When Zack Snyder put a picture of Jason Momoa as Aquaman up on Twitter several years ago, modern day fans expressed confusion. “That doesn’t look anything like Aquaman!” they complained. The older fans immediately weighed in, stating emphatically, “No, that’s Peter David’s Aquaman.”
I’ve written a number of characters and put my own spin on them, but unless you’re looking at a picture of the Hulk wearing a business suit, there is no other character so clearly identified with me as a badass Aquaman with long hair and a beard. It’s so obvious a connection that DC not only invited me out to the premiere, but my name appears in the “Special Thanks” section in the credits. So basically everyone, up to and including the publisher, acknowledges that the version on the screen is my guy. (I fully expect he’ll lose a hand in the sequel.)
Consequently, I have to admit that I’m holding it to a higher standard than I do most comic book movies, or indeed most movies. I have a personal stake in this. Indeed, at the pre-party that I attended, Geoff Johns—who cowrote the story and was a producer on the film—came over and told me my run on Aquaman was what hooked him into the character, which I was very honored to hear.
So was it the best comic book movie ever made? No, that’s “Black Panther” (although I still have a stupid fondness for “The Phantom.”) Was it the best DC comic book movie ever made? No, that remains “Wonder Woman.”
But it’s definitely up there. Granted, the competition isn’t that stiff, but for me it was my second favorite (okay, maybe the first Tim Burton Batman is second, but only because I loved how fans groused about it for months and were then blown away by it when it hit the screens. Depends on the day and my mood.)
The fundamental plot of the film has already been spelled out quite thoroughly in the promos. It begins at the beginning, with Atlanna (a radiant and ášš-kicking Nicole Kidman) washed up on the shore of a light house, kept by lonely Tom Curry (a digitally youthened Temuera Morrison). They get together and produce a little bášŧárd (I say that because he is frequently referenced that way) who is destined to unite the surface world with the sub-aquatic realms.
That, however, won’t happen if Aquaman’s half brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson) has anything to say about it. Orm wants to wage war on the surface, and I have to say, despite the fact that he’s the bad guy and will use nefarious ends to accomplish his goals, he really does have a valid reason. We’ve dumped garbage into the ocean, polluted it with oil spills, and climate change is killing fish. So when he says the war has already begun, he honestly has a point.
Nevertheless, Mera (Amber Heard) wants to make sure that doesn’t happen, and conscripts Arthur into aiding her. Helping her in this endeavor is Vulko (Willem Dafoe, whose favorite role of mine remains Tars Tarkas in John Carter) who trains Arthur from an early age, preparing him for this eventuality.
Thrown into the mix is Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his presence is a little disturbing. The reason I say this involves a spoiler, but since it’s only ten minutes into the film, I’m going to blow the reveal. The submarine we saw Aquaman breaking into in the trailers? The Manta was hijacking it. In the ensuing battle, as the sub is sinking, Manta’s father winds up trapped beneath a ton of rubble. Manta begs an escaping Aquaman to aid him, which he could do easily. He’s strong enough to lift it off with one hand.
Aquaman’s response? “You killed innocent people. Let the seas judge you.” And he leaves.
Holy crap.
The hero of the film ignored someone begging for his help and left him to die. God knows we’ve seen heroes kill enough times in superhero films, but abandoning someone begging for their help? I’m pretty sure that’s unprecedented.
Now me, I loved that. It went against the standard trope/cliché of the hero always doing good. It also provided Manta with a solid reason to despise Aquaman. If it was good enough for Inigo Montoya, it’s certainly good enough for Manta. Others, however, may feel differently, believing that Aquaman invalidates his claim to heroism in the beginning of the film. I can understand that point of view. On the other hand, Aquaman repeatedly doesn’t consider himself a hero, and it gives him a character arc to grow into. It certainly beats having a father who keeps telling him to keep his head down and not get involved with stuff.
So his actions in leaving Manta’s father to die was a surprise to me.
It was one of two (the second occurs much further in and I won’t spoil it.) I was surprised twice in the film. And that was the problem I had.
It was very well acted. The special effects were great. If you enjoy H.P. Lovecraft (referenced early on in a book on Curry’s table) you’ll love the third act.
But there were no surprises.
