Spectacular superhero film

Rating: 9/10 (2 January 2019)

In a nutshell: if you're looking for an entertaining blockbuster, this is it. The world of Atlantis in particular was beautiful and I hope future films focus on this and expand a lot more on the people and sea creatures.
Surprises: the acting was great from everyone and the storyline made sense (some tropes of course).
The reason the film lost a star for me was that some of the writing was super lame. I understand these hero films don't want to take themselves too seriously but the acting was so good and the story so engaging that some more earnest and sincere responses would have been appreciated instead of lines like 'what a d*ck'. I also didn't like that they made Aquaman come across as a bit of a douche. This is a guy who (thought he) lost his mum as a child and has seen some horrific stuff while saving people's lives but comes across as some carefree surfer dude. I hope the next film shows him exploring Atlantis, taking on his duties and really seeing what it means to be King - perhaps also losing either his mother or wife in some tragic way so that he can grow as a person and change his character's personality in a legitimate way so that the writing can improve as well. As it stands, Aquaman is like a watered-down, less-funny version of Thor and needs his own unique personality.
Minor issues which can be fixed in subsequent films. I'll definitely be watching sequels.
9/10