Review: Aquaman

In his first appearance in 2017's Justice League, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman made his mark by being the bro-est superhero around. Now he has his own movie, and director James Wan actually dials down his bro-ness – which is pretty much the only thing dialled down here, because this is a film that’s going extremely hard in pretty much every direction. While not all of it works, its failures end up being part of its charm: whatever you think of its extremely loud and fairly dumb approach, it knows the only way to make it work is to commit 100%. 

There’s a real balancing act going on here: even for a superhero, underwater fish lord Aquaman is hard to take seriously, and yet treating him as a joke would be fatal. So this sets out to make him the most normal thing in the film, plonking the hard-drinking part-time superdude into a meandering story that takes in a sad lighthouse dad, seven distinct (and usually bonkers) undersea kingdoