Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Put a Hook In It!

or

Basting Away Again in Peter-Jackson-ville
 

"Everybody's good at something," Arthur (Aquaman) Curry (Jason Momoa) exposits at the beginning of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. "Me, I talk to fish. Some people think that makes me a joke. But, I'm also good at something else. Busting heads."

 

Just what you want from the King of Atlantis. A lot has happened since the first Aquaman movie. Arthur is now the King of Atlantis and he's just managing to keep his head above water, finding that it requires more compromise with the multi-species Atlantean Council than merely busting their heads. He has now "put a ring on it" (and not one of his telekinesis rings) and is married to Mera (Amber Heard—she's in this a lot more than people were gleefully speculating, proving once again that the Internet is a very fallible, mean-spirited place), and they have a son, Arthur Jr. (too many babies to mention), who is just starting to take on Dad's traits. The couple are living at the lighthouse of Arthur's Dad (Temuera Morrison, again) and Mom Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) stops by every so often to help manage the chaos.

But, these are troubling times: Arthur's mentor Vulko (Willem Dafoe, MIA) has died in "the plague" which is glossed over more than at Kennedy for President Headquarters. Half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) is in prison for his crimes while King of Atlantis (Hmph. Must be nice.) and the Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) has skipped a couple steps of the grieving process and is still plotting revenge against the A-man for the death of his father and given to going around the lair muttering things like "Every day I don't fix my power-suit is another day Aquaman lives." That's not exactly a good morning affirmation and hints that not only the power-suit has a screw loose. He's aided and abetted by some disposable Manta-mob and Dr. Stephen Shin (Randall Park), one of those brilliant McGyver-esque scientists who can use alien technology on the first try but just not brilliant enough to get a legitimate job.* Dude can't even get a grant!

Anyway, the plot is some nonsense about Manta being so OCD avenging his Father that he puts the entire Earth at risk, seeking out a power source to revive Kordax (Pilou Asbæk), the frozen dead King of the Lost Kingdom of Nekrus, that was banished from the 7 Atlantean kingdoms a long time ago in a Peter Jackson-style flashback. Manta has a found a green-glowing trident (called "the Black trident") with which he can communicate with Kordax, but it's usually a one-sided conversation of Kordax telling him what to do.

So, Aquaman and Atlantis get wind (or current) of all this, and A-man decides that he needs to recruit some help, which he does by springing his brother Orm out of prison, with the help of a invisi-suit, and a stealth octopus by the name of Topo (which stands for Tactical Observation and Pursuit Operative) and, as Mom Atlanna explains he has a "genetically engineered intelligence for infiltration and espionage." "And," she explains further "he also plays a variety of musical instruments" (I only remember him playing drums in the comics, but it's been a while).

Orm and Arthur (of course) have "history" so they bicker and feud and bust each other's chops perpetually and it would get very tiresome if it weren't for Momoa's boisterousness and Wilson's acting response to him. Which (in its brilliant way) is to underplay to such a degree that one gets the impression that all of this mayhem and craziness is pretty much run-of-the-mill stuff and as real as clammy palms. I thought Wilson and his Orm character were the dullest part of the first Aquaman feature, but here, he's an absolute tonic of dead-pan stoniness and competence.**

It's needed. The surprise of him is needed because this one feels a bit rote. The first film had all the gee-whizzery of a new play-set, but this one seems to be missing a couple of necessary parts. Oh, it moves like anything, with whooshy, spinny, disorienting action sequences every ten minutes of so, but there are no great set-pieces like the first film's violent mad dash across Sicilian roof-tops. Nothing drops your jaw here.

Except for some of the special effects and not in a good way. The first film was a fun world-builder with its undersea kingdoms and giant seahorses and mounted sharks. But, you get the impression that since the first one was a hit the producers felt they could scrimp on the CGI budget and take full advantage of the murky, shimmery water overlays to hide some dodgy pixelation. There's one whole sequence where it feels like everybody's head is slightly askew of their bodies, and it's a bit of a relief when a sequence shows up with no digital effects at all. But, they're few...and far between.

