Amber Heard stars opposite Momoa as the female lead, playing Mera of Atlantis, and is an inspired choice to match him. The movie is a lengthy 2 hours and 23 minutes-and it feels like it. The story feels like it takes a bit more of an outside-looking-in approach to Arthur and his journey, but it may also have a lot to do with how much story is getting packed into just one film. And Aquaman is actually just as much about his family, the world around him, and the journey to truly becoming Aquaman as the character himself. The strength of Momoa as Aquaman, though, is really only as strong as the players-and film-around him. He's not exactly who I'd imagine Aquaman from the comics to be, but he proves to make it work in this film. Momoa has carved out celebrity status on his own as Conan the Barbarian in the 2011 remake, Game of Thrones, and on shows like Stargate: Atlantis (coincidentally), and even Baywatch. Last year's Justice League introduced Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry/Aquaman to the world (I don't think the tiny cameo in 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice really counts). With this film, the IMAX format was truly immersive, so I felt it truly brought out the best the movie had to offer. The underwater scenes-particularly when Mera takes Arthur through Atlantis-really are breathtaking. it's not all that impressive anymore, like in The Meg, for example), director James Wan and his team used the technology quite effectively in Aquaman. And while I've become numb to the over-use of CG in films (i.e. The aspect ratio changed frequently throughout the film to fill the screen during the action and underwater sequences. The trailers also did little to get me pumped for an Aquaman outing, which is sad because the film actually turned out to be quite good and a lot of fun-especially presented in a larger format like IMAX. Like Patty Jenkins did for Wonder Woman last year, James Wan has done for the King of the Sea, further proving these heroes fair better on their own than in a high concept collective film.

Now, a year later, a standalone Aquaman movie is performing incredibly better at the box office and is doing everything Justice League should have done to not only further establish the DC Comics cinematic universe, but also introduce brand new characters to audiences abroad.

Jason Momoa is more of a 'surfer dude' type to be playing the iconic blonde-haired, orange-and-green suited superhero of the ocean, but Justice League didn't do much more than to paint the character as a caricature. Sadly, last year's Justice League did little to spark my interest in the character (or follow-up film) Aquaman-despite its intentions to. Movie Reviews (Main) > Movie Reviews (Main).Indie Reviews (Main) > Indie Reviews (Main).

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