Fellmans Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers 

The first Aquaman did very well monetarily. But, depending on who you ask, you’ll get varying answers on whether or not it was a good movie. The consensus is that the dialogue and acting are sub-par, which they are. While the effects are above average because they’re done by Industrial Light and Magic. In my opinion, it’s not a bad movie. It’s just not pulled off as well as they thought they did. The acting is over-exaggerated by almost everybody while giving super-long, boring speeches at opposing points of the script. It’s like this parabellum of dialogue where there’s no intermediary. It’s either way too much or way too little. The script isn’t necessarily bad, it just seems to switch directions kind of suddenly. You were here. Now you’re here. But there’s not really any in-between of how you got there.  

What’s it about? Thomas Curry, the keeper of a Maine lighthouse, sees a woman outside on the beach somehow during a huge storm. So, he goes out and saves her and brings her back inside the lighthouse, only to have her wake up and attack him after eating one of his fish. They end up falling in love and having a son that they would name Arther, who would then become Aquaman, the future hero of the movie. It turns out she is the Queen of Atlantis and was fleeing an arranged marriage. Atlantean troops come to take her back and she fights them off, telling Thomas that she has to leave or they will keep coming until they finally get her. She leaves, sending Nuidis Vulko, a trusted friend, to train Arthur as a skilled warrior. Arthur finds out that Atlanna was executed for loving a human and having a half-breed child and refuses to go back to Atlantis and becomes Aquaman in the present day. During a pirate attack, he fends off David Kane and his father Jessie. Arthur refuses to help save Jessie’s life and David vows revenge on Arthur. King Orm Marius, Arthur’s younger half-brother, is trying to unite the four Kingdoms and become Ocean Master. After being attacked by a submarine, Orm sends a Tsunami towards the surface. King Nereus daughter Mera, who is betrothed to Orm, refuses to help them and asks Arthur for help. Arthur goes back to Atlantis with Mera after the Tsunami Orm sent almost killed Thomas, his father. Vulko tells Arthur to find the Trident of Atlan, a powerful artifact of Atlantis’ first ruler, to reclaim his rightful place as king. Soon after, they are ambushed by Orm’s men and Arthur is captured. Orm blames Arthur for Atlanna’s death and almost kills him in a duel before Mera saves him and helps him escape. Arthur and Mera travel to the fallen Kingdom of the Deserters in the Sahara, where the Trident of Atlan was forged and unlock a holographic message, leading them to Sicily, where they find the Trident’s coordinates. Orm gives David Atlantean technology which he turns into a power suit and dubs himself “Black Manta”. Black Manta then goes to fight Arthur, but Arthur defeats him, slicing him across the face, destroying the helmet to his suit. After that battle Arthur and Mera travel to the trench and have to escape a horde of amphibious monsters by traveling into a large maelstrom. It turns out to be a portal to the center of the Earth, be they can’t go back and are reunited with Atlanna. Arthur faces the Karathen, a giant sea monster, and recovers the Trident of Atlan, which gives him control over the seven seas. Orm leads his army against the Brine to become Ocean Master while Arthur returns with the Trident and all the ocean creatures recognize him as the true king because of it. Arthur duels Orm and beats him, choosing to spare his life instead of killing him. In a scene during the credits, David Kane is seen floating on some wood in the ocean when he’s rescued by Dr. Shin, a conspiracy theorist who’s looking for Atlantis.  

What’s good? It’s an action movie. There’s a lot of good action sequences. The effects are great. That’s what it was made for. Underwater fighting and spear tossing. This movie has it. It’s a good time.  

What’s bad? It’s not exactly Shakespeare. It’s comic book dialogue. It sounds like comic book dialogue. You can tell it’s comic book dialogue. You can practically see the sound bubbles above their heads. 

The acting? It’s not great. Everybody is really overly dramatic for some reason. Like they’re trying out for a high school play or something. You’d think they would be more relaxed for such a high-profile movie, but they all seem so tense and uptight.  

The effects? It was done by Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic, so it’s pretty much the industry standard of special effects. It’s not really gonna get any better than this right now.  

How did he see her out there? How did Thomas see Atlanna out on the shore in the first place? She was laying out there on the rocks and he was just like “What’s that small white object far away on the beach near those rocks…?” Seems like a flimsy pretense for him to bring her in, but it would be a pretty short movie if he didn’t. 

She immediately attacks him. Atlanna immediately attacks Thomas even though he was trying to save her because she was escaping anybody that was chasing her, and she didn’t know he was trying to help. She easily could’ve killed him because she’s an Atlantean and he’s just a regular human. She had no idea.  

Why does she eat the fish? Do they just grab random fish that swim in front of them when they’re underwater? How does that work? She just grabbed a random fish and ate it.  

Jango Fett with hair. I was having such a hard time recognizing who Thomas was because I couldn’t place Jango Fett with hair. I’ve never seen him in anything else besides Star Wars, so I didn’t know who he was aside from that.  

It would be worse if it’s a man that hit them. It’s a lot worse that it’s a man that hit the submarine that hard, isn’t it? Because now there’s a man outside the submarine that can take a hit like that, and he’s about to come aboard the submarine… 

Kane’s dad makes him a supervillain. David Kane’s dad kind of makes him become a supervillain. He makes him promise to swear revenge on Aquaman, and then he pulls a grenade and pulls the pin on it and makes David get out of the sub. He kind of paints David into a corner with nowhere left to go except “supervillain”… 

Only the High Born’s can breathe water and air. What’s this class exclusivity stuff about? High Borns? Is that like Alphas in 1984? How come only they can breathe air? Is it genetic? Where did they learn that skill? 

How did they gain the ability to breathe underwater? How did Atlanteans learn to breathe underwater? They just suddenly COULD breathe underwater. How long would it take for humans to evolve like that? It sounds like they fell and were like “We need to be able to breathe underwater!” “Oh! Got it!” And then, POW! Aquatic humans… 

What’s the point of the helmet? Why do they wear helmets in the first place? They’re underwater all the time. How often do they go into air? Aren’t they totally opposed to the surface? Why would they ever be in contact with air anyway? It seems like literal “fish out of water”… 

Everybody’s always making speeches. The dialogue in this movie transfers from yelling something to a long, drawn-out speech about something, usually in the same scene. Somebody’s real excited about it, but then they have to explain WHY they’re excited about it… It just doesn’t work the way the director thought it was going to.  

Why did she jump out of the plane? Why did Mera jump out of the plane with no parachute or guidance or anything else. She just ran to the door and jumped out. Did she not realize they were thousands of feet in the air? Could she not see the ground all the way down below them and realize how far down it was? 

Why did the kid give her the Pinocchio book? Why did the kid give Mera the Pinocchio book in the first place? That kind of just happened for no reason. Like, “hey, here, have a book…” With no context behind it whatsoever. Once again: just jumping around with no explanation. 

That lady seemed very non-plussed that people were busting into her house. That lady didn’t seem to care at all that people were crashing through her ceiling. She was awfully non-plussed by the whole thing. Like it was an everyday occurrence for her or something. (sigh) “Again with the crashing through the ceiling…” 

These Atlanteans are causing an awful lot of property damage. For underwater dwellers that have never been on the surface before, they seem to be causing an awful lot of property damage and not caring at all about it.  

Why is she dressed like a skeleton? Why is Atlanna dressed like a skeleton? Is that her battle armor or something? Is that how she dresses when she fights those creatures that come through that portal that brought them to the center of the Earth? I’m not really sure how the whole thing works.  

Is he gonna go right away? Is he gonna go right away? He’s not even gonna take like a five minute break or something. Rest up for a minute. He’s just gonna head right in there and face the giant monster immediately? 

Is the Karathen his familiar now? Does Arthur own the Karathen now? Is it like, his familiar? Since he has the Trident, can he tell it what to do? Because that is literally the most insane thing ever. It’s a literal monster. He could go and tear airship carriers in half. Who could stop him? Just be like “Yeah, this is my monster…” 

So, yeah. Go and see Aquaman. It’s worth seeing, once. I watched it just to see it. I wouldn’t watch it again. It wasn’t THAT good… And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…