Aquaman (OFFICIAL THREAD) #WanBillion !!! $1.148 Billi !!!

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TheGodling said:
Okay, some more (clear) thoughts (and some spoilers)

As I said after the movie just ended, the ambition of this movie is insane. It's a two and a half hour movie that feels like it's only two hours long and has the content of a four hour movie. That's not a bad thing, the pacing in this is excellent as everything moves along swiftly. It does mean that some parts of the plot don't develop beyond the most basic and clichéd of tropes. Arthur and Mera journey along the seven seas and sometimes they stumbl or fall, catch each other only to realize they are holding each other's hand, then stare deeply into each other's eyes. After two hours of this happening three times, of course they are now in love with each other. Because all that extra character shyt is kept tightly locked up in a box in the basement, there's really no opportunity for the actors to give a bad performance. They are just there doing their thing, and some awful, awful jokes aside (seriously, the 'jokes' in this may very well be written by the most unfunny person alive) they literally cannot fukk this up. The best evidence of that is the fact that Dolph Lundgren randomly popped up on the screen as an Atlantean king (I had no fukking idea he was in this), for what I figured was a bit part, but then he kept coming back and talking and later appeared again and talked some more and he ends up having like the fourth or fifth biggest speaking role in the movie. Dolph Lundgren, in 2018, in a Hollywood blockbuster that isn't some 80s nostalgia piece.

It all kinda goes along with the whole vibe of the movie that Wan & co just do whatever the fukk they want. Basic as character motivations and the actual plot are, this movie just does anything it can think of. Big coliseum fight, check. Desert tomb exploration, check. Old European town rooftop chase, check. horror monsters from the depth attack, check. Lost city in the core of the earth, check. Ancient guardian monster, check. Epic blockbuster battle, check. It's really no surprise that the Middle Kingdom eats this movie up because it checks off every element on a fantasy adventure movie check list. Story wise there's some stuff that's kinda hard to ignore though, like how baffling it was to me that they brush over Aquaman's origin in a poorly done parental forbidden romance tale, only to give Black Manta's origin such valid and tragic impact, that you could easily mistake him for the good guy for a good hour or so. This is also a movie where the "bad guy" is a king who wants to attack the surface world for polluting the oceans and destroying the environment (such an evil cause), offers and allows Arthur the opportunity to fight him in an official battle for the throne, does not cheat, then is betrayed and attacked from behind by Mera when Arthur is about to lose. Like how the hell do these writers expect me to root for Aquaman, the man who left Black Manta and his pops to die and desecrates an official duel when he's about to lose? Even with all the bad shyt his correctly motivated but misguided half-brother is planning, Aquaman really is a petty dikk for almost two hours. They do kinda successfully turn him around in the end, and hopefully use that opportunity to kill off the last remnants of that awful bro-character that Snyder envisioned the character as. to make it all work out.

Anyhow, those story issues aside the set pieces and in particular the action direction in this are absolutely incredible. Wan's grasp on this genre is every bit as good as the Russo's and sometimes even better. Basically every time an action set piece starts, you know shyt is about to get real. You can see they use a lot of CGI to create the most spectacular angles and camera movements possible, but since the movie by its very nature is so CGI-heavy, it's not distracting. What is distracting is how insanely bad music choices they've made with this. I mean, why in all of fukking hell would you play a Pitbull song over Aquaman and Mera arriving in Egypt? Why is there a Skylar Grey song playing over the end credits? I miss Obama as much as the next guy but this isn't going to bring back 2012, people! And why does the composed soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams' lesser talented brother start every song with Metal Gear Solid-esque string compositions and then turn into full blast 80s synthesizers and snares? I mean, I love that shyt but the contrast is non-sensically wild for no reason.

This movie delivers the good with the bad every single time, and it's hard to make sense of what they ever planned or wanted to achieve, but it's entertaining for what it is, so it's good enough for me.
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This was kind of right in line with how I felt. Action was on point and it was a beautiful looking movie. Some of the musical choices were fukking awful. And there was way to much exposal dialogue, to the point where a lot of the exchanges felt unnatural. With so much going on the pacing was pretty solid though. Don't feel like it slowed down too much at any point.
 
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Rashaddw said:
Saw it last night. Very good movie. Not classic but fun and solid. Like the equivalent of Dr. Strange, not classic but a very good efffort with some flaws. And yes the actual songs were atrocious.

I give this movie 3/4.

Wish they had more background on the Willem Dafoe training him at a young age....seemed poorly edited in and choppy.

But man. You can tell they finally injected some much needed fun in the DCEU. Great visuals and just a fun movie.

Really looking forward to Shazam!

Props to Wan and crew.
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Yeah, those training transitions were choppy. Need a better way to integrate them, or a different route to introduce their relationship.
 
Sad Bunny

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jmegamar said:
Beautiful movie and very comic book accurate as far as costumes but dialogue was lacking and acting was spotty at times. Really wanted to see more Black Manta than anyone else honestly. I give it a 6/10.
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The young Arthur actor was terrible lol

But this movie was definitely beautiful and it made me want to travel LOL

I also really enjoyed how they brought to life the animal designs mix with the underwater technology
 
jadden

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Classic fun comic book film and one of the most visibly appealing movies I’ve seen it a while. Atlantis is so beautiful it bought a tear to my eye :mjcry:

Those fight scenes were amazing:wow:

I wasn’t expecting to like Ocean Master at all but he had me like :ehh:all throughout. Can’t wait to see what they do with Black Manta in the future
 
ineedsleep212

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It was fine. I enjoyed it. I wish it was wittier even in a silly way. All of the action sequences were fire.

I think I would've enjoyed Bumblebee and Into The Spider Verse more tho :manny:.
 
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