AQUAMAN - a film by James Wan

[jetengine]

Its good fun. Arthur is a little dense at times but thats fine since this is effectively an origin movie. All the villains are somewhat sympathetic which is interesting and the visuals are great.

[Gaastra]

Lol at the second clip.

[tkitna]

Is that Queen Atlanna fight real as in the movie or was that just a fan deal? It looked bad. Like ScyFy channel bad.

[Charlie Rock]

Is that Queen Atlanna fight real as in the movie or was that just a fan deal? It looked bad. Like ScyFy channel bad.

Exactly what I was thinking. That cgi was bogus.

[Cerridwen]

Amber Heard can not act to save her life.

[Gaastra]

Trailers some times have early cg not done yet.

[Marvelgirl]

I mean, some people claim the MCU is mostly dumb and goofy Superhero films so ...

Why does DC need to be like that? I am reading more reviews, now some critics are calling it a thor wannabe flick. There looks to be an agenda here.
https://www.indiewire.com/2018/12/aq...oa-1202027124/.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...-a8679021.html

DC just can't win, talk of the clear bias to this movie from the reviews after critics defended something as atrocious as Raganrok. DC should have stuck to the original plans of Man of Steel. critics would have bashed , they will get tired. Look at Venom.

[Miles To Go]

Just came back from Aquaman. What a relief it was to have a DC flick that had the MCU gloss to it, but a minimal amount of the rapid fire quips that make those movies unbearable.

Make no mistake, this is trying to be an MCU clone, a bit Black Panther in places but with white men, but then it turns into a great buddy cop quest, and when it gets done with that, it dials back on the goofiness. The only current year meme in sight is the rap remix of "Africa" by Toto. The leads don't fool around, there are flawed choices with the characters that come back to bite them, the villains have very humane qualities to them too. Mera is a boss, and that final battle nails the third act.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Just came back from Aquaman. What a relief it was to have a DC flick that had the MCU gloss to it, but a minimal amount of the rapid fire quips that make those movies unbearable.

Make no mistake, this is trying to be an MCU clone, a bit Black Panther in places but with white men, but then it turns into a great buddy cop quest, and when it gets done with that, it dials back on the goofiness. The only current year meme in sight is the rap remix of "Africa" by Toto. The leads don't fool around, there are flawed choices with the characters that come back to bite them, the villains have very humane qualities to them too. Mera is a boss, and that final battle nails the third act.

Well, it's always good to hear from someone who has actually seen the movie and is NOT a critic with an agenda.

I'm glad to hear that, even if it was done in the MCU style, it doesn't have the damn quips to the extent that MCU has. It's my least favorite thing about TV and movie writing in the post-Buffy era and it's just everywhere because everyone in today's Hollywood grew up with Whedon.

You don't go into tons of detail, but I'm getting from your post that you liked it. I'm going to see the movie in theaters regardless as I've seen all the DCEU movies, but if you want to go into more detail on the things that you liked (leave out the buzzkill things you didn't like), go ahead, but keep it spoiler-free.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

I'll have my full review next week but I was very pleasantly surprised with this. After very strongly agreeing with the critics on Venom (it's complete crap, sorry), I disagree with most on this one. I mean, it is majorly flawed in some ways (meh villains, CGI overload for the film's climax, it's a bit long and works least well when it gets serious) but it's a total blast. In short, here are some of the things it gets right, based on my just having seen it: James Wan brings some of that over the top lunacy that have made the later Fast and Furious Films such a blast but with a purely fantastical setting, he gets to go even more nuts; it has a terrific lead in the form of Jason Mamoa (his Aquaman is very different from the comic but super likeable and, crucially, heroic) and Amber Heard is a lot of fun as the film's semi-co-lead, albeit almost almost distractingly attractive; when the visual don't completely overload the screen, there's plenty of nice visual imagination and some cool location work; it's funny, full of adventure and has a solidly heroic core.

This is very, very easily the second best DCEU film to date. Not a high bar, I know - freakin' Justice League was probably the previous runner up by virtue of it not having me wanting to throw things at the screen in anger - but this is a major course correction that does, indeed, draw heavily from Marvel Studios, and is all the better for it.

[LifeIsILL]

It just feels like critics are either

A. Aware of the backlash they got for roasting Venom which contributed to it being a box office behemoth and have changed their tone considerably to say a movie like this is good even if they feel personally that it's poorly structured and lacks substance

Or maybe Aquaman is just flat-out better than Venom. I mean, it's not hard to make a better movie than Venom.

[Miles To Go]

Or maybe Aquaman is just flat-out better than Venom. I mean, it's not hard to make a better movie than Venom.

Indeed it is. I have to eat crow on that response. The film had decent structure and while I do have issues with the dialogue not being too polished, it had substance and honoured the lore.

[Osiris-Rex]

Why does DC need to be like that? I am reading more reviews, now some critics are calling it a thor wannabe flick. There looks to be an agenda here.
https://www.indiewire.com/2018/12/aq...oa-1202027124/.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...-a8679021.html

DC just can't win, talk of the clear bias to this movie from the reviews after critics defended something as atrocious as Raganrok. DC should have stuck to the original plans of Man of Steel. critics would have bashed , they will get tired. Look at Venom.

Any critic that compare Aquaman to a Marvel movie should have their score subtracted from the RT score. Just make up you own score based on that.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Oy, again with the whole critical agenda against DC thing. You do understand that most professional film critics don't give the slightest crap whether something is DC or Marvel, Marvel Studios or Marvel licensed. Maybe they don't like Man of Steel, BVS, Suicide Squad and Justice League because they're bad movies? Maybe Warners' hairbrained idea to try and copy the MCU with none of the forethought or care that the folks at Marvel studios put into crafting their own universe, resulted in films that felt rushed, half assed or just completely missed the point about what works about the superhero genre. Wonder Woman was widely well regarded because it did its own thing and did it very, very well - the critics certainly had no reason praising that film. And, please note, I say this as someone who has always been a DC guy.

[The True Detective]

Oy, again with the whole critical agenda against DC thing. You do understand that most professional film critics don't give the slightest crap whether something is DC or Marvel, Marvel Studios or Marvel licensed. Maybe they don't like Man of Steel, BVS, Suicide Squad and Justice League because they're bad movies? Maybe Warners' hairbrained idea to try and copy the MCU with none of the forethought or care that the folks at Marvel studios put into crafting their own universe, resulted in films that felt rushed, half assed or just completely missed the point about what works about the superhero genre. Wonder Woman was widely well regarded because it did its own thing and did it very, very well - the critics certainly had no reason praising that film. And, please note, I say this as someone who has always been a DC guy.

But critics are still human, they're still prone to petty biases like everyone else. They aren't robots programed to be 100% unbiased and review things by merit only. A lot of reviews for DC always say they should be more like Marvel movies or accuse them of ripping off Marvel movies. They can't win, either they do their own thing and make darker movies and it's "Why can't you be like Marvel!" or they make lighter more comedic movies (which Marvel don't own a trademark on ) and it's "OMG stop copying Marvel!"

Like Marvel girl said there are critics saying Aquaman is a wannabe Thor. It's obvious there are critics who prefer Marvel's style, characters and actors and are swayed in favor of those films.