James Wan gets to direct Aquaman

DC has definitely not solved their Villain problem. Some people suggest Black Manta is going to be a part of the solution. I don’t see how. His suit was kind of silly and, well, I am going to remember him as the guy who murdered a bunch of people who got mad because his murder happy daddy wasn’t saved.

But I’ll watch the next one I am sure.

So will Marvel do a Namor movie now that Aquaman has done good box office. Namor was always a bit of a dick in the comic books.

Namor is another one that at one point Marvel licensed out to another studio (like Spider-Man to Sony or X-Men to Fox) and as far as I know it’s not clear what the status of that deal was. They don’t usually make a habit of explaining those deals publicly so it may not be an issue anymore. Or maybe it is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I love that emoji. I think it’s my favourite thing about the internet.

Incidentally, this is my favorite airplane:

Finally saw this from Redbox last night. That quote above just about sums it up. There’s a scene where Arthur and Mera are standing there after a fight sequence or something and the camera pans down and they’re holding hands and they look at each other with mild disinterest in their eyes. That’s about the speed of the film: a series of plot drumbeats so hamfisted and obvious that they must have been taken “Movie Cliches to Avoid” as a scriptwriter’s manual. I can forgive the middling special effects and the plot that shifts tone from ludicrous to I-couldn’t-possibly-care-what’s-happening and back again over and over. I can forgive a fine actor like Patrick Wilson utterly wasted in a teeth-gnashing villain role, and the choke-inducing King Of Destiny/Only A Man naif-Arthurian gestures. Jason Momoa “dude, brah”-ing his way through the film, and Amber Heard’s uncanny blandness (only accentuated by that red hair.) But dear god this film is condescending: not only is there voice-over narration to explain the backstory, but characters are always popping in with unnecessary exposition all the time.

I realized partway through the film that I have actually seen Justice League, but cannot remember a single thing that happened in it. Not one moment. I suspect that will be the fate of Aquaman as well. DC, ya basic.

And here is your new trailer for Aquaman 2

Is he DC’s version of Deadpool?

DC already had its Deadpool.

I’ve been trying to watch this movie over the last few days. It’s just so boring, I can’t usually make it more than 30 minutes before switching to something else. I just don’t care about any of the characters. And the action scenes are just very staid. The CG is distractingly poor at times.

Apparently I have 30 minutes left, but I probably won’t finish.

Yeah watched this on rental and it really is pretty meh. Like all other DC movie lately. Amber Heard’s unnatually red hair is probably the only thing that piqued my interest. Is that a wig or dye??? All these respectable actors like Nicole Kidman, Temuera Morrison etc. are cashing in with this silly movie, which is kinda sad. If you missed the last 30 minutes you won’t miss much @Rock8man. It is all very predictable.

And this bland soulless borefest made a billion dollars. Which means we will get more bland soulless borefest. We get what we deserve.

I mean, it’s still about 500% better than the Zach Snyder DC movies. It has a sense of humor, the action is occasionally entertaining, etc.

Yep. I enjoyed it enough watch it again, and it didn’t make me like Aquaman less. BvS… ugh, almost walked away from all things DC with that one.

“Better than BvS or JL” is a very low bar to clear, no???

I’m sorry to hear about Zack Snyder’s daughter, but him walking away from DC movies is probably best for all parties. I have nfi why Zack Snyder keep getting directing job given his recent output.

I don’t know why Zack Snyder started getting work. I’ve only ever liked about 1.10 of his movies. Watchmen was surprisingly decent given the extreme challenge of adapting it, and I liked him using Richard Cheese’s lounge cover of Disturbed’s Down with the Sickness in his Dawn of the Dead remake. That’s about it.

But like…sure, it’s a low bar, but it’s a bar very few DC movies have managed to clear, so as mediocre as Aquaman may be I still think it represents upward movement. (Wonder Woman and Shazam, much more so, obviously.)

We watched it and I didn’t think this was that bad. My girlfriend obviously enjoyed watching Jason Momoa on screen, the entire reason we watched it. I think what I liked about it was how relatively little I knew about Aquaman and how this filled in the blanks a bit.

One hammy part was how brilliant but stupid Black Manta turned out to be. Every chance given they had to throw in, “I’m not doing this for money.” Yeah okay man, we had that the first time you said it. And how brilliant can you be to have all the gear you have now, operate the stealth sub, modify gear that you’ve never seen before but have it comically fail every scene you’re in? If he was that much of a non-entity, why include him at all. That could have been a much better second movie villain explored more fully.

And what about the comical way that everyone underwater had this strange half-mastery, half-not about actually swimming? In some scenes they raced across water with complete mastery. In others as characters were talking they would flail with their hands to move two feet away or to do a 180 degree look around in a spin. These are characters that are literally sea beings. They shouldn’t look like kids in a swimming pool playing marco polo.

The duel with his half-brother could have been a better moment but instead it got dragged out for the rest of the movie. But I did like all of those factions as a back story that was missed out on. I enjoyed the CGI as well.

Despite my musings though, I enjoyed it enough to see another, especially if they explore the backstory of the different factions a bit more.

I agree with Nesrie, I’ve seen worse hero movies, this one certainly wasn’t all horrible.

I did enjoy one scene in the movie. When they activate the device, and it fails to activate, and she uses her magic to get his sweat. And he makes a wisecrack. That made me laugh. Otherwise I’d rate this movie in the superheroes pantheon of movies at the same level as the first Fantastic Four movie. I didn’t much care what was going on in that one either. So why did I finish Fantastic Four, but not Aquaman? I guess because I watched the former in a movie theater.

That’s one thing I still enjoy about movie theaters. It forces you to finish what you started! Even if you’re bored.

Snyder has definitely gone downhill, but I think he had real talent and a great eye once. The Dawn of the Dead remake was great to my zombie-fanboi eye. 300 was superb as an adaption of the comic. Watchmen was fine, even though I don’t think anyone should have tried to make it a movie in the first place. I understand that Legend of the Guardians (animated fantasy owl movie) was good, though I didn’t see it.

But yeah, once he started making DC comic movies, he’s absolutely rolling downhill fast. Justice League was execrable.

I don’t feel like his style or sensibilities have really changed, personally.

I think his fall started with Sucker Punch which I actually thought was entertaining, at least visually. But his style seems to suck the life of things and after awhile it just doesn’t work. It certainly was not the right choice for Superman.