More of the same from DC

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2018)

The origin story of the 'Aquatic Ace' (Jason Momoa) folds into a somewhat incoherent tale of the titular submarine superhero saving us surface dwellers from extirpation by his villainous half-brother and self-proclaimed 'Ocean Master' Orm (Patrick Wilson) while simultaneously dealing with super-villain "Black Manta" (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II; who looks more like a fruitfly than his namesake batoid fish). Accompanying him is bottle-ginger Mera (Amber Heard), a warrior-princess with the ability to manipulate water in whatever way the plot requires. Needless to say, the two Atlanteans 'meet cute' and then follow the standard relationship trajectory from swapping insults to swapping spit. While agreeable eye-candy in her fishy catsuit, I found the 'Mera' character to be the worst part of the film and the quippy, trite relationship with Aquaman to be more irritating than endearing. Momoa is fine in a not particularly challenging role (the standard-issue, wisecracking, gruff, heroic demigod) as is the rest of the cast (William Dafoe as trusted mentor Nuidis Vulko is given a little more to work with than the rest of the 2D tropes). After a reasonably good first act, the film begins to stretch even the most generous suspension of disbelief when Aquaman and Mera jump out of a plane and hit the ground with no more than a grunt and a couple of quips. There are lots of heroic poses, three point power landings, overly choreographed and unconvincing fight scenes, all set to a pretentious soundtrack and cumulating in the expected climatic showdown between a bunch of characters that we haven't been given enough time (or reason) to care about. The film is spectacular to look at and the 3D cinematography in the version I watched was reasonably effective. I probably would have rated the film a point higher if I had watched it without sound but a point lower if I thought about it more. I am surprised at the scarcity of points in the 'goofs' section, considering the extreme cartoon physics of most of the 'underwater' scenes.