AQUAMAN?

[Jimmy T]

Seeing it Friday!

CAN'T WAIT!! WOOOO!!

If it's Iron Man 1, or , or near to Wonder Woman, or better than the first 2 Thors, or...way better than Ant-Man, or as fun as Blade, I'm set!

[Jimmy T]

I had a great time!

It was a really good movie! not even in the surprising kind of manner for me. I just found it to be really good entertaining, and nothing insulting either. I feel it's what a superhero movie should be. Doesn't take a selfie as seriously as Wonder woman needed to, but we didn't need to see that from Aquaman.

[Jeff]

Just got back from seeing this.  It was all right.  A lot of fun but not epic.  The best part for me was listening to my daughter’s absolute adornment for the movie.  When Arthur fist shows up with the classic costume you see in the trailer she turned to my wife and me all wide-eyed and giant smiles. “I can’t wait to see the rest of this movie!” She squealed.

Took me back to that first X-Men comic purchase I made from the spinner rack at the corner convenience store by my grandparents house. Part 2 of Days of Future past.  I’m sure I had that same expression.

[Perry]

Oh man, I so wanted to like this, and I guess I did, kind of, a little.

It wasn't horrible but it wasn't great either. The entire time I am watching this I am thinking "well damn, they did it. They made a CW movie"
 

From the lame dialog (the scenes with Aquaman and his dad or his dad and his mom killed me) to the limited acting ability in almost every scene, it was like I was watching an underwater episode of SG-1. Heck, I feel they are both on the same level, really. Both star the same guy and both are worth the time if you want to waste a few hours, but they are never going to wow anyone with their acting or dialog.

I Mean even the humor feels weird here. I smile at times, but it isn't like a real smile or a laugh from a funny moment. It's like a "yeah, that is kind of funny" smile. Ya know what I mean? Too many "How is it I can breath underwater but you can still drink me under the table?" type jokes.
  ...  ... 

It really is amazing how Marvel can keep making really good, high quality movies (with pure, honest, belly laugh moments) while DC keeps pushing out disappointing, high-dollar television shows they decide to show on the big screen.
 

Yeah, looks like DC still only has Wonder Woman to hang their hat on.

Crossing my fingers even tighter for Shazam, but at this point, there is little hope left. I'm tired of saying DC will get it right this time. So far I've only been right once, with Wonder Woman.
 

But hey, DC still has the future even if Shazam falls flat (like its current monthly comic!). Wonder Woman 2 is close and then, way in the future ...  if James Gunn can't get it done, it can't be done, so come ooooonnnn Suicude Squad attempt #2 !!!

Aquaman - 6 outta 10 cool water effects 

[Jimmy T]

Oh-h-h-h-h! You make me cry Perry. 

 

It's'all good!

I can recognize how it's not Macbeth, nor how it's as masterful or compelling as Winter Soldier, or individually engaging as Iron man (movie).

It's funny, just thinking right now, in comparing Iron Man to Aquaman. When IM came out, it was a relatively 'huge risk.' Well, a risk. Iron Man was a top grade B-character. Some even might have said, fallen to a C+ character (this is just hemming and hawing). Now, Aquaman, for most individuals, is a C character. I would severely argue against that, but again, more hemming and hawing.

What I am trying to drive at, is that IM (movie) took risks to be serious in its attention to character, interactions, plots, and fluid nature of people acting like people would when facing a situation-whether its looking death in the face (then building your own robot suit), questioning your basic life choices (of being a war profiteer), then doing something about your life (like wearing a big robot suit and punching your own weapons). Seems silly? Maybe, but not with the gravitas Favreau and RDJ and crew put into the film.

Why didn't Aquaman do exactly that? Well, perhaps it's DCEU being extremely gun shy now about the box office. Their DCEU movie division has gone through 4 PRESIDENTS since Man of Steel. Really tells you they know what they're doing, right? The man they decided to lead the way into their film glory (Zach Snyder) has been more and more removed from those decisions and directions with each movie that kept coming out.  Uh...winding way to get there, I would say Aquaman could be as risky as Iron Man, but I also think it comes down to differences of characters.

