![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() He makes the mistake of making enemies with a pirate’s son (unfortunate for him, and for the movie, which is forced to deal with this most boring and un-ocean-y plot thread over the next two hours). He’s mostly running around doing small-time maritime superhero stuff: thwarting pirates, saving the Russian navy, etc. Fast-forward, and Arthur has harnessed his inherited Atlantean abilities, despite the absence of his mother, who left her land-family to protect them from the vengeful forces of Atlantis. The film opens with the origin story of ’80s kid Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), born to lighthouse keeper Thomas (Temuera Morrison) and Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), the queen of Atlantis, who washes ashore and falls in love with him. It’s also an environment we’re more used to seeing rendered as animation, computer or otherwise, so it’s more elastic, less bound by some notion of realism (and therefore, of course, more prone to look really, really silly). It’s all fun and beautiful and spooky in a kind of uncomplicated way. I’ve noticed that I’m not really alone in this bias among fellow ’80s children Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989) arrived just as our brains were at prime receptive softness, ready to permanently imprint on undersea palaces and friendly tortoises and glowing jellyfish. I am predisposed to be into anything under the sea. So before I get into reviewing Aquaman, to my memory the first DC superhero movie I’ve ever reviewed, I want to get my critical bias out on the table: I love the ocean. It sure beats another grimy green-screen paste job in an airport hangar, and it turns out, those visuals are plenty reason to plop down money for a ticket. I salute the bravery, then, of the folks at the DCEU for diving in, so to speak, and embracing the wacky, airbrush tee-shirt visuals that would be part and parcel of an Aquaman movie whether you made it in 2008 or 2018 or 2048. When the making of an Aquaman movie became an arc on Hollywood simulacrum Entourage, the subtext to me was always that an Aquaman movie would never be made, so it was fair game as a plot device. There are some things that, no matter how advanced our moviemaking technology gets, are never going to look “normal” onscreen. ![]()
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