It's a bit of a plunge from what the first one offered, even factoring in the "thrill of the new." This one feels clogged with recycled material--from The Lord of the Rings, Black Panther, even Iron Man. The comic book world is naturally self-reflexive and the same tidal forces apply to comic book movies. You have to do something different, risking the loyalty of fans, to reinvigorate a property, and that is something that producers are not brave and bold enough to do. It's a question of stemming the tide or just becoming back-wash. Forget about Lost Kingdoms. This should have been called Aquaman and the Lost Opportunity.

 Aquaman, Storm and Topo...together again.

* Imagine Shin's job interview with Black Manta: "Dr., what do you see as your five-year goals?" "Well, developing a more powerful energy source." "WRONG answer! It should be to KILL Aquaman!" "Uhhhh-huh! (uncomfortable pause)...Do you offer insurance?"

 

** Ya know who else is good in this movie that you'd never guess? Dolph Lundgren. He was very good in the first Aquaman, but here, he's given more to do and he's subtle and majestic. The man was born to play kings. 

Dune (Part 1)

As the Worm Turns

or

"So, It's Done?" "It Is Done." (No, It's Not)

 

There have been two previous versions of Frank Herbert's classic novel "Dune"—the 1984 David Lynch version* which tried to be trippy and kinky and ended up looking like any other Dino DeLaurentiis sci-fi movie and the Syfy Channel did a mini-series in 2000, which had a bit more of a bead on Herbert's novel, but looked cheap and seemed mis-cast. And there's the legendary Alexandro Jonorowsky version that cost two million dollars while never getting out of the design phase. "Dune" has a considerable history in both the science-fiction and literary circles (which don't intersect too deeply) and has passed through the minds of many directors and scenarists who have considered cracking it, distilling it, trying to fold it into a manageable narrative. No one's been able to do it, especially the folks who made the ones that exist. 

 

The problem with both of them is those versions were so...white! I'm not being a Social Warrior saying this, because "Dune" was not concerned about race in the story, so much as it was with the politics of imperialism and the pivotal moment when indigenous people rise up against their occupiers. It's also concerned with taking back the resources for which that tribe's land is plundered. And it's about the pressures of a charismatic leader, especially when there is a zealotry aspect to it. And it's about evolution. And ecology. And power. And religion. And myth. And a few other things all mixed into the big sandbox. There is too much of Planet Earth in "Dune" for the cast to be solely Aryan. For it to work, there has to be a clash of textures...and I'm not talking about in the production design.

Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) has been having bad dreams. He is the scion of the House of Atreides, led by Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) and his concubine (Rebecca Ferguson), a priestess of the secretive and influential Bene Gesserit sect, which has been tasked by the Galactic Emperor to take over the fiefdom of the planet Arrakis, the source of the spice "melange", which has made its way throughout the societies as an essential mineral, allowing faster than light space-travel, hyper-sensitive senses, and higher cognitive abilities. Without melange, the gears of humans among the stars grinds to a halt. The spice must be mined, and the House of Atreides has been given the planet's charge to increase production.

Actually, the whole thing is a manipulation by the Galactic Emperor to destabilize the most powerful houses, the Atreides' and the Harkonnen's who have been the previous exploiters of Arrakis, a role they have undertaken brutally. With both houses fighting to the death, wasting their resources while doing so, the only winner would be the Emperor, who would be that much more powerful with no threats to his primacy. But, for Duke Leto it is an opportunity too tantalizing to resist—melange is the oil by which so much of the infrastructure of the Galaxy depends, and if he can successfully increase its harvest, his House will become very powerful, indeed. Possibly bigger than the powers of the Emperor to interfere with. Duke Leto is trying to buy his House's future, but even he doesn't know—couldn't fathom—that it has already been determined, pre-destined, as long as the will to sacrifice to achieve it is followed through. But, that is out of his control.

This version of Dune concentrates on the political manipulation that sets these events in motion, and it is the only failure of the movie that it decides to keep the run-time down to a hefty feature length (although one never feels it's too long). But, it is also the film's strength in that it doesn't scrimp on the detail that makes the story-telling so rich. One feels that this is the first true adaptation of Frank Herbert's vision of things (it has "'thopters"!—he said geekily) with a genuine-looking epic scale. Spaces are vast and the functionally-designed ships seem like they have weight.** At the same time, it manages to convey the vulnerability of little objects—like people—caught up in those expanses.

