Movie Review: Aquaman (2018) *Spoiler Free*

Movie Review: Aquaman (2018) Spoiler Free

I'm not sure what I was expecting from Aquaman though I had heard quotes from director James Wan that his version of the hero would be much more engaging than the brief glimpses we got in Batman V Superman and Justice League.

Whilst the film is far from perfect I didn't expect Aquaman to be so much fun, visually interesting, and be packed full of so much world building that it's hard to believe the entire story takes place on Earth.

Apart from some of the obvious film inspirations like Indiana Jones, and Romancing the Stone some scenes reminded me very much of Blade Runner in the way we are shown the vastness of the Atlantean city.

Although we get Aquaman's origin story this film is not strictly an origin movie. It's more of a side story to the main plot of Arthur Curry's (a.k.a. Aquaman) journey to becoming leader of the seven seas and thus preventing a war with the surface humans.

Casting Jason Momoa as Arthur/Aquaman, it is really showcased here as to why he was the right choice to turn a superhero, who had become the butt of many jokes, back into the really cool, and bad ass character that he actually is. Jason clearly enjoys the role.

Whilst we still get the kind of surfie/beer drinking/rock star image from the character in Justice League, all that is toned down a little, in favor of a little more thoughtful portrayal that is still fun to watch. I also like that, whilst he's a pretty smart guy, he does tend to tune out when something isn't really that interesting to him.

The two main female roles, Queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) and Mera (Amber Heard) are equally as bad ass with some amazing fight scenes for each of them, though it would have been nice if Nicole had more to do overall.

James Wan, in my opinion, gives a master class in world building and CGI, basically handing Zack Snyder his ass (and I like Snyder's films for the most part). I'd put Aquaman on a par with Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 1 for design, world building and CGI. With that said, there are a few dodgy CGI moments but, with so much CGI done mostly really well overall, I can definitely forgive a few areas that were underdone.

I've seen a few comments saying the film was a little long but it didn't feel that way to me. Others have said the main character arcs aren't really fleshed out all that much with very little character growth - which is probably a fair point. In many respects Aquaman is more or less along for the ride for the first two acts of the film.

However, as a comic book movie, I feel it delivers on entertainment, gives you a whole lot of interesting visuals, and is generally just a lot of fun. I'll certainly be adding it to my movie collection when it becomes available on home video.

Comments

Software Stylus for Tablet Drawing

I own an Android Tablet that has available to it many great drawing applications. The trouble is, drawing on a touchscreen with your finger is like trying to sketch with jumbo crayons. As is trying to draw with most stylus pens which are only a marginal improvement over using your finger. Precision drawing on your average touchscreen seems like wishful thinking. However I've had this idea for a software stylus that acts like an extension of your finger and allows drawing with greater precision. See my rough diagram below. Essentially it's a pointer that follows your finger around the screen. Its angle can be adjusted so that from your vantage point it looks like the tip of your finger is coming to a point. Softnib concept sketch. You simply move the pointer around and the line is drawn from the point of the stylus instead of somewhere under your finger, where you can't see it. Obviously I haven't worked out a...

Occupy Wall Street - Movement for Change of... Something?

I've been kind of following the Occupy Wall Street 'movement' from my position of apathetic denial of what's actually happening in the real world - that you can see if you pull back the curtain or disconnect from the Matrix. In particular I've watched vlogs of the Melbourne, Australia, Occupy Movement through the eyes and camera of You-tuber Sean Beadlam . Sean is quite a hard hitting comedian whose humor is topical, political and often based on the injustices faced by the oppressed. He also focuses on the media and how they'll beat up a story to get their 'angle' rather than provide balanced reporting of the whole story. Although not one of his comedy routines this video below from Occupy Melbourne is a good example of Sean's work with several juxtaposes of the Occupy movement with media and Sean's use of technology. Although Sean isn't the only source of my information, you would think that a guy like him would have...

Who Even Reads This?