From the beginning of the film, I suspected what one of the final scenes was going to be. And every step along the way, I knew what every major plot point/beat was before it happened. Whenever things got quiet, and whenever a new story point was explained, I knew something was going to blow up. Boy, did things blow up. I haven’t seen that many explosions since the first Incredibles. “There’s something you should know.” “Really, what?” “This.” Exposition. Boom. No one walks through any doors. No one knocks, announces themselves, gives warning, shouts something threatening. You find out they’re there because the wall or ceiling just erupts. (Atlanna kills half a dozen guys in the first five minutes. Hmm. I wonder what Tom Curry did with the bodies? Toss ‘em in the ocean, I guess.)
It might be because I’ve been a full time writer for over thirty years. It might be because I wrote Aquaman for four years. But honestly, pretty much everything that happened, I saw coming. It was a by-the-numbers comic book movie. Which is, y’know, fine for a summer popcorn flick, except it’s December. The simple fact is that Marvel films have raised the bar for expectations. A few years ago, this would have been mind blowing. Now it’s basically on par with Ant-Man. They’re entertaining films and, especially in Aquaman’s case, should be seen on the big screen (the climactic battle sequences are fantastic and will likely be incomprehensible on a standard television set.) It’s likely going to make a butt load of money and will ideally kick Momoa’s career to the next level because he’ll have proven he can carry a big budget film.
I just really wish there had been more surprises such as Aquaman’s refusal to save Manta’s father, because that genuinely startled me. Startling me with explosions is not the same thing.
Although the best thing to come out of the film was daughter Caroline’s comment on the closing credits. “No animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture. We did, however, go through twenty three Jason Momoas.”
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Glad you enjoyed it. I’ll probably give in to morbid curiosity and try watching when it hits HBO in a few months, but I’ll do so with expectations set incredibly low based on the rest of the franchise. I haven’t made it through a single one in its entirety since Man of Steel (and that one I thought was a decent enough movie, if not a particularly good Superman movie).
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–Daryl
Black Panther is the best superhero film ever???
Wonder Woman is better than the Donner/Puzo/Reeve Superman films and the first films of the Dark Knight trilogy? Sheesh. Oh well. To each their own. 🙂
Yeah, I also did a double take on that one. Oh well, very contrarian of PAD.
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Black Panther (and Wonder Woman, to a lesser degree) is the kind of movie that became so politicized in our culture wars that ANY opinion you give is likely to pìšš øff someone, somewhere, but my own opinion is…
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That it’s a very adequate movie. Not great, not bad, very middle-of-the-road MCU with fun bits and a couple of very charismatic characters (Killmonger, T’Challa’s sister), but very unremarkable.
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Yeah, historically it’s a very important movie, and it has all my respect.
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I was more impressed by Wonder Woman, that really thrilled me with the No Man’s Land scene and actually gave us an almost perfect update on George Perez’s version of the character (my personal favorite of all WW versions). I started as a skeptic, but Gal Gadot made me a believer. And they managed to make Steve Trevor fit. And even the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits had a lot of charm.
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The only false note on that movie was the final confrontation with Ares, IMO. Made a perfect superhero movie become only great.
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But it’s still not the best superhero movie either. I have at least 5 or 6 that I liked more. Superman, Spider-Man 2, Dark Knight, X2, Iron Man, Days of Future Past, does Unbreakable count? Even Watchmen and V for Vendetta managed to rise on the force of Alan Moore’s original script alone, despite many false steps.
Rene, I agree with practically everything you said about the Wonder Woman movie. The one thing I will add is that the special effects of the amazon’s in training on the prologue and in combat against the Nazis were very distracting to me.
Yes, I agree with you on that, Tony.
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But I am the sort of fan that is very forgiving of special effects and visual factors. So I gave a pass to the weirdness of the Amazon’s fight moves.
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But my problem with the finale with Ares was not just the special effects, but the banality of the villain telling the hero “let us rule together” and the sheer weirdness of David Thewlis in that armor (okay, that was visual, but that was so hard to swallow).
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I sort of liked it when Diana spared Dr. Poison, though.
Personally, I didn’t make it more than an hour into Wonder Woman. Gadot’s performance didn’t change my mind as to the limits of her acting ability or charisma, and I found the story to be lacking.
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It did, however, have the benefits of the franchise’s expectations being lowered so dramatically and pushed the right zeitgeist buttons with the public (much like Black Panther) that it was heralded as an amazing movie despite its mediocrity and a blockbuster financial success despite bringing in less at the box office than the (rightly) maligned BvS, which is considered a failure.
