directed by James Wan
I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. My hopes were not high. I was expecting a train or a shipwreck. In a sense that's what I got but there were some fun moments along the way. I even shed a tear or two at a couple pivotal moments towards the end of the movie. I thought some of the sea creatures were cool but there was a little too much exposition through monologue and dialogue to satisfy my tastes.
Aquaman (Momoa), aka Arthur, leaves the surface world, where he has spent most of his life, and travels to Atlantis to challenge Orm (Wilson), his half-brother. It was Mera (Heard) who convinced him to return to Atlantis. She fails to mention that she is engaged to Orm, who is getting ready to launch at attack on the surface world. Orm proves to be a little more difficult to defeat than Aquaman expected him to be.
Mera helps Aquaman escape and then together they go on a quest to find the trident of King Atlan. They travel to the Sahara and to Sicily before finally finding the missing trident in an underworld sea. Orm sends men after his half-brother, one of whom is Manta (Abdul-Mateen II), a modern day pirate and a surface dweller.
Arthur didn't help save Manta's father earlier in the movie when he caught father and son looting a Russian submarine. Manta wants revenge. Orm gives him technology from Atlantis that he then modifies to look like the Black Manta costume from the comic books and cartoons. He catches up to Aquaman and Mera when they are in Sicily.
Vulko (Dafoe) trained Arthur when he was younger. He now serves as adviser to King Orm. He works with Mera to get Arthur to return to Atlantis. It is he who gets them started on the quest to find the missing trident of King Atlan by providing them with a key piece of the puzzle. King Nereus (Lundgren) is Mera's father. He fluctuates between arguing against going along with Orm's plans and then siding with him. Atlanna (Kidman), Arthur's mother, disappears early in the movie only to resurface much further down the line.
Michael Beach, who plays Manta's father, also worked on JLU. He was the voice of Mister Terrific and Devil Ray, a character that was more or less a stand in for Black Manta. Devil Ray appeared in two episodes of JLU: 3.04 (To Another Shore), which is a favorite of mine, and 3.06 (Dead Reckoning).
Patrick Wilson was decent in his role as King Orm but he excelled in the second season of Fargo where he played the part of Lou Solverson. He was also in Watchmen which I have not watched in it's entirety.
In general this movie was just overloaded with material. It was too quickly paced. It is lighter in tone than Batman v Superman and I appreciate that.
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