The cast is top-notch, putting more emphasis on the characters who will disappear (temporarily) like Josh Brolin's Gurney Halleck and Jason Momoa's Duncan Idaho, and focusing on the character of Paul (Timothée Chalamet—I've never seen him less than interesting), at first a callow youth unsure of his place in things, then becoming more of the "man of the house" when they get dicey. And for his limited time on-screen, Javier Bardem makes the most of his role as Stilgar, the leader of the indigenous Fremen (the film ends during a pivotal moment when Paul meets the tribe—a scene that wasn't even IN Lynch's theatrical cut). These flashes of characters will (hopefully) be expanded in any continuation, making one want to cross fingers in anticipation. It's a frustrating business not knowing the future.

That the actors stand out in the epic-ness of Villeneuve's frames (with the masterly expertise of DP Greig Fraser) and don't get lost in it all is a testament to their abilities. You have to be on your "A"-game to compete when Villeneuve gets caught up in his production design, leaving you strolling for minutes enjoying the sumptuousness of the scenery and lighting. He has overplayed that hand in the past, but, here, it all works and works well. No crippling exposition. No favoring the scenery over the characters. The people are figures in the director's landscape, a part of it, and not just walking through it.

And what a landscape it is. This is a beautiful film, whether it's the glittering of "spice" wafting among the grits of the Arrakis sand, or the alligator grills on the sand-worms, or the insectoid nature of some of the tools, the snap of the uniforms, or the vast horizons that bisect the screen, this is world-building and story-telling at its best and most compelling (for a nice sampler of shots check out the video below from the "Amazing Shots" channel at YouTube). 

 

This is the adaptation of "Dune" has been waiting for.

 

 

* Lynch turned down directing Return of the Jedi to make this film. Can you even imagine what that might have looked like?

 

** And if I can add an "anti-advertisement" here for HBOMax. I don't care how big your home-screen is, this film deserves to be seen in a theater! 

Zack Snyder's Justice League

Zack Snyder's Justice League (Zack Snyder, 2021) Buying the DVD of Zack Snyder's Justice League—his sanctioned "taking-back" of the Warner Brothers "studio-notes" theater version—cost as much as two months of HBOMax, and I must say, in comparison, it was a bargain. I have been reluctant to be swayed into buying into streaming services, maintaining that theaters will come back, and there are very few enticements for having them take money out of my accounts month after month, when the economic model necessitates other means of seeing them.

 

So...(I hear you ask) "is it better?" Yup. And by a wide margin. My initial review of the theatrical version of Justice League was somewhat laudatory—more concerned with knee-jerk backlash towards it—but, in seeing it again a couple times one could see the pacing issues, grating inconsistencies of tone, a certain desperation in the product to compress the content gracelessly and be winsomely attractive. "The Snyder Cut" takes more chances and takes a lot more time doing it. The Warner mandate to cut Snyder's intended two-part 4 1/2 hour opus into a single 2 hour film must have seemed an impossible feat to accomplish (and one must give kudo's to Joss Whedon for even attempting it and managing to meet their specs despite the ham-fisted result), especially when the evidence shows just how much of Snyder's film wasn't in the theatrical version (which we'll simply call "Josstice League"). The story is basically the same, but, good Lord, there are whole completely different versions of scenes throughout the thing, with nary a line repeated. There are bits and pieces in the story-line—the first Earth-war with Apokolips, the Gordon scenes, the confrontation at the "Superman memorial"—but for the most part the shot choices and dialogue are unique to this version. There are far fewer "oh, yeah..." moments than "that's new" moments. And, for me, there weren't any "I miss that" moments...at all.

The length is daunting, which is why I think it was never, ever intended to be one film (that and Snyder has a tendency to make super-hero films that are already prepping for sequels). Still, the overall experience of watching it feels much more organic than the cropped mess of the "Josstice League." Segments progress naturally—they "feel" right. And more importantly, the big action set-pieces—like the fight under the Gotham harbor—finally "work" in how they're shot and edited in sequence—they have geography and you see how things are playing out among all parties and how the stakes rise and fall as they intensify.

