Aquaman

After this, you will want to immediately jump into your local swimming pool and start holding your breath underwater as long as you can.

Here we go. After several months of doubt since the disappoint that we know as "Justice League", the bet was all on "Aquaman" to finally get the DC Franchise back on track and prove the haters wrong. Thus, I went into the theater blind to the reviews and with no particular allegiance to Marvel or DC, because things like that do nothing but over-complicate my critique. Whether the general reception now is positive or negative, it should be a fact that "Aquaman" is one of the most exciting superhero movie in recent years, on par with "Avengers: Infinity War" (a lofty claim indeed). The one superhero movie I immediately draw comparisons to "Aquaman" is Marvel's "Black Panther". The most obvious similarities lie on the fact that both protagonists are of royal blood, are from a hidden world on Earth, and are battling a member of kin for the throne. Behind that is how their conflicts arise. In "Black Panther", it has to do with the oppression of African-Americans while in "Aquaman", it has to do with marine pollution. The ocean world of Aquaman (Jason Momoa) has had enough with the surface world's barbaric tendencies and Orm (Patrick Wilson) is scheming to unite the 7 kingdoms of the ocean, to conquer the surface once and for all.

However, despite their similarities, it is my humble opinion that "Aquaman" is far better than "Black Panther" for this reason: its breathtaking depiction of Atlantis. See for yourself. Just look at the creative combination of colours and the designs of the Atlantean creatures, structures, costumes. Absolutely gorgeous. The feat becomes even more impressive when each kingdom of the seas has their own style of armour, weapons, army and so forth. The designs are different enough from each other that you can easily attribute a personality to each different underwater kingdom, which proves to be helpful especially because the world of Atlantis is absolutely colossal. Another praiseworthy component is the immaculate embodiment of how the characters sound and look like underwater. You can see the hair floating, the voices ever changed so slightly for echoing effects and the graceful movements underwater like dolphins dancing. The attention to detail towards the picture under various settings is simply extraordinary, and as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Thus, for a person who admires fantasy art such as myself, this is heaven. The effort put into the design has to be appreciated no matter what, because it practically brings Atlantis to life. I regret not watching the movie in IMAX and missing out on the visual galore.

But is "Aquaman" all just visuals and no substance? Where is the beef? There are a few noticeable weak-points that have recurred within the DC franchise in the past. The story's pacing is inconsistent and rushed in the beginning, in that much of Aquaman's childhood background as a half-blood prince feels trivialized and occasionally interferes with the tone of any scene that it drops in between. Still, with the short amount of time that the movie had to properly build up five core characters, I'm impressed that the writing didn't turn out any worse. However, "Aquaman" deserves genuine criticism for its dialogue. If anything hinders the characters' charisma in the movie, it is the cringe-worthy things that they say and their mundane style of speaking. The lack of memorable one-liners in the movie is also quite disappointing, because one-liners are generally the component that provides a spotlight for characters. If the movie did have some occasionally good wisecracks and cool remarks, then perhaps the actors failed to deliver them properly. Still, that is not to say that all the characters in "Aquaman" are bland, but a better set of dialogues would have definitely helped in improving much of the movie's spirit. Fortunately, the flip side is that the movie is still pretty good despite all the flaws.

Villains are the most important foils of any superhero movie. A hero has to square up against meaningful enemies in order to form a meaningful storyline. Traditionally, this has been DC's strength over Marvel by a wide margin. In "Aquaman", Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Orm are great villains who contrast Aquaman's characteristics and hike up the stakes of the conflict. As such, they fulfill the villain role almost perfectly, and even more so for the condescending way they speak and the pure apathy towards the hero and the surface world. My praise towards Black Manta and Orm mostly stems from Abdul-Mateen's and Wilson's performances (respectively) and in my humble opinion, they have embodied their roles better than Momoa has embodied Aquaman. If the dialogue is delivered at its best, the movie owes Black Manta and Orm a cold one.

Nevertheless, the movie's greatest strength is its persistent crescendo. While "Aquaman" is forced to begin slow, the story gets better and better, one sequence after another once all the necessary background information about Atlantis and the protagonist is dealt with. Patience is your best friend, while you experience the gratifying progression of Aquaman as a callow child, to a brash surface world hero and eventually to the King of Atlantis. In no time, the movie unleashes a massive deep-sea battle, whose magnificence is on par with the Battle of Minas Tirith Beggins from "Lord of the Rings". 2 hours and 30 minutes of superhero extravaganza may be an excessive run-time, but with a sequence as imaginative as shown in "Aquaman", every minute of the movie has been used efficiently in order to awaken the best epic adventure that any Atlantean hero can ask for. Therefore, my best advice to you is watching the movie in IMAX. Although I am not a fan of spending more for a mere visual luxury, I have to spoil myself this Christmas.

I daresay that "Aquaman" is more epic of a superhero movie than "Avengers: Infinity War". Hear me out. The main reason why "Infinity War" received so much hype and popularity in the first place is because it is a culmination of over 15 interconnected installments. Since the first "Iron Man" in 2008, fans had the time to be familiar with the characters and have a relationship with the franchise. Naturally, the grand finale was planned since day 1 and after 10 long years, all "Avengers: Infinity War" had to do was walk onto the stage. On the other hand, "Aquaman" had nothing but 2 hours and a half and the debacle known as "Justice League" to piece the world of Atlantis together and present the final act within the same movie. In such case, what "Aquaman" managed to do is more impressive than any other superhero films thus far. "Infinity War" is awesome because of the deluge of emotions, which anyone who is familiar with the franchise would know. "Aquaman" is also awesome because it embodies a hero's journey from start to finish and caps everything off with a huge cherry on top. That being said, I wouldn't rank "Aquaman" ahead of "Infinity War" just because of the sub-par plot structure and dialogue, both of which seem to be recurring problems in every DC installments so far. But as far as how epic "Aquaman" is, it's a serious competitor to "Infinity War".

So is "Aquaman" the best DC film to date? I wholeheartedly think so, because it imbues us with unparalleled excitement through its detailed production design, the likeable characters, and the grandiose final act. I have never seen a theatre applaud as soon as the end credits roll, and this tells me that a lot of people have enjoyed and will enjoy "Aquaman" and also that DC is capable of making worthy films. The biggest advantage that DC has currently is its depository of new characters. You may have seen Iron Man or Captain America enough times and frankly, bored by their show. But have you seen a trident-wielding warrior who can control all water on Earth? Have you seen a unique race of people fight against each other underwater? Novelty is what we want, and there is an abundance of newness in "Aquaman" and more to come from DC. Besides, we all know that Superman can probably destroy half of the Avengers' by himself. But why does that matter? A good movie is a good movie and we should acknowledge a good movie when we see it, no matter what our so-called allegiances are. And now that the precedents are set for DC, I'm can't wait to see what "Shazam!" and "Wonder Woman 1984" have in store for us.

"Aquaman" is everything that the trailer promises. Cool and epic!!!