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—Daryl
“The hero of the film ignored someone begging for his help and left him to die. God knows we’ve seen heroes kill enough times in superhero films, but abandoning someone begging for their help? I’m pretty sure that’s unprecedented.”
Not all that unprecedented. Christian Bale’s Batman to Ra’s al Ghul: “I won’t kill you. But I don’t have to save you.”
The difference being that this comes at the end of Bruce Wayne’s heroic journey and not at the beginning.
How did DC miss the opportunity for the perfect cameo performance as Aqauamans father?
Featuring Tim Curry as Tom Curry
Or there can be a scene in the JLA headquarters with Flash watching Rocky Horror and noting the name of the star actor. “Family can be so embarrassing, amirite Arthur?”
With all due love and respect to Tim Curry…have you seen him lately? A stroke has taken quite a toll on him, sadly.
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—Daryl
This doesn’t really have anything to do with the movie, and this is my own theory, but I want to jump in here with why I think Aquaman has managed to (somewhat) be in the public eye for so long.
Aquaman was co-created by Mort Weisinger. (As was Green Arrow, but that’s another story.) For those who are too young to remember, Weisinger was the editor of the Superman titles from 1945 to 1970. In a lot of ways, Superman at that time (and the Superman we know now) was Weisinger’s character more than it was Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster’s, and Weisinger’s Superman was the Superman for most baby boomers. If you look at the end credits of the old “Adventures of Superman” episodes, you’ll see Weisinger listed as Story Editor.
Aqua man first appeared in 1941 (two years after Timely’s Sub-Mariner) in “More Fun Comics” No. 73. As the Golden Age was drawing to a close, Aquaman was moved to “Adventure Comics,” which Weisinger edited. Aquaman eventually got his own comic book, became a founding member of the Justice League of America. And in 1967, he costarred on the Saturday morning “Superman – Aquaman Hour of Adventure,” which Weisinger also had a hand in. Aquaman (whose name, on that show, was pronounced “Aa – kwa – man,” instead of “AW – kwa – man”). The Aquaman cartoons were moved to Sunday mornings later.
Then, in 1973, “Super Friends” debuted. Weisinger had retired by then, but it was probably His influence in putting Aquaman in “Superman – Aquaman Hour of Adventure” the led to Arthur Curry’s presence on “Super Friends.”
A lot of this is conjecture on my art, I’ll admit. If I’m wrong, I’m sure I’ll hear about it.
And for any part of this where the hero’s name comes out as “Aqua Man,” everyone, say it with me:
ÐÃMN YOU, SPELL CHECK!!!
Oh that’s nothing. When I was a kid I pronounced his name “Uh-KEW-uh Man” because I didn’t know the prefix “Aqua.” My father corrected me.
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PAD
Why are you posting a spoiler-filled review before the movie comes out? Bad form.
By the way, “Black Panther” is the second best Marvel film. Best one is still “Captain America: Winter Soldier.”
Why would you post a spoiler-filled review before the movie is even released?
By the way, “Black Panther” is the second best superhero movie. “Captain America: Winter Soldier” is the best.
“Spoiler FILLED?” One spoiler of a plot element ten minutes in is hardly spoiler filled, sorry.
Honestly, I stopped reading when I got to the spoiler and skipped the rest. Just assumed, on the length, that there were more spoilers.
Ahh. Well, never forget the old saying about “never assume.” No, there are no other spoilers in the review. I allude to one but don’t specify it.
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PAD
C’mon, Black Panther is middle-of-the-road MCU. Good movie, fun, exciting, but unexceptional in almost all ways. It deserves all the respect in the world as a historically important movie, though.
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Now Wonder Woman, yeah, that was an almost perfect superhero movie, and Gal Gadot totally became Wonder Woman and managed to shut up all the skeptics, but the lackluster confrontation with Ares by the end still harmed the movie.
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Neither of them would be in my top 5 superhero movies list. Wonder Woman perhaps would be in the top 10.
The reason I said Black Panther was the best was not only the quality of the film, but also the impact it had on the rest of the world. Everyone from actors to athletes are doing the “Wakanda forever” salute. It became a part of American consciousness. Yes, “Winter Soldier” was a great movie, but how many people came away from “Black Panther” wishing Wakanda was real?
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PAD
Yes, I have to agree with you on that, PAD.
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Black Panther was heartwarming and thrilling and necessary, and made me want to cry with joy, but that was a bit more due to factors outside the movie itself.