What's more, the film hinges on the characters given short-shrift in "Josstice League"—those being Jason Momoa's Aquaman, Ezra Miller's Flash, and especially Ray Fisher's Cyborg. Sure, there's plenty of scenes with Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman and a lot more with the Amazon's, a couple of tid-bits with Ben Affleck's Batman (with even more taken out), less haggling among the heroes, more of Alfred (Jeremy Irons), more of Joe Morton's Silas Stone and his co-hort at StarLabs, Ryan Choi (Ryan Zheng)—these are all improvements utilizing good actors—and you get representations from Jack Kirby's gallery of "Fourth World" villains (most prominently, Kirby's "Big Bad Guy" Darkseid), and a considerable "Steppenwolf" upgrade.

It's the three heroes-in-hiding from Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, that get a lot more coverage and a bit more respect. Momoa's Aquaman has a lot more scenes with Mera (Amber Heard) and now, also Vulko (Willem Dafoe) and there's a bit of a continuity gaff in that here, nobody can talk underwater as in the Aquaman stand-alone film (they have to make air-bubbles to communicate). The Flash is given more background including a rescue of young Iris West (Kiersey Clemons) and the character's annoying geeking is toned down substantially and slightly matured. But, it's the story of Victor Stone/Cyborg that is the most expanded and the most from which the film benefits. Fisher is given much more chance to shine as he goes from bitter accident victim to reluctant super-paraplegic to confident team member.

But, it's not all roses. This version is rated "R" for a reason. There are a couple of prominent "f"-bombs* that may be earned but won't impress the parents of young superhero fans. And the level of carnage is greater with prominent blood spatters (that would have been digitally removed for theaters) and the final disposition of Steppenwolf by Wonder Woman (she is an sword-wielding Amazon, after all) that is far more MPAA-adverse than just letting the bad guy be dispatched by his own minions off-screen. Edgier, but not the way parents, censors (or even the Comics Code Authority) would like. One is always aware that in the movie-world, the film creators are always less concerned with body-counts than the comics-heroes (as dictated in the comics by parental watch-groups) would be.

This prompts the question for whom film-makers are making movies, even though, in this special case, Snyder has had the supported mandate to please himself. With the content far more unconstrained than the behavior displayed in the four-color versions, are they making it for themselves, for the fans, or for the studio? One would say the first, less the second, with the third being the cranky arbitrator between the two. Snyder makes them for himself—what he'd like to see—and for that imagined film audience that wants more realistic, mature versions of childhood heroes (ala the Christopher Nolan model—Nolan is still the exec. producer of this one)** It's interesting to think about, given the many hands involved.

So, I was pleased with what I saw, tarnished slightly by the fact that I'd seen a bastardized version before.*** But, what a difference it does make to have a singular vision, whatever issues one might have with it, rather than an elephant made by committee. In a subtle way the film makes that point, and one hopes that Warner learns it, and that Marvel takes the lesson as a cautionary tale.

 

* One was deliberately added by Snyder in his "new footage" shot for the Snyder version. If he doesn't have to fight over it with the studio, I suppose he said "why the fuck not?" So, Batman says it. And Cyborg says the other one at the height of his bitterness.

** Nolan has been working exclusively with Warner for almost two decades, but the recent rifts over the super-hero movies he and his wife have shepherded there (and the studio's insistence on simultaneous streaming) have had a consequence—Nolan's next film (involving J. Robert Oppenheimer) is being made with Universal. Warner wasn't even being negotiated with.

*** One curiosity I had was the way the theatrical version photographed Gadot's Wonder Woman—it's more sexualized, seeming to concentrate on her posterior than apparent when Snyder and director Patty Jenkins called the shots. And, yes, Snyder had no such prurience in his cut.

Batman gets Frank Miller's goofy Bat-tank.

Notes on the DCEU

I'm going to be recording a podcast discussing the DC Extended Universe films later today and I thought I'd do a gut-check on current thoughts about them that have differed from my views in the offered posts...it's a way of putting things into perspective and eliminating free-ranging thoughts that aren't pertinent—the panel is going over five films and detours and dead-ends won't help much.