W riting this blog is largely both a labor of love and a discipline. Since about 2006 (the blog started in 2004) I have written a minimum of two posts per month. Sometimes I've posted more, particularly in the last 4-5 years, where I've tried to write and post at least one article a week without fail. Unfortunately it's not a niche blog, unless the niche is things that interest me. Which means my blog is either too broad to have regular readers or too niche to have anyone other than my mum reading it. Which she does (hi Mum) as we established back in January of 2014 in the post Ya Mum Reads it... That said, this blog overall regularly gets 6-7k views every month, mostly through people finding various articles through search engines. By far the largest traffic source is 'Other' which is basically unknown sources. I'm willing to bet a large percentage of that is the dead internet. Bots testing my comments to see if they're spamable or Illuminati spammers. Whil...

Pt5. Three Cat Tails Painting by TET

Finished: Three Cat Tails Acrylic on Canvas panels. Day five of my video diary (embeded below) following the creation of my latest series of paintings, Three Cat Tails. View Part one , Part two , Part 3 and Part 4 if you haven't seen them yet. In the final episode of this series I get to paint the black and white layers that I thought I'd be painting on day 4 but delayed in exchange for adding more purple and green shadow. The black and white layers take the artworks through to completion. Then I finish each panel off with a dark blue border around the edge (to cover up the paint marks on the sides). Whilst I do continue to talk about what I'm doing as I paint this episode does contain a few quite moments of just me painting away because there isn't really a lot to say about the white and black layer. However I hope you'll stick with it to the end just the same. The series of artworks are available to buy so if you're interested contact m...

Pt4. Three Cat Tails Painting by TET

WIP: Three Cat Tails Darker purple and green shading added. Day four of my video diary (embeded below) following the creation of my latest series of paintings, Three Cat Tails. View Part one , Part two and Part 3 if you haven't seen them yet. Yesterday I said that I would begin on adding my black and white final layers today. However after looking at the paintings a few times over night I decided the cats could really use more shadow to give them just a little more three dimensional form. I had a strong feeling that adding purple and green shadows was what the images really needed. Especially the two larger images needed the purple shading on the background behind the cats to connect them with it - since those two particular images actually make more sense if you get the feeling that you're looking at the cats, laying on a blue floor, from above. At this point I pretty certain I'm ready for my final black and white detail layers - which I'll get onto...

Pt3. Three Cat Tails Painting by TET

WIP: Three Cat Tails Darker shading and cream fur added. Day three of my video diary (embeded below) following the creation of my latest series of paintings, Three Cat Tails. View Part one and Part two if you haven't seen them yet. In this video I mix a dark brown colour to add some shadow and stripes to my cats. You'll see how the brown tones the orange down quite a bit to make the colouring of the cats a little more believable. I also mix a light cream colour to fill in the transitions between the orange and white area of the cats fur. You'll see in a later episode more clearly what I mean once I add the white back in. Note how, when I add the cream, it initially goes on too thick and I have to wipe it back with a cloth and water it down to make it more translucent. The perils of mixing colours with white paint! Finally I finish up by adding in a few small details like paw pads and noses. It doesn't actually seem like I did that much today. O...

Pt2. Three Cat Tails Painting by TET

WIP: Three Cat Tails background and base colours. Day two and part two of my video diary (embeded below) following the creation of my latest series of paintings, Three Cat Tails. View Part one if you haven't seen it yet. After painting my initial base painting using the three primary colours, in this episode I demonstrate blocking in my backgrounds and the base colour for the three cats. This episode is a little longer than the last but hopefully is still interesting to watch. All the painting you see is in real time but obviously edited down quite a lot to show the 'highlights' and I explain what I'm doing as I go. I realize these videos aren't as exciting to watch as the more common 'speed painting' style videos but if your the kind of person that likes to watch over the shoulder of a real live artist at work then these might just be up your alley. Continue to Part 3 .

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog