Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 29

Iida's in pain, caused by Stain, Izuku is on the case, to put him in his place.

Last time on My Hero Academia, All Might received some disturbing news. His friend and police contact Detective Tsukauchi told him what they’d learned about the Noumu that they captured. According to DNA tests, this monstrosity was originally a petty criminal that has been augmented with drugs and had several other people’s DNA forcibly added to his own. This is unusual as such Chimeric fusions don’t induce multiple powers in people, leading Tsukauchi to believe the DNA fusion is due to someone’s Quirk. All Might is visibly shaken at the thought that this proves “Someone” is back. Meanwhile, Shigaraki meets and instantly hates Stain the Hero Killer. In a bid to out do the hero killers notoriety, Shigaraki unleashed three Noumu into Hosu City, where he’d dropped Stain off in. He hopes his monster’s rampage will make everyone forget about Stain. And, while Stain abducted and sets about killing a hero called Native, Iida tracks him down. He vows to defeat his brother’s assailant and claims the name Ingenium before the battle begins.

With Izuku, his mentor for the week, Gran Torino, singlehandedly fends off a Noumu from attacking their train car. He tells Izuku to stay in his seat while Torino deals with this, but Izuku being Izuku ignores that sensible order. He leaps after Torino and the Noumu back to the city. On the street, Torino is able to easily outpace the Noumu, but the monster is easily distracted. When Torino proves to be too hard a target, it turns its attention on a few bystanders. Thankfully, the monster is incinerated before it can hurt anyone. That colossal Domineering Incendiary-lobbing Condescending Kiln-impersonator (Don’t give me that look it’s been a while since I did a DICK acronym) Endeavor, had come to town to hunt down Stain and decided to step in on the Noumu. While he’s a terrible parent, the dude’s fire power is peerless, he burns the creature to cinders in seconds.

Some men, and monsters, just want to watch the world burn.

Unfortunately, there are still two more Noumu to deal with, a bat-winged gargoyle creature and a behemoth that lacks eyes. As Izuku runs in to lend aid, he happens to hear Iida’s mentor Manual loudly call out for his missing student. Izuku realizes that his stiff friend had probably run off to deal with Stain and starts looking for him.

With Shigaraki, we flashback a few hours. Turns out, sometime either just before or right after dropping Stain off, he demanded his master turn over the six Noumu that recently been finished for his use. Master, being a cautious but ambitious man, lets his student have three. They’re not as powerful as Duckbill Noumu, but the three should be destructive together. Shigaraki is certain that his monster’s attack will eclipse Stain’s reputation by the time dust settles.

Back with Iida, he gives the vile Stain a speech about how amazing his brother was as a hero and how heartless it was that Stain took that from the elder Iida. He reaffirms his identity as Ingenium, and rushes his nemesis. Stain easily dodges, stabs Iida with a spiked boot and knocks him to the ground. The twisted shinobi mocks the new Ingenium and claims both men who’d held the name aren’t ‘real’ heroes. In a fury, Iida screams that he’ll kill Stain. Stain then points out what a failure Iida is as a hero, because he’s focusing on his vengeance more then protecting the injured hero Native. He then licks Iida’s blood, and Iida is suddenly paralyzed. Before the villain can capitalize on his advantage, Izuku highspeed leaps in and punches the jerk hole off his friend.

Izuku punch!

Izuku realized that Stain is probably connected to the League of Villains and that his modus operandi meant he’d be somewhere far from the action with the Noumu. Focusing on that idea, Izuku highspeed leapt around the back alleys until he found his friend at Stain’s mercy. He wants to lead the villain to the street, so they could get some backup from more heroes, but the paralysis of Native and Iida makes it impossible. After hearing Stain pontificate about how corrupt the hero world has become, he realized that the villain is a fanatic. He texts something out before the fight continues. Iida begs Izuku to run, as this isn’t his fight, but Izuku refuses. Since, yeah know, heroes meddle. He rushes Stain again. He’s able to dodge around Stain’s sword and hits him with a 5% OFA smash. He knocks the baddie for a loop, but Stain is able to slash him with a dagger and licks up the blood. Izuku drops, paralyzed as well.

Stain praises Izuku for being a real hero, focusing on saving others above all else. He might just leave Izuku alive after killing the “fakes” Native and Iida. Before he can hurt either of them, a massive blast of flame forces him back. Todoroki walks up. Izuku had texted out his gps location, which caused some confusion for Todoroki, but he figured it out and rushed right over to help his classmates. Izuku advises Todoroki keep out of Stain’s stabbing range, which he does with his fire and ice attacks. He takes a moment to point out to Iida that, if he really wants to be Ingenium, he needs to let go of that killer look in his eyes.

Izuku starts twitching, much to his own surprise. Stain, deciding to get his kill, distracts Todoroki by throwing a kunai and runs to kill Native. Izuku gets up and lunges at him, knocking the villain away. This causes some confusion, as Izuku was the most recent victim of Stain’s Quirk and should still be immobile. They quickly theorize that Stain’s power must work according to blood type. Present Mic’s disembodied voice explains to us, the audience, that Stain’s power is called Bloodcurdle. He paralyzes his victims for several minutes depending on their blood type. It goes O, A, AB, and B, with O being the shorted and B the longest. Stain’s blood type is B for those who are curious.

Todoroki and Izuku hit Stain in tandem, Todoroki’s ranged attacks making openings for Izuku and Izuku’s close combat skills giving Todoroki ranged options. Todoroki muses to himself that he knew Iida’s hatred as it was the same kind that he carried for so long. He was able to let go of it after seeing his mother and hearing her tell him to keep moving forward. Her advice was what let him get out of his own way and work for his dad, something he’d have never done before. Love or hate Endeavor, he’s the second greatest hero in Japan, so there’s a lot he can learn from him. Iida tells his friends to run, as he feels he’s not worth all of their efforts and potential sacrifices. And Todoroki tells him to stop whining and be a hero, to be the kind of Ingenium that Tensei could be proud of. This seems to hit a cord in Iida and he starts struggling to move. Damn you guys!

Okay, so let’s talk about Stain. As of right now, we know that he’s insane. He is a man that is so against the idea of non-selfless heroes that he is hell bent on killing or maiming any hero that even slightly seems like they’re doing it for the money. Stain, buddy, we all love Spider-Man but not everyone can do the whole poor hero thing. Despite this insanity, he’s incredibly skilled. His gear and weaponry are all optimized to increase the odds of drawing blood. He flips swords and knives around with such skill that you’d think his powers were physically based. Instead, he has what might seem like a near useless power in paralysis via ingesting blood. I don’t know about anyone else but that just sounds ookie. That all said, he’s a convicted SOB. He believes wholeheartedly in his mission to ‘purify’ the word hero, and does make a few good points. He’s got that in common with Thanos I guess, nutty but has a few good points. It’s a shame he went nuts. If he’d made it as a hero, he probably could have done a lot of good with his power. I like that his words seem to have a jarring effect on Iida. I could think of few things more emotionally damaging then facing off against one’s sibling’s assailant and realizing that he has good points about your job. Side note, I’m really confused why Ingenium was on his list. As far as we know, he’s just as committed to saving people selflessly like All Might. Really, the only difference between the two is that Ingenium had a ton of help in his sidekicks. So, I guess the hallmark of a real hero is doing it yourself. Thankfully, Izuku, Todoroki and hopefully Iida will be able to stop this psycho before he does any more damage. 

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Review: Into the Spider-Verse

A hero passes the torch.

Let’s talk Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This latest bit of Spider-Man animation is a fun and yet kind of dark film portraying the rise of the most popular character to bear the moniker Spider-Man, after Peter Parker himself that is, Miles Morales. Some might scoff at an animated Spider-Man movie, in my humblest of opinions this is one of the best movies starring a Web-Head that I’ve seen. Enough preamble, let’s get to it.

We open to the usual Spider-Man explaining his thing. Peter’s been Spider-Man for around a decade, has been knocked down, but gotten up time and again. He’s got a wife, the respect of New York City, and even a Christmas album. He unfortunately did the Saturday Night Fever strut, too. So, life is hard but doable.

It takes him a while, but once Miles gets into the... swing of things
he looks damn good.

 We switch over to Miles Morales. He’s an intelligent but insecure young man that is on his way to a private prep school he’d recently been forced to attend by his parents. Officer Jefferson Davis and Nurse Rio Morales just want what’s best for their son, despite his own protests. He struggles through a very difficult Monday, which was topped off by being assigned an additional essay by his physics professor after he tried to tank a T/F test. Seriously kid, who intentionally gets every answer wrong on a T/F test? Rookie mistake. The one silver lining of the day being he met a suspiciously familiar blonde girl that laughed at one of his stupid jokes… how odd.

Feeling burnt out and stressed out, Miles snuck out of his dorm to see his Uncle Aaron. Aaron is one of those uncles that the kid loves for being cool and carefree, but his own brother tries to actively keep his son from because he’s a bad influence. In a bid to improve Miles’ confidence, Aaron takes Miles to an abandoned subway station to paint with his graffiti art. While Miles is absorbed in painting, an oddly colored Spider with Alchemax 42 stamped on its abdomen starts crawling around and no him. Said Spider also occasionally jitters and morphs oddly before reverting back to normal. The spider is courteous enough to let Miles finish his art before biting him. Miles rather unceremoniously swats the thing and goes about his night.

It's a good group.

The next day, he notices the usual Spider-Man changes. He’s bigger, more muscular, and suddenly is showing off weird abilities. The worst of which being his adhesion, which gets his hands stuck to the blonde girl “Gwanda’s” hair. What an odd name, Gwanda. It’s like she was initially going to say a name starting with a G but chickened out halfway through. Her hair is shaved to remove Miles' hand, which makes odds of him impressing her seem small. He’s then chased around school by a security guard, climbs around the building, and ends up in his room following getting mostly stripped and attacked by pigeons. Feeling overwhelmed, Miles tries to get in contact with Aaron, but his uncle has left town for work. He also considered calling his folks, but how do you tell your dad you have spider powers? Desperate, he goes back to the subway station and the spider, hoping to get some answers from its body. He finds the spider, but is distracted by from his examination of it by Spider-Man and Green Goblin crashing through. He dodges around Goblin and Spidey’s brawl, ending up in a secret laboratory Wilson Fisk built under New York. Fisk had built a MASSIVE particle accelerator and turned it on, despite Spidey trying to convince him that potentially creating a blackhole is a bad idea. While fighting, Spider-Man saves Miles, and the two sense that they’re both Spider-People. While Peter clearly wants to help the fledgling Spider-boy, he tucks Miles away and attempts to shut down the stream. Got to save the world before training a rookie. This proves all the more difficult when Prowler joins the fight alongside Goblin. Despite the two-to-one odds, Spider-man is able to hold his own. Goblin grabs Spidey and tries to kill him by shoving the web-head into the accelerated beam. While his head is in the beam, Peter sees the breath of creation and a cosmic web connecting realities. The machine blows, causing a massive energy wave throughout New York, killing Gobby and injuring Spidey. Miles finds Spidey, who promise to teach Miles all he needs to know about being a Spider-Man after he climbs up and disables the accelerator permanently using a USB drive Spidey had. Mile is unable to climb up to the top of the accelerator, since he can’t completely control his powers, but is able to hide before Fisk and his goons, Tombstone and Prowler, find Spider-Man. Spider-Man tells Fisk his plans won’t work, and the enraged gangster executes Spider-Man via crushing. That was a dark end to Spider-Man. Miles makes a run for it, but Fisk notices and sends Prowler after him.

Miles bids a hasty retreat, and barely escapes Prowler. He runs home, and spends the night at his folks. The next day, word spreads about Spider-Man’s Death. Miles buys an ill-fitting Spider-Man costume from a charming old man, miss you Stan, and attends a eulogy delivered by Mary Jane Parker. Inspired by Spider-Man and his widow, Miles attempts to figure out his powers to live up to Peter’s legacy. Unfortunately, he smashes the USB after failing to leap from a building. He goes to Peter’s grave, to apologize. He’s approached by a mysterious man that Miles ends up shocking with his Venom Strike powers. The hobo is knocked back, but he webs Miles before hitting the ground, unconscious. Miles exams the guy, only to discover a very worn out, very shabby Peter Parker.

He's so damn big!