To review, here are the posts of the five films in question:

Man of Steel:
https://bloggingbycinemalight.blogspot.com/2016/03/man-of-steel.html
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice:
https://bloggingbycinemalight.blogspot.com/2016/03/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice.html
Wonder Woman: 
https://bloggingbycinemalight.blogspot.com/2017/06/wonder-woman.html
Justice League:
https://bloggingbycinemalight.blogspot.com/2017/11/justice-league.html
Aquaman:
https://bloggingbycinemalight.blogspot.com/2019/01/aquaman.html

1) There are films missing: Suicide Squad, Shazam!, Birds of Prey. There is a shared Universe aspect to these...Ben Affleck's Batman and Ezra Miller's Flash appear in Suicide Squad, and Henry Cavill's SUIT appears in Shazam! but these films are back-channel/alleyways to the main streets of the other films...the way Guardians of the Galaxy appeared when its trailer plunked down in the middle of the Marvel run of movies.*

Also, there are other films missing: Christopher Nolan's "Batman" films—it was Nolan's success with these that steered Warner Brothers to expand their DC Comics properties and drag them out of development hell, and they pegged Nolan to spear-head Man of Steel as executive producer. He was part of the decision-making team that hired Zack Snyder to direct and helm the project and oversee the accelerated the roll-out of the DCEU.

The biggest difference between the Marvel and DCEU game-plan is that DC had no executive overlord like Marvel's Kevin Feige to master-plan the films and the hired-hand directors must do battle with the Warner Brothers studio over all strategic matters. There once was a time when Warner Brothers would champion the films of directors like Stanley Kubrick and Robert Altman and so many others—the priority was the films. Now, it's the bottom line.

The money has always been important, of course. Everything about a film, especially its budget, is concerned with making that money back and extend it to profit. But, these superhero movies are considered less than movies: the goal is not to tell a good story or make a good film, but to make as much money as possible. They are properties, but more than that, they are considered "tent-poles" on which studios depend for their very existence lest they fold. That's a lot of weight to be put on a pole.

The emphasis should be on making one good movie, rather than a series of them. Don't count super-chickens before they're hatched; make a good one and then you have the right to make any further ones. But, not until. There's a story about Sean Connery: Christopher Reeve called him (when he was cast as Superman for the 1978 Richard Donner film) and asked the man who was James Bond how to avoid being typecast and Connery's reply was apt: "First, be good enough that you DO get typecast, then worry about it..."

Studios should heed the advice.

2) The reviews were written of their time; If the movies had premiered in a media-vacuum, there might have been less time spent on the reactions, assumptions, speculations...and outright mendacity upon (and even before) the films' releases. My reviews are a bit too much a push-back against all that noise; better to stick to the subject than the echo, of course. Perhaps I'm giving the two "Batman" films too much credit—I do think they took admirable chances—and the display of the fallibility of Batman (exploiting his cynical cautionary nature) is a good choice, but at the expense of the Superman-dark emphasis, which might have been a fatal flaw in Batman V Superman. Snyder's Superman is so morose and misunderstood, one doesn't feel tragedy at his death, merely a deepening depression—we never see "the big blue boy-scout," only Superman under siege and doubting, never sure of his purpose and offer inspiration. We only see Batman's view (exacerbated by Lex Luthor's machinations) and that is not a pleasant movie-going experience. At least Justice League allowed a glimpse of "that" Superman to offer the contrast, but by that time the murk of the DC Universe is so pervasive that it's almost jarring.  

3) It was announced this week that the mythical "Snyder-cut" (or "A Snyder-cut") of Justice League will be made available on HBO MAX next year. One wonders exactly if it's necessary or what it will entail. Some effects work needs to be completed, evidently, and this version is reportedly 4 hours long...whether it is the originally conceived two-part film or merely a really long part one, one can only speculate (and there's quite enough of that going on). One suspects it will be a mixture of good and bad, not unlike the "Donner-cut" of Superman II, but at least one would be able to see the original intention, rather than the make-shift corporate compromise Warner Brothers sanctioned. 

* And there is another one—2011's Green Lantern (plunked down between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises) pre-dating Man of Steel by a year. No one has mentioned 2019's Joker.

Aquaman

Currying Favor ("You'll Believe a Man Can...Swim")
or
He's Not Just a Punch-Line from 'Entourage' Anymore

Two places where DC beat Marvel to the super-powered punch: the first superhero film featuring an iconic woman superhero-Wonder Woman (Catwoman and Elektra don't count) and the first underwater superhero movie—this one. Marvel's Namor: the Submariner, which is the Marvel version, debuted a couple years before Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger created Aquaman for the comics in 1941.

Aquaman always had it tough—he was always a straight-up hero—Namor was exotic looking (kinda Spocky) and could be a bad-boy-villain type when Marvel's writers didn't know what to do with him. Aquaman was a blond-haired Aryan in gold lame and fins who talked to fish and had a particularly weird weakness—if you wanted to kill Aquaman, you had to keep him out of the water for an hour, and that was a hard and fast hour; A-man would croak right at the hour mark, not 59 minutes, not 61 minutes--1 solid hour. And if he encountered a drop of sweat at 59:59, he'd be okay. He became popular—or at least "known"—when he shared the by-line of "The Superman/Aquaman Hour" back in 1967. Then, when Hanna-Barbera took over the DC heroes in the "Superfriends" cartoons, Aquaman became something of a joke—"the lamest of the superheroes." There was a running joke on the old "Entourage" series that had actor "Vincent Chase" starring in a James Cameron directed Aquman movie. 

Aquaman from TV's "Smallville"

The bad rep was so intense that when Zack Snyder came up with the character concept for him in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, he made a "surf n' turf" Aquaman, beefing him up in the form of tattooed bad-ass Jason Momoa who looked like he'd rather be riding Harley's than giant sea-horses—as a matter of opinion, Momoa would have been fun playing DC's "Lobo"—their dirt-bag galaxy-spanning "Main Man." 

You laughed at Mamoa's Aquaman at your own risk because he'd beat your ass and take pictures while doing it. The concept worked, in no small measure to Momoa's charisma, so the blonde Aryan version of Aquaman just might be obliterated from popular culture. I'll drop no salty tears over that.

The Snyder-Aquaman carries over to his own film, directed by James Wan—he of Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring. So, you know it's going to be a bit different in style and substance. It even starts with that horror movie trope of shutters banging against a house. A lighthouse at that. Momoa narrates the story of how his father, Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison—you may remember him as Jango Fett—all of them—in Attack of the Clones), a lighthouse keeper, finds the figure of a woman (Nicole Kidman) on the rocks during a violent windstorm and takes her in. He cares for her and they fall in love and start a family with a young son they name Arthur. Turns out she's Princess Atlanna from Atlantis (uh...sure, honey) who has escaped from an arranged marriage.

Life is idyllic for the Princess and Curry, but there are problems with the relatives. At some point—it's never explained how—an attack squad from the sunken civilization of Atlantis comes calling to take her back. They should have brought a bigger army because Atlanna single-handedly takes them out, causing quite a bit of damage to the lighthouse at the edge of the ocean. Knowing that her family will never be safe, Atlanna bids Curry and her son goodbye and dives back into the sea to face the consequences.

Young Arthur grows up and decidedly takes after his mother—in flashbacks throughout the movie, we see him growing up under the tutelage of Atlantean emissary Vulko (Willem Dafoe) on how to be a bad-ass—it's the sort of training  where Vulko explains that Atlanteans can talk under water and the kid goes "Wow! I CAN talk underwater," in order to short-circuit any objections from logicians who'll accept underwater civilizations but insist that an air-pocket be created anytime someone has something to say (I have issues with Atlanteans riding around in aquatic skiffs when it's demonstrated they can swim just as fast as these Atlanteans do, but that's just me).

We first get to see Aquaman in action when he stops a bunch of pirates from hijacking a nuclear sub. Evidently it's a family affair because Dad Jesse Kane (Michael Beach) is showing son David (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) that he's earned the right to lead the group. Then, Aquaman shows up, rescues the crew, but leaves a particularly bad situation—Dad's trapped on the sinking sub while David tries to free him, but must abandon the effort and him, leaving him to die. That creates the required revenge plot; he wants to kill Aquaman, by any means necessary, but more violently than leaving him out of the water for an hour.

Now, the sub attack did not come out of the deep blue—it was planned and engineered by Orm (Patrick Wilson), Atlanna's other son and half-brother to Aquaman and the current King of Atlantis. Orm is mightily P.O.'d that the underwater kingdoms have been the dumping grounds for the surface world's pollution and military activities. So, his intention is to launch an attack against the land-dwellers and unite the seven tribes (one per sea?) of ocean-dwellers in his efforts, effectively making him The Oceanmaster©®.