Tony Stark is a business man/engineer in a big robot suit. Aquaman is a bastard child of ATLANTIS and homo sapiens, and his world is filled with magic, and wonder, and ancient lore of kings and monsters and magic. Also, Aquaman came in with a big stigma of being lame, the butt of jokes, and well, stupid. That's a huge uphill battle to fight. James Wan and Momoa had to make him cool, dangerous, bad ass, relateable, understandable, and also make this pretend under water world engaging.

I would say they quite succeeded.

And no, the movie is not brilliant. Some lines and implanted humor were as cheeky in the 80s as they are now, being a reused easy joke. But it was beautiful to see, it was done with the intention of injecting as much heart and connection to the character, the man, Arthur Curry, as could be.

So, I guess, in my opinion, I just disagree with you Perry.
And that's okay.

But yeah, Wonder Woman is still far and away #1.

CAN'T WAIT FOR SHAZAM MY BIRTHDAY WEEKEND!!! The last time I had a comic movie my bday weekend was HELLBOY!! (or was it Hellboy 2? lol can't remember!!)

[Perry]

Jimbo, I totally get where you are coming from, my man. And hey, it is not like I hated the movie Aquaman, because I didn't, and it may be that my anger only comes from how badly I really wanted to like it, how badly I really wanted it to ... not only be a good movie, but also do justice to the Aquaman character. And while I think it did neither of those overly well, sadly, at least it was better at being Aquaman that what we were given in Justice League


And I think you nailed it as far as DC being nervous or gun shy, because the dialog tried so hard to fall in the safe zone, that it came out tired. It was flat. There was little to no punch in any conversation. Each discussion felt either overly gooey like watching 5 minutes of Riverdale or it went to the over-acting side like Rami's Green Goblin (Speaking of which, Willem Dafoe as Vulko? Ugh, horrible casting decision there).

I think as a movie it may typically work better overall with the younger crowd, those true DC fans or those just there to have a good time as it is a "fun little romp under the sea" that hits us with some amazing visuals AND ideas, but I guess I just wanted a different movie. I was scared pretty early by Arthur's origin scene. There was no chemistry whatsoever between these two characters that were suppose to feel so much love for each other. I didn't believe it for a second. And the Manta intro, ugh, that was not much better as this villain of the seas had as much acting and dialog depth as a still puddle.
"I wont tell you how to (I forgot) and you don't tell me how to pirate" *stab*stab*
 
 
And Amber Heard while looking like a great Mera was ... well ... she looked like a great Mera, but when she

fought off the tidal wave to let Arthur reach his dad's truck, then seconds later struggles to pull a lung full of water out of a drowning mans body ... ?

It is scenes like those that sink a movie for me.

Again, it wasn't a horrible experience, honestly, I did give it a "six"   and as sad as you are to hear me talk this way about this movie, believe you me, it upsets me more. I truly wanted this to be incredible. I almost went to the theater for this one because I was hoping it would be a good one  , but it just wasn't that good. It was fun, but little more than that.

But hey, I am glad you dug it. You being the bigger Aquaman fan and enjoying the movie is is a great thing.
And I did enjoy it overall, but not as much as I had hoped.
 
(Still better than Justice League   ... speaking of which ... do we have a DC movie ranking list like we do with Marvel?)

EDIT - Another thing I would have liked to have seen in the movie ...
The voices underwater being a tad different than that of those on land. I am not sure how that would work or what I wanted, but I think they should have had some ... SOME slight difference in underwater speaking and surface world vocals. That would have been a nice little addition had they found a way to do it.

[Jimmy T]

See, I thought they did the voices kind of clever; they did have a weird underwater echo quality, quite strongly, in the beginning of the movie. As the movie advanced, they began to tone it down each conversation, until it was simply gone. I thought it was a really cool way to instill that the voices sound different while also being able to jettison its use later!

But yes, it was cheesy. But, Superman the Movie has plenty of cheese, and I'll watch that over sooo many other movies in many decisions.

Oh, if I didn't say it before, Black Manta was awful!    He was a direct to screen from page 70s version of himself.