 This isn’t the same Peter we were introduced to at the start of the movie. This is Peter B. Parker… which is an odd difference considering both Peter’s are Peter Benjamin Parker, but whatever. Peter B. was Spider-Man in his universe for twenty years. His career started out similar to Blonde Peter, saved the day a bunch, he married MJ and he was generally beloved. But, years of financial trouble, the accumulated bruises and broken bones of his hero life, Aunt May dying and his divorce from MJ left him a jaded and nearly broken man. He was pulled into this universe by some sort of rip in space time. While not expressly stated, it’s implied that Blonde Peter being forced into the Accelerator beam drew this Spider-Man into this world.

Once Peter B. wakes up, he’s initially very dismissive of Miles, see above about him being jaded and nearly burnt out. But he agrees to help train Miles when he learns he has to steal a new Goober, his word for the USB and any McGuffin that helps him save the day, to hack the accelerator. They take a bus to the Alchemax facility that made it. Outside the building, Peter B. leaves Miles to stand guard while he breaks in and hacks their system to get a new Goober. Miles initially stands guard, but rushes in to warn Peter B. when Fisk and Tombstone arrive. In the vents, Peter B. and Miles listen in on the villainous plan. Basically, Fisk is giving his head scientist 24 hours to finish the experiment. Once they leave, the Spider-Men slip into the lab.

Peter is forced to distract the head scientist while Miles, who reveals he can turn invisible as part of his fight-or-flight response, hacks the computer. Peter gets strapped into a chair and is examined by the scientist. She notes that Peter B.’s cells seem to be reacting poorly to being in the wrong universe and he’s falling apart on the atomic level. And that she’s excited to watch. It’s at this point that she drops her labcoat and does up her hair, revealing a familiar harness with four tentacle-like appendages coming out of it. Turns out, this is Doctor Olivia Octavius, aka Liv aka Doc Ock. Whoops. Miles helps Peter B. escape and the two make a run for it with Ock’s computer tower. They’re nearly caught by Ock and her small battalion of scientists, but are saved at the last minute by a Woman in White, aka Spider-Woman aka Spider-Gwen aka Gwanda. Yeah, saw this one coming.

Somehow, the stickers make it MORE intimidating.

We get another flashback intro with this new Spider. In her universe, Gwen Stacey has been Spider-Woman for two years. She’s had fun, being the drummer in a band and having saved many lives including her father, Officer Stacey. She, though, was unable to save her Peter’s life after he became her version of the Lizard. She’d been pulled across dimensions a week prior during one off Fisk’s earlier tests. It was a transdimensional bore into Space/Time, getting knocked literally back into last week is not that unusual of a side effect. She wants to help the two Spider-Men and herself get home.

Back at Alchemax, Fisk flashes back to what started all of this. Turns out, his wife and son discovered that Fisk was a crime boss during a fight with Spider-Man. In their hurried escape from Fisk Tower, they were killed in a car accident. Fisk is forcing this cross-dimension experiment through in order to try and get them back. Or a reasonable facsimile. Doc Ock returns and tells Fisk about the Spiders escape. Fisk is infuriated by the Web Warriors, but is really unable to do anything about it. He orders the Accelerator be finished by that evening.

Needing a safe place to examine the computer and program a new Goober, the Web Warriors go to one of two places that Blonde Peter would have, Aunt May’s house. The dear old woman is shocked to see a shabby version of her very dead nephew on her doorstep along with two teenagers. But recovers quickly. It’s Aunt May, she’s a fighter. She takes them to Blonde Peter’s secret… well… Spider-Cave where they can program a new Goober, and introduces them to three more Spiders that had a similar idea.

I kind of love Gwen's costume.

We have Spider-Man Noir, a Peter B. Parker from a 1930s universe who works as a PI, fights Nazis and sounds like Nicholas Cage doing a Humphrey Bogart impression. Then there is Peni Parker, a Japanese girl from a far future universe who has giant fighting robot she co-pilots with a spider she has a psychic link to. And finally Peter Porker aka Spider-Ham, a living cartoon character. After the intros, everyone not native to Miles’ universe starts having a warping stroke that they call glitching. It’s only then that the Web Warriors realize that if any of them want to get home, one will have to stay behind to destroy the accelerator after they’re gone and ultimately die. Miles volunteers to help, but the more experienced Spiders doubt his skills. Miles leaves after its clear that no one besides Peter B. has any confidence in him.

