aquaman avoids the DC grim ‘n’ dark pitfall. It’s

fun, a silly, and, bar a few on-point references to

our tendency to use the sea as a dumping ground,

it doesn’t take itself seriously. In fact, it leans into

some of the dafter elements from the comics – at

one point Mera wears a dress made out of jellyfish,

and yes, Atlanteans ride sea horses. Aquaman is

just a rollicking adventure film, the sort of film

where you realise half way through that you’ve

been grinning for the last half hour. The action

scenes – bar that dodgy first one – are good. The

underwater battles lean heavily on CGI, but to

the film’s credit it stages most of its key fights

above ground. It looks good too, with the various

underwater kingdoms all having their own specific

designs, and the Trench creatures are monstrous

enough to give younger kids nightmares – perhaps

the only nod to Wan’s background in horror.

Aquaman joins Wonder Woman at the top of the

recent DC movies. It lands its ending better than

Wonder Woman did, but lacks the power of that

film’s key scenes. It’s just a fun adventure movie –

perfect for the Christmas season.

Abigail Chandler

    ^

Jason

Momoa

proves

himself as

a comedy

action hero.

Release 14 December

Director James Wan

Cast Jason Momoa,

Amber Heard, Patrick

Wilson, Nicole Kidman

Distributor

Warner Bros

Certificate 12 A

TRIVIA

THIs Is THe fIfTH TIMe

PATrIcK WIlsoN AND

JAMes WAN HAve

WorKeD TogeTHer.

076 | w w w.sci fi n ow.co.u k