{"id":11121,"date":"2019-01-05T17:06:13","date_gmt":"2019-01-05T17:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/?p=11121"},"modified":"2019-02-12T04:22:43","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T04:22:43","slug":"aquaman-from-lamest-comic-strip-superhero-to-aquadude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/05\/aquaman-from-lamest-comic-strip-superhero-to-aquadude\/","title":{"rendered":"AQUAMAN – FROM LAMEST COMIC STRIP SUPERHERO TO AQUADUDE!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

AUDIO PODCAST OPTION OF AQUAMAN<\/em> REVIEW<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/2019_02_11_21_45_47-Aquaman-Audio-review.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

SHORT TAKE:<\/p>\n

Super cool and buff version of Aquaman\/Arthur Curry who must challenge his bellicose brother Orm for the underwater Kingdom of Atlantis to prevent a war with the human race.<\/p>\n

WHO SHOULD GO:<\/p>\n

Mid-teens and up for some language, a great deal of cartoon violence which might be scary for younger children, the topic of adultery\u00a0and a LOT of cleavage.<\/p>\n

LONG TAKE:<\/p>\n

When I was growing up, Aquaman was arguably the lamest \"\"<\/a>superhero on the block. Justice League\u00a0<\/em>re-presented\u00a0Jason Momoa (the ill-fated Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones<\/em>)\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>\u00a0 as a long haired hard-drinking \"\"<\/a>rockstar\/biker-dude Aquaman and it WORKED! This\u00a0watery super hero\u00a0has all the battle finesse of the Hulk and the smart aleck attitude of Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em>. He was fun to watch and the highlight (with Gal Gadot’s long cameo as Wonder Woman) of the otherwise fairly anemic Justice League <\/em>movie.<\/em>\u00a0This new installment to the struggling D.C. Universe\u00a0reestablishes\u00a0Aquaman’s origin as a comic book hero.<\/p>\n

The \"\"<\/a>bright vibrant colors, a complex but nonsensical plot, \"\"<\/a>the ooh aah\u00a0largely unexplained but visually exciting\u00a0weaponry and\u00a0pseudo technology, the\"\"<\/a>characters with semi-magical abilities, the\u00a0scene-chewing\u00a0hammy handed acting from even the likes of \"\"<\/a>\u00a0an over-breathy Nicole Kidman, and the posturing dialogue\u00a0all underscore the comic book source material.<\/p>\n

The story begins\u00a0as\u00a0Queen Atlanna (Kidman)\u00a0of Atlantis flees an unwanted arranged marriage with a king we never meet. \"\"<\/a>Wounded but still pretty battle-feisty she washes up on the shore of a lighthouse keeper, Tom Curry,\u00a0\"\"<\/a>(Temuera Morrison) with whom she falls in love. Several years later,\u00a0she has\u00a0born\u00a0Tom a son, \"\"<\/a>who they\u00a0name Arthur, purportedly after the hurricane raging about them at the time, (foreboding anyone?) but obviously as a nod to\u00a0Camelot, one of the many derivative references used to cobble together the script.\u00a0Atlanna is soon forced, for the sake of her baby and his father, to return to Atlantis. \"\"<\/a>The Once and Future King Arthur, (of the ocean not Camelot), is trained periodically by visits from\u00a0Vulko \"\"<\/a>(Willem Dafoe).<\/p>\n

Fast forward\u00a0to Arthur’s\u00a0Biblical 33rd year and a war is set to break out between the about-to-be-blindsided human race and Queen Atlanna’s younger and legitimate son, Prince Orm \"\"<\/a>(Patrick Wilson, mostly known for supernatural scariest like The Conjuring<\/em> and Insidious <\/em>series), who blames his mother for having brought shame to their family by bearing a half-breed\u00a0bastard with a human.\u00a0Orm strives to bring Unity to the nine Realms of Asgard, I mean the Seven Kingdoms under the ocean. He also wants revenge on the human race\u00a0for the human waste dumped into the ocean.\u00a0(Can anyone say\u00a0Captain Planet<\/em>?) No mention is made, of course as to:\u00a0how\u00a0the Atlantians\u00a0and their \"\"<\/a>hordes of sea critters handle their\u00a0bathroom\u00a0issues any differently, the fact that the\u00a0dumpage is biodegradable, that the ocean is incredibly vast, Atlantis is pretty darn far from any coastal areas, and the other six realms don’t really seem to have any bone to pick with the human race. Sounds like\u00a0Orm simply\u00a0has mommy issues and brother envy\u00a0to me.<\/p>\n