Miles goes to his Uncle Aaron’s apartment, in order to write a goodbye note to his beloved uncle, only for the Prowler to come in and reveal that he is in fact Aaron Davis. Shocked by this, Miles tips off Prowler that there’s someone in his apartment and a new chase commences. Miles is able to evade Prowler, but accidentally shows the hired gun where to find the Web Warriors. Prowler brings along Tombstone, Doc Ock, and Scorpion as back up. A massive brawl occurs, trashing Aunt May’s house. Miles ends up on the roof with Prowler, and reveals to Prowler who he is. Fisk orders Prowler kill that Spider-Man, but Prowler refuses. He’s shot by Fisk and mortally wounded. Miles escapes Fisk with Aaron to a back alley. He stays with his uncle as he dies. He is nearly caught by Jeff, but Miles camouflages and escapes.

Jeff Davis is a Cop, Aaron Davis
is a criminal, Miles Morales is a
superhero. Crazy family.

Back at Miles’ dorm room, he starts smashing things out of frustration. The other Spiders arrive and, after scaring the piss out of Miles’ roommate, give Miles the “You can’t save everyone” speech. Between the seven Spiders featured in this movie, we have two dead Peters (Miles and Gwen), three dead uncles (Peter B., Noir, and Miles), one dead unnamed father (Peni), and whoever Spider Ham couldn’t save. Weird that he’s the only one who didn’t name a name. They're also there to let him know that Peter B. is going to be the one to shut down the accelerator. Miles protests, but Peter B. tells him that so long as he can’t control his powers, he’s going to be a liability. He webs Miles to a chair to keep him from following. Miles asks how he’ll know when he’s ready to be a hero and Peter just tells him it’s a leap of faith.  After they go, Jeff visits and tells his son through the door that he loves his boy and that he’s sorry for all those times he hasn’t been the best dad. This helps Miles break through, tapping into his electrical abilities and snapping the webbing. He then travels to Aunt May’s, gets outfitted with on of Peter’s old costumes he paints black and some web shooters, and performs a literal leap of faith. After swinging around New York for a bit, he rushes to Fisk Tower to help his friends save the day.

There’s a lot to like about this movie. The animation is beautiful, blending together multiple styles to ensure that each Spider has a look unique to them. Peni looks much more Anime-y then her counterparts, Spider-Ham has more bounce and cartoony motions then the rest, etc. Miles is obviously the Spider-Man of the title, and while his growth from scared kid to new Spider-Man is the highlight, the bits with Peter B. and Gwen’s background were really well done as well. I liked how Peter B. shifts from a burnt-out hero to an actual hero again as he trains Miles and tries to get back home. His personal misery is probably 60% his own fault, what with the bad investments and running when MJ’s desire for kids scared him, and 40% just the pit falls of life, such as the death of Aunt May. We get a little less about Gwen, but the sample of her personal tragedy we get is interesting. See, in her universe while she became Spider-Woman, Peter didn’t get a happy simple life. Since he didn’t get the power and confidence boost from being Spider-man, he was driven to drastic measures to get back at his bullies. Peter developed a mutagenic formula and became the Lizard of Spider-Gwen’s universe. We don’t get the details, but it’s implied either Gwen was forced to kill Peter to stop his rampage or was too slow to get him a cure. Again, only hinted at, but even the implication is interesting. She tries to be aloof and distant, but quickly warms up to Miles and Peter, and by the end seems to have opened up to the idea of friends again. Which is good. The action was amazing, and I like a lot of stylization for characters like Fisk, Scorpion, Doc Ock, and Prowler. Fisk looks like a walking boulder, Scorpion is more of a cyborg than he’d been previously, Doc Liv Ock has rubber and plastic tentacles that pulse with use, and Prowler has these massive claws that he likes to whip out at a moments notice.

Spider-Man Noir looks great in black.

