7 / 10. Entertaining with beautiful underwater scenes, but a bit too long

Aquaman is a DC Universe superhero and underwater treat of a film directed by James Wan, from a screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall.

In 1985, lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry rescues Atlanna, the queen of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, during a storm. They fall in love and have a son, Arthur, an above average swimmer with the power to communicate with sea creatures. Atlanna is forced to abandon her new family, but her advisor, Vulko (Willem Dafoe), trains Arthur to become a skilled warrior, who then rejects Atlantis …

In the present day, months after the events of Justice League, Arthur confronts pirates hijacking a submarine and creates an enemy in the process ...

Firstly, I’d like to point out that Jason Momoa is one of my favourites, so I may be biased.

There were nice origin scenes scattered throughout the film, but some things were left unexplained. For example, how did Vulko know where Arthur was, and why didn’t those who came for Atlanna take Arthur as well if he was such a threat?

Patrick Wilson’s King Orm was a pantomime villain, and the ‘Ocean Master’ thing made me laugh. However, he does have a point, surface dwellers ARE destroying the oceans. The underwater scenes were beautiful and well designed, even the CGI hair moving under water looked realistic. The underwater ‘roads’ reminded me a bit of Tron. The different oceanic kingdoms were interesting, and the scenes of Arthur and Mera swimming down with the flares deep into the Mariana Trench pursued by scary Trenchers were amazing.

Amber Heard as Mera had some chemistry with Momoa, but this wasn’t her best performance. Glad to see Dolph Lundgren, Nicole Kidman and Temuera Morrison here in supporting roles.

Aquaman has a good mixture of surface and ocean scenes, but Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) wasn’t really necessary with everything else going on, and he wasn’t particularly interesting. It was a bit too long, but there was a lot packed into its 2 hours 22 minutes. The end battle scene was epic …

There is definitely scope for further Aquaman films here and I enjoyed this more than the other DC installments so far (apart from Wonder Woman’s stand-alone film), but the DC films just don’t have the same gusto as Marvel, and I’m not as invested in the characters.

Great Easter egg of the Annabelle doll on the ocean floor!

“Permission to come aboard.”

Please do.