Once upon a time, it was considered an impossible task to make a live action adaptation of Batman - the most earth-grounded superhero known to exist. Fast forward to 2018, we have a film in hand about Aquaman - a superhero who could talk to sea beings. Allow that piece of advancement fact sink in and let us appreciate how far cinema has come!
James Wan is a filmmaking wizard. Only a handful of directors out there can helm horror like this man. Choosing him to wield the megaphone for a superhero flick though did raise eyebrows out of curiosity and doubts on equal measures. But after having watched the final product, one could definitely say Aquaman was one hell of a visual feast with the DNA of a quintessential blockbuster!
Only certain motion pictures deserve to be called an experience, Aquaman included primarily because of its masterful visual command! This is a new facet of Wan we never knew! It was like watching James Cameron’s Avatar again! Although it's not directly comparable on that scale, this was a firm output nonetheless! Whenever the team combined light with water, the result onscreen was magically breathtaking! Do keep your eyes peeled for the Trench runaway portion where Arthur (Jason Momoa) and Mera (Amber Heard) hopped into the sea with a fire beacon to escape the Trench creatures on pursuit; the merging of red and blue was miraculously astounding! Furthermore, lush colours, monstrous wave hitting the lands, wine bottles smattering, underwater thunderstorm, Topo the octopus playing drums, Black Manta suit creation montage, King Ricou's (Djimon Hounsou) and his tribe, Karathen, seahorses and sharks as vehicles, stingray and fish shaped ships, you name what else you need! Although CGI for the Trench creatures could have been better, kudos to the terrific visual effects team for their mammoth effort!
Each location the characters travelled to within underwater itself was unique since each had its own personality. Opulent Kingdom of Atlantis, crabs and lobsters filled Kingdom of Brine, deadly Trench or the serene Hidden Sea, you get to visit it all! Even hiding inside a whale's mouth was beyond exciting! As far as the real life places were concerned, Sicily and the Sahara desert added fresh perspective into a film primarily taking place underwater. Normally, whenever characters move to multiple unconnected venues in the same film, the unity will be shattered as there isn't a boundary to the story's universe. But surprisingly this wasn't the case here as the travelling had strong reasons to occur - aside from the puzzle-solving to retrieve Trident of Atlan, it's there to change an Atlantean's notion on the surface world.
So much of groundwork went into fabricating the underwater world of Aquaman. Kingdoms, governments, social hierarchy, everything! Atlan’s and Atlantic City's history were told using interesting visual expositions. The screenwriters weaved in little Arthur's discovery of powers and training sessions with Vulko (Willem Dafoe) seamlessly into the narrative. On a side note, there was a left chest injury reference to Khal Drogo; a character played by Jason Momoa in Game of Thrones, unsure if this was done intentionally or otherwise.
When it came to the characters, the casting was near perfect! Jason Momoa is Aquaman, period! The actor's born for this role! The character's vulnerability, doubts and uncertainties rooted him down and earned our empathy! It was a goosebumps moment for sure seeing him grabbing Trident of Atlan and appearing in front of us in the classic Aquaman costume! Mera, King Orm / Ocean Master (Patrick Wilson), Vulko, Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Nereus (Dolph Lundgren) were solid character sketches! Not only do we understand where Arthur Curry's coming from, we also saw Atlanteans' solid reason to rise a war against the surface people.
Aquaman has some of the best stunt sequences 2018 has ever seen. The marriage between action choreography and tailing camera navigation was so harmonious! Ring of Fire tournament plus the continuous chase across walls, rooftops and buildings in Sicily to show two simultaneous stunt episodes were the highlights! Climatic battle on surface was a refresher after being underwater for quite some time. However, there were instances where the hand battles got messy a bit, like the submarine brawl. Despite most of the jaw-dropping stunt episodes being CGI heavy, the results were nothing short of spectacular.
Rupert Gregson-Williams' score was fantastic. Kirk Morri did smooth transitions with the scenes, time zones, title text and everything in between! Don Burgess' cinematography was effective, do watch out for his nose-diving shot! Not to forget, there's for sure something special about the end credits and the production company logos used in the beginning. You could clearly see the effort went into the expensive production design! Statues, costumes, cities, King Orm's empire council and guard system, Hall of Armory, weapons like the hydro cannon and energized plasma gun that utilizes water plus the very sophisticated technology blew us away!
On the negative side of things, the feature had a cheesy undertone to it sporadically. Nicole Kidman’s performance in the beginning as the fish out of water, the type of slow motion used in combination with Dutch angles before a fight was about to start plus the father-son relationship along with the dialogue exchanges between Jesse (Michael Beach) and David Kane / Black Manta were the contributors. Humour's okay; but many unnecessary scenes were included solely for the purpose of provoking laughter, such as taking selfie with the biker gang for example. Also, don't you think Thomas Curry (Temuera Morrison) should have been startled more upon stumbling an alien?
With a perfect blend of action, adventure and romance in a vibrant tone and mood, Aquaman is an extremely fun spectacle built specifically for the theatres! It's epic, it's emotional and one cannot wait for the sequel!