The bad is minimal but still there. Spider-Man Noir, Peni and her SP//dr Armor, and Spider-Ham felt very tacked on. They pretty much were there to push up the Spider-Man count. I wish there’d been time to give each of them their due, as Noir is one of my favorite Spider Spin-Offs, but that simply wasn’t time. The timeframe was also insanely tight. I liked the symmetry of Peter B. being Spider-Man for 22 years, Blonde Peter for 10 years, Gwen for 2 years, and Miles for two days, it’s just that its kind of hard to believe that Miles figured everything out in that frame. I know that finding his confidence was the really important part, and that fighting comes as naturally to a Spider as anything else takes to breathing, it’s still hard to process. Also, they treated the death of Aaron Davis as this huge, groundbreaking thing, and yet we hadn’t seen Miles and him interact after the first half hour. It’s hard to get worked up about a man’s death who spent most of his screen time trying to murder his own nephew. Just saying.

This is probably one of the best animated movies I’ve seen and one of the best movies I saw in 2018. A+, easily. Miles is a very likeable Spider-Man, and his ensemble cast help boost him up.  The animation is beautiful, the story is solid, and it was just a fun but occasionally dark ride. Like, I totally wasn’t excepting to see three deaths in this movie, two of which involved the victim getting squished. Into The Spider-Verse is already locked in for a sequel and at least one spin-off, so hopefully we’ll be getting more of this kind of high quality animation from Sony some time soon. I hope they keep up the pace with the sequels and give us more of this awesomeness. I’d like to see either a Spider-Gwen solo movie or Noir solo, but that’s just me. The fun thing about having a massive “What If?” multi-verse to work with is that there’s almost an infinite amount of ideas to use. 

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https://www.fandom.com/articles/spiderverse-miles-morales-powers
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Review: Aquaman

It's an old tale, brothers fighting over which one mommy loved the most. That's what it boils down to.

Let’s be real, The DC film Universe hasn’t been doing super well. Justice League and Suicide Squad were both lacking in pretty much ever regard, Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman were at best okay but flawed, and the only undeniably good one has been Wonder Woman. Let’s see if Aquaman follows Diana’s example or falls into the pile. Let’s get to it.

Mamoa finally has a proper trident. That
five pointed trident was driving me nuts.

We open with a quick summary of the making of Arthur Curry. His father, Thomas, was a simple lighthouse keeper until the night in 1985 where he discovered a woman washed ashore. Said woman, as it turns out, is Atlana, princess of the lost civilization of Atlantis. The two are rocky at first, with Atlanna eating one of Thomas’ goldfish and wrecking his TV by throwing her Quaddent into it. But, somehow these two crazy kids make it work, and have a son that they dub Arthur. Things were pleasant, for a time, until Atlantis’ commandos found her and demand that she returns to her kingdom under the sea. She parts with her family with a heavy heart. As Arthur grew up, he learned that he seemed to have a mental connection to all beings of the sea, and spent his formative years training under his mother’s trusted advisors Vulko. A lot of that was feed piecemeal throughout the movie, but it seemed more efficient to info dump it here.

In the modern day, it’s been a year since the Justice League battled Steppenwolf and his Paradeamon forces. Things have more or less returned to normal. We open on a Russian Submarine being attacked by a group of pirates. The group is lead by it’s Captain Jesse Kane and his son David. They’re attack is interrupted by Arthur, who smashes into the sub and beats the snot out of the entire crew. David tries to fight Aquaman one on one, but it’s like when Aquaman tried to fight Superman in Justice League, there’s just no way this ends well for him. He takes an RPG from Jesse, which causes the sub to sink. Jesse Kane goes down with the boat, as he was pinned under a heavy torpedo and Aquaman refused to help David save him.

Arthur returns to his father’s lighthouse, and the two Currys go unwind at a bar. They get drunk, hangout with some bikers and just have a wonderful time.

Under the sea, Arthur’s half brother and current king of Atlantis, Orm, is meeting with King Nereus of the Xebel tribe. Right, should probably explain this, Atlantis is the nation but it’s separated into seven smaller tribes. There’s Atlantis, Xebel, The Brine, the Fishermen, The Kingdom of the Trench, The Lost Tribe, and the Deserters. Orm is angling to get Nereus to ally with him in a bid for Orm to become the king of all of Atlantis, the Ocean Master. He needs at least four kingdoms to side with him, and since the Deserters died out, the Lost tribe is Lost and the Trenchers are a bunch of crazed cannibals, he needs all of the still functioning kingdoms behind him. Their deal is interrupted by a sub attack. Orm, Nereus and their forces beat it back and agree to work together.

It looks like someone spilled red wine on him.

We’re later shown that this was in fact the sub that Kane and his crew attacked. Orm hired them to steal a sub and us it to fake an attack. David tries to refuse the payment to him in exchange for a chance to fight Aquaman, but Orm dismisses him.

While trying to lug his drunken father home, Arthur is approached by Mera, the Xebel princess. She’s trying, implied not for the first time, to convince Arthur to come to Atlantis with her and challenge Orm for the throne. Why? To stop the younger son of Atlanna from starting a war with the surface world. Arthur tells her to piss off, as he’s had no love for Atlantis since discovering his mother had been executed for birthing him. Not going to lie, I side with Arthur on this one. He’s forced to come with her, though, as Orm performs his opening attack, summoning an enormous tidal wave that knocks out trash and aquatic weapons from the sea. Mera helps Arthur save his dad from drowning, and the two head to Atlantis.

Under the sea, Mera takes Arthur to a rendezvous with Vulkon on a sunken ship. They keep it in an air-bubble, to keep the wildlife and most Atlantians out. Turns out, amphibious adaptation is something that only the royal bloodlines got to keep. Vulko tells Arthur that they’d recently uncovered an artifact that could lead them to the Trident of Atlan, an ancient Atlantian artifact that is essentially their Excalibur. Super magical and all you need to declare yourself the king of your nation. Their plan is interrupted by an attack by some Atlantian commandos. Arthur is captured, but Vulko and Mera escape unnoticed.

Arthur is brought before his brother literally in chains. Orm mocks his half-breed half-brother into challenging him into a trial by combat. The deal is that if Arthur wins, he’s king of Atlantis and can do whatever he wants. If Orm wins, same thing. Their battle is in an undersea area encircled by rivers of Lava. Despite never having fought underwater like this, Arthur puts in a valiant effort but is ultimately defeated by his brother. Who shatters his Arthur’s Quaddrant, a gift of their mothers, with his Trident, a gift from Orm’s father. There’s probably some symbolism in that. Arthur would have been killed, but he was saved by Mera, who zooms in in her sub, and escapes with Arthur. After faking their deaths, by crashing the sub into a lava pit, they agree to work together to find the Trident.

Mera and Arthur first travel to the Sahara and the ruins of the Deserter tribe’s capital. They’re able to power up some old tech and see a message from King Atlan, who points them to Sicily.

I really want to know why he decided a helmet was better
then a gun, other then because Black Manta has a death
beam helmet.

Orm, who realizes that his brother is still alive, but isn’t able to move against him and Mera directly, hires David Kane to do it for him. He outfits the pirate with some Atlantian tech, including battle armor and a plasma death ray. David immediately takes the plasma ray and reworks it into his iconic helmet. Really wish I could have seen his thought process in turning a gun into a helmet that shoots Cyclops eyebeams.

Arthur and Mera make it to Sicily and find the next clue to the Trident. They use an old school bottle they found in the Deserter Capital combined with an old Statue to find their heading. They’re attacked by the newly dubbed Black Manta and a crew of Atlantian commandos. Arthur and Manta battle while Mera fights the commandos. She makes short work out of the goons after getting to a source of liquids, a winery, and kills all but one of them. The last guy’s reverse-scuba suit was damaged and he had his head in a toilet at the time. Arthur has a harder time with Manta, being severely injured by the plasma beam and Manta’s Atlantian steel blade. They finally knock him off a cliff after destroying his jets, to his apparent death.

After Mera patches him up a little, the two head to the Trench, the final stop on their quest. The Trench is filled with Trenchers, Atlantians that had regressed into a pack of cannibalistic monsters that attack anything that moves. They fight there way through several hundred of the monsters, into an underwater typhoon that leads them to the Hidden Sea. To everyone’s shock, they find Queen Atlanna. She’d apparently survived the Trenchers by diving into the same wormhole-sea-storm thing, and lived the last few decades there. Why? Because the only way out is with the Trident, and, apparently, she isn’t worthy to grab it. Arthur goes in and faces off against he Kraken. I mean the Karathen. It’s a very similar monster, if I’m being honest. He intitially is kicked around by the Karathen, but is able to push the beast back using his aquatic lifeform attuned telepathy. He claims the Trident.

