{"id":1433,"date":"2019-05-07T15:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T21:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1433"},"modified":"2019-03-23T10:29:08","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T16:29:08","slug":"movie-aquaman-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/07\/movie-aquaman-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Aquaman (2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Aquaman\"Aquaman
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2018
\nRating: PG-13
\nLength: 143 minutes \/ 2.38 hours<\/p>\n

Now that Marvel\u2019s 10-year behemoth of its cinematic universe is starting to pay off, it\u2019s becoming more and more obvious that DC is trying desperately to catch up. There\u2019s no doubt that DC has interesting characters, considering how often\u00a0Superman<\/em><\/a>\u00a0has been rebooted and how successful Christopher Nolan\u2019s\u00a0Batman<\/em>\u00a0trilogy was. Even\u00a0Wonder Woman<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2017) had its great moments, despite also feeling derivative influences from movies like\u00a0Thor<\/em>\u00a0(2011) and\u00a0Captain America: The First Avenger<\/em>\u00a0(2011).\u00a0Aquaman<\/em>\u00a0(2018) seems to continue this trend, despite again having a strong leading character (both physically and in backstory\/lore).<\/p>\n

I will give DC credit for their casting decisions here. For decades, Aquaman has been the butt of the joke amongst many superhero aficionados. The fact that Jason Momoa is a badass, snarky, and overall entertaining actor to watch in the role speaks to their awareness of \u201cimage management.\u201d Perhaps featuring him in previous films like\u00a0Justice League<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2017) also helped to get audiences interested in seeing this superhero in a standalone movie. Needless to say, my interest was piqued, and I finally went to see this film. Knowing little to nothing about Aquaman, I was in for an experience.<\/p>\n

While the movie overall wasn\u2019t bad, it felt a little too long. I think the Black Manta storyline was a bit distracting, especially as a setup for a future sequel. After all, when there\u2019s this huge\u00a0Lord of the Rings<\/em>\u00a0meets\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0conflict going on, there shouldn\u2019t be time for these other plotlines. I\u2019ll also say that the plot felt a little derivative of\u00a0Black Panther<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2018), which only had the advantage of being released earlier in the year. There was also a bit of a\u00a0Tron: Legacy<\/em>\u00a0(2010) aesthetic in this movie that I liked. I did feel the\u00a0Little Mermaid<\/em>\u00a0(1989) nod was perhaps a little too obvious, though.<\/p>\n

A Jason Momoa vehicle crammed full of plot and aesthetics from other films, I give\u00a0Aquaman <\/em>3.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" 1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aquaman Year: 2018 Rating: PG-13 Length: 143 minutes \/ 2.38 hours Now that Marvel\u2019s 10-year behemoth of its cinematic universe is starting to pay off, it\u2019s becoming more and more obvious that DC is trying desperately to catch up. There\u2019s no doubt that DC has interesting characters, considering how often\u00a0Superman\u00a0has been rebooted and how successful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[1020,1168,1271,908,1718,1164,1717,84,13,8,284,1123,723,513,907],"class_list":["post-1433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-5-stars","category-movie","tag-1020","tag-aquaman","tag-black-panther","tag-dc","tag-jason-momoa","tag-justice-league","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-marvel","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-star-wars","tag-the-little-mermaid","tag-thor","tag-tron-legacy","tag-wonder-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1440,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}