Oh, and by the way, he wants to eliminate any rivals to the throne, so he wants to kill Aquaman, too, putting his intentions in line with young Mr. Kane, whom he's recruited to attack Atlantean troops and create a motivation for other tribes to side with him in his crusade. In return, Orm gives him some Atlantean tech to make himself a villain called Black Manta. That effectively introduces all of the major Aquaman villains, with the exception of the Skipper's and Red Lobster franchises and all of the cruise lines.

Orm launches the first—er—wave of attack by unleashing tsunamis that beach a lot of aircraft carriers and garbage onto the beaches. One such section swamps Aquaman and his father, almost killing him, if not for the life-saving efforts of Princess Mera (Amber Heard), adopted daughter of King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren, surprisingly, and even more surprising is it's a good performance), who, with her powers of controlling water manages to yank all the briney out of Tom Curry's lungs. It isn't entirely altruistic—she wants Aquaman to come to Atlantis to stop Orm and take his place as King. Given that Aquaman has issues with Atlantis—that they consider him a half-breed mongrel and that they killed his mother by consigning her to "The Kingdom of the Trenches," he wants no part of it.

But, a clandestine meeting with Vulko convinces him that he should at least try, if he doesn't want to see a full-out war between land and sea, and the best way to do that is to find the powerful fabled trident of the original King Atlan of Atlantis, a quest that gets interrupted before it starts when Orm's troops drop in and capture Arthur. The King makes him an offer—leave Atlantis forever and live (if he survives the Earth-Sea War, of course)—but Arthur, given his lofty position as Orm's prisoner, instead, challenges the King to a fight for the crown...which Orm, being a jerk and slightly off his sea-horse, accepts.

Orm has the advantage of home-turf...or the watery soggy version of home-turf...and all but defeats Arthur in combat, but the A-man gets a last-minute rescue from none other than Orm's intended, Mera, who cancels her registry at Davy Jones' Locker and takes him on a a far-flung search for Atlan's magical trident, first to the Sahara desert where it was forged and then to Sicily for the final clues they need to find its final resting place.

How do you accessorize in Atlantis? With Portugese Man o' War, of course!

Of course, you can't go ten minutes in a super-hero movie without a fight, so Manta and some Atlantean guns pursue the two heroes through the streets and do a very good job of scorching a lot of Sicily before they are able to continue on their search...which will come with more than a few surprises (some of them quite cool, for instance, a vocal performance by Julie Andrews, anyone?) that they find under the sea (Don't cue the song, this isn't Disney, but the other guys).

Well, that's quite a lot to fathom (cough). But Wan, working with a rather dense script by DC's Geoff Johns, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, and Will Beall, manages to keep the story straight while not drowning it with various Atlantean cultures and their habits (there will be sequels to explain the tribe of "Fishermen"). He does all this while also coming up with some astonishingly epic visuals that are weirdly beautiful, vaguely threatening, and awash with fascinating detail.

It becomes apparent very early on that Wan is a horror film director, and not one of suspense, an interesting choice for this type of adventure film. Because just when you think things are nice and calm—*BOOM!*—something explodes with no warning, enveloping the actors and the screen and eliciting many a popcorn explosion in the theater. On the other hand, he's great at action set-pieces, creating whirling epic fights that are ingenious in the smaller scuffles, and downright "Lord of the Rings" epic in the big ones. In one sequence, two huge armies face off against each other, one riding great white sharks while the others are astride Jurassic seahorses (how cool is that?). In the Sicily sequence, he stages a running battle between the heroes and Black manta's goons that involves following them through walls and rooms and across roof-tops without any evidentiary edits to curb the momentum.

One wonders where it can possibly go next: the major Aquaman villains have been introduced, the family units established. I suppose they could go into Mera's story, although that would tend to swerve the series into a romantic story, which is problematic in the superhero genre. One hopes that it doesn't depend on Orm as an antagonist the way Marvel's Thor series has clung to Tom Hiddleston's Loki (Wilson's OceanMaster isn't nearly as fun).

Perhaps they can borrow from ancient mythology to build on the Arthurian legend that the series could naturally fall into. But, this is a good start, but not so exceptionally done that there isn't any room for improvement. Hopefully, the creators will venture into the deeper end of the pool, rather than stay in the shallows.