Princess Mera, (Amber Heard, mostly eye-candy in previous films such as The Playboy Club<\/em> and Magic Mike XXL<\/em>)\u00a0the daughter of King Nereus \"\"<\/a>(Dolph Lundgren, as the rough tough guys in Rocky IV, Creed II<\/em> and The Expendables<\/em>\u00a0franchise\u00a0– keep in mind this man has a chemical engineering degree!),\u00a0seeks Arthur out to stop the war by encouraging Arthur, the eldest son,\u00a0to take his place as the rightful\u00a0King. Arthur is\u00a0reluctant as he\u00a0aligns himself with humans and\u00a0seems sure\u00a0Atlantis is\u00a0a nice place to visit but doesn’t want to live there. He is also mad about the fate of his mom \u2026 but I won’t give any spoilers here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mera and Arthur set out to find a special Excalibur-like Trident whose power is so strong it will not only\u00a0defeat baby brother Orm, but\u00a0bring all the realms together in a peaceful coalition. The rest of the movie is taken up with\u00a0so many quests, including: duels,\u00a0long treks through wastelands, \"\"<\/a>battles with\u00a0armies of inhuman monsters, underwater labryinths, and lessons in humiility, that\u00a0Hercules’ patience would have been put to the test.<\/p>\n

The whole thing is a big, bloated, but ultimately fun hoot. I can see why it was a huge hit in China. \"\"<\/a>A lot of time\u00a0is spent in\u00a0meaningful stares,\u00a0\"\"<\/a>posturing in action figure stances, and dramatic appearances. There were times when the stilted language, \"\"<\/a>bright colors and poised settings\u00a0made it easy to envision the comic strip frames\u00a0each scene could have been inspired by.<\/p>\n

There’s no hanky-panky, although Atlanna lives with Arthur’s father out of wedlock, eschewing her obligations and fianc\u00e9.\u00a0Arthur, in turn, spends most of the movie having \"\"<\/a>“managed to get his shirt off” (thank you Galaxy Quest<\/em>). There are\u00a0a handful of minor profanities, which parents of minor children might not want repeated, and topics of war, adultery, and murder which parents might deem inappropriate for younger children. So, honestly, not much worse than your\u00a0average Grimm’s fairy tale.<\/p>\n

The CGI in the early scenes with Nicole Kidman and Temuera Morrison is pretty creepy. While not Tron: Legacy-<\/em>level\u00a0disturbing nor Henry Cavil’s Justice League<\/em> Superman-mustache ridiculous, it’s distractingly noticeable. And CGI Willem Dafoe, in the training scenes, looks\u00a0cut directly from a\u00a0high-quality video game.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The music is darker and more ominous than it should be for a kids’ superhero movie, but then the topics of adultery, murder, treachery, betrayal, and\u00a0incitement of global warfare are all pretty dark topics as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The character of Arthur \/ Aquaman is the highlight of the show, with his genial, protective giant personality, who rarely takes anyting completely seriously. \"\"<\/a>With the size of Drax, the impulsive nature of Peter Quill, the fighting skills of Gamora, and the snarky attitude of Rocket, his D.C. hero is\u00a0almost the entire Marvel\u00a0Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> crew in one.<\/p>\n

The bright vibrant colors in almost every scene clues you, right away, that we are here for a comic-book good time. And, ultimately, what do you want? As I have admonished before in other blogs about similarly themed movies: this is not Hamlet<\/em>, or Chekov. It’s a superhero movie. Enjoy.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AUDIO PODCAST OPTION OF AQUAMAN REVIEW SHORT TAKE: Super cool and buff version of Aquaman\/Arthur Curry who must challenge his bellicose brother Orm for the underwater Kingdom of Atlantis to prevent a war with the human race. WHO SHOULD GO: Mid-teens and up for some language, a great deal of cartoon violence which might be … Continue reading AQUAMAN – FROM LAMEST COMIC STRIP SUPERHERO TO AQUADUDE!!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2577,499,2568,2560,2561,2555,2565,1872,2581,211,2572,2574,2556,1924,2573,2554,2566,2558,2580,2575,2559,1804,2570,2571,2557,2576,2563,2562,887,2579,2567,2578,2569,1162,1015],"class_list":["post-11121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amber-heard","tag-aquaman","tag-arthur-curry","tag-atlanna","tag-atlantis","tag-biker","tag-camelot","tag-cgi","tag-china","tag-comic-book","tag-conjuring","tag-dolph-lundgren","tag-environment","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-insidious","tag-jason-momoa","tag-light-house","tag-maic","tag-mera","tag-nereus","tag-nicole-kidman","tag-ocean","tag-orm","tag-patrick-wilson","tag-pollution","tag-realms","tag-sea-horse","tag-sharks","tag-super-hero","tag-temuera-morrison","tag-tom-curry","tag-trident","tag-vulko","tag-water","tag-willem-dafoe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/poster.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6mhKV-2Tn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11121"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11477,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11121\/revisions\/11477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeschoolmommoviemavin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}