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It presented an awesome view of African potential and it offered a undilutted aspirational superhero for a people so starved of good representation. So yeah, respect.
NOTE: Comment left on PAD’s original Patreon review post, reblogged here for the “benefit” of all, just ‘cuz. Sense of community and all that.
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*LOL* Your daughter has a marvelous wit! We can only hope she carries on the David writing legacy.
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That said . . . .
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I think we all know that Jason Momoa is Norris-level nigh on immortal bad@$$ and cannot be destroyed by mere filming accidents, drowning, or explosions.
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Now, it IS possible that this movie killed the Hanna-Barbera “Aquaman is a loser” stereotype, but let’s be honest, ending THAT Aquaman would be a mercy killing, and the world is all the better for it. 😀
HEY! Having a fondness for the Phantom is not stupid.
No it isn’t as good as a lot f superhero movies these days, but it is a solid adventure film, and Billy Zane and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are dámņ likable in it.
I will always back that movie, and anyone who enjoys it.
As for Black Panther, you mentioned the cultural impact. I didn’t see the movie, but you are right.
Here in Detroit, churches bought out entire screenings. Over in Flint (which is NOT part of Metro-Detroit)had a center for kids with… certain issues, had tickets and comics donated.
I do think much of that cultural whirlwind came from certain less than savory sociopolitical trends in the year or so leading up to it.
Which, I think in no way invalidates it, only strengthens its case. Comic fans do that all the time with characters. It s part of the genre’s magic.
I did see Int the Spider-Verse. That was really good.
Seriously, never be ashamed of the Phantom, the movie, the comics strip, or the criminally underrated Moonstone comics universe.
Well, The Daily Beast begs leave to disagree with the rest of us.
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{“Us” metaphorically speaking, i haven’t seen the film yet, but i’m pretty sure i’d fall more on the Cowboy Pete side than the Melissa Leon side, even if i don’t love the film.}
I also have a fondness for The Phantom as it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than fun, like The Rocketeer. Plus, you can tell Billy Zane is just enjoying the hëll out of himself, playing it with a winking nod at the audience: “Yeah, I’m a guy running around the jungle in an anti-camoflage purple suit. Just relax snd enjoy the ride.” Pair it with The Shadow, you’ve got a night of more enjoyable vintage cheese than a trip to a Paris restaurant.
As for Aquaman… Yeah, it’s pretty by-the-numbers, but it’s carried by sheer charisma and fun, something Justice League could have used. And after reading all of PAD’s run back in the day, I admit I got a bit of a fanboy throat lump seeing Arthur finally getting some well-deserved big screen respect that makes his Justice League appearance seem like a mere appetizer
I’ve just watched Aquaman. I liked it. Like PAD said, it doesn’t quite rise above “good superhero movie”, but it is, you know, a good superhero movie that serves all the characters extremely well.
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This is also one of the rare cases where they take full advantage of changing a character’s established race and they make that work towards the movie’s themes. The supremacist “pure-blooded” Atlanteans looking down on an Aquaman played by a biracial actor gives the metaphor teeth that it would not have if they got some blonde, blue-eyed white dude to play Arthur Curry.
I can’t remember the last time that a live action superhero film surprised me, Marvel or DC or anyone’s. I was surprised by a big reveal in Into the Spider-Verse, but otherwise, I don’t really look to superhero movies for surprises. Heck, I think the only recent films that surprised me were Rogue One and Last Jedi.
As for Aquaman acting “unheroically” in the beginning of the movie…
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I, for one, sort of like that movie superheroes aren’t as crazy about the no-kill rule as their comic book counterparts. I always thought Batman acting as the Joker’s bodyguard is more insane than noble, considering the Joker’s habit of killing and maiming the Batman’s supporting cast (not to mention the whole mass murderer thing).
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And the Punisher always acts as a sort of straw man to make it look that you either never kill (and even takes the time to save mass murderers) or you kill any bad guy that cross your way, including jaywalkers.
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I like that the movie version of the Avengers or Wonder Woman wouldn’t go insane with guilty if a bad guy died in one of their battles, unlike the comic book version, it’s more realistic for superheroes who live violent lives (and I think Wonder Woman kills her fair share of people in her movie).
All you got was a “thank you”? Not even a “based on the stories written by Peter David” in the story credit? I suppose something is better than nothing, but occasionally I feel you don’t get enough credit.
My only other quibble was the some of the music. I’m tired of movies turning into MTV.