Which is good, because while he was away, Orm had conquered the Fishermen, arrested Vulko for secretly helping Arthur, and prepared an all-out assault on the kingdom of the Brine. Aquaman will need his allies and the Trident to force back Orm’s desires to be the Ocean Master and conquer the world.

So he is justified for hating the Surface for ruining the ocean
He is not justified in hating Arthur, as his only crime was
mama loved him more. Just saying.

Okay, so the good first. Jason Mamoa is probably the best part of this movie. He’s a somewhat anti-social version of Aquaman, who’d much rather swim around and occasionally help people then be the actual king of the sea. He’s angry at his mother’s death and blames all of Atlantis for it. I like Amber Heard as Mera. Sure, she seems stuck as the “I-hate-him-but-secretly-wanna-bang-him” love interest. But then, she’s also shown to be insanely powerful in her own right, using her power over water on more than one occasion to save Aquaman’s ass. Patrick Wilson was good as Orm. His background was actually very similar to the Orm of Justice League: Throne of Atlantis. In both, Orm is the less-loved (at least in his own mind) younger son of Queen Atlanna that orchestrates a war between the surface and Atlantis. The big difference is he’s motivated to kill Arthur because of their mother’s death, Orm isn’t the type to blame his jealous insane pops for ordering her death, instead of the cause of his mom’s death. Yeah, the animated movie has Orm run his mother through with a trident. Just saying. In this movie, though, he’s the bad guy that has at least some justification for his actions. Yeah, we on land have royally screwed up the sea. Murdering all of us feels a little extreme, though. This is also a DC movie that found a good balance between the serious tone they’re trying to foster and the levity one needs with a comic book movie. They have a number of fun little gags sprinkled in to break up the tension. Like when Arthur is about to fight Orm, we see 10 seconds of a billboard summing the half-brothers up. Orm has things like King of Atlantis and War Hero. Arthur has only a couple of dashed lines in pros, and his con list includes being a filthy half-breed and a drunk. I chuckled a few times.

The bad is there. But thankfully it isn’t as in-your-face as some of the other DC projects. Black Manta is some what underused, but then they set him up as the villain of the sequel so I guess that isn’t too bad. The romance between Mera and Arthur feels really forced. I’m not the biggest fan of the hate/love relationship style myself, so that’s kind of a taste thing. The CGI was rather streaky in this one. Some bits look fine, like the animation of the different Atlantian races, or on the Karathen. Other things look down right silly, like when Arthur spins his trident around at high speed. It’s looks like he’s waving his hands back and forth while standing in front of an airplane propeller. One moves completely independently of the other. And finally, their quest was kind of wonky. So, after finding an ancient video recorder and going to the ancient Atlantian city, they find a literal message in a bottle and have to travel to ruins in Italy? And the bottle, which I’m shocked Atlantians were manufacturing like 3000 years before anyone else, is instrumental in leading them to the Trenchers… Wait, they already knew where the Trenchers were. It’s kind of vague, but I got the implication that the magic that sunk the nation is what turned some of them into fish, crustaceans and ravenous monsters, so the Trenchers were probably around when Atlan was around.  Wouldn’t that alone prove enough of a safeguard then the unnecessary Sicily stop? “You want my Trident?” Atlan asked, “Just swim down into the depths of the sea filled with Piranha men. Good luck!”

Overall, this is a B+ movie. It is far superior to Justice League, Suicide Squad, and Batman v. Superman but still has some room for improvement. I’m hoping that the fellas in charge of DC’s Movie Universe are taking notes. Because the directing and writing for this film kicked the ass out of the other DCU movies. If this film had come out before Justice League, things might have ended up working more smoothly. Just saying. I’m hoping to see more of Mamoa’s version of Aquaman and see how Black Manta will try to get his vengeance next time. Fingers crossed. Have a good one!

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

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