"Legend has it that one day... a new king will come."

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2018)

The movie is visually impressive, I'll give it that. The underwater battle scene with opposing sides on sea horses and sharks was exceptionally well done. Story wise, though, it was fairly formulaic, and quite honestly, after about the first hour or so, I started getting bored with it. The dialog in particular was rather mundane for such a high profile movie coming out of the DC Comics universe. When Aquaman's (Jason Momoa) response to one of his beleaguered foes, (can't even remember who that was now), was 'Screw you!", I could only groan in embarrassment. This is not what I expected to be coming from the mouth of the future King of Atlantis.
I thought Jason Momoa was a very good choice for the Aquaman role. He has a regal bearing even before his destiny is revealed and I think he's a credit to the DC universe. Maybe it was Amber Heard's brilliantly rendered red hair, but I couldn't warm up to her character as Mera, Aquaman's future queen. The rest of the A-list cast was generally OK, although personally, I don't think Nicole Kidman should come anywhere near super-hero movies based on comic books.
Though my rating of the movie is favorably high, it's all due to the cinematography and capable CGI utilized by the film makers. The after credits sequence sets up the sequel with Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who didn't impress me this time around as the second tier villain behind King Orm (Patrick Wilson). His look was kind of cheesy and too cartoony for my tastes, perhaps a bad harbinger for the follow up Aquaman flick.
As an aside, I couldn't get over the huge amount of one line reviews this picture has here on IMDb since it came out. They really offer nothing in the way of an individual writer's support or distaste for the movie other than to say they like it or hated it. Could do that in a tweet. I guess that says I'm in favor of going back to the ten line requirement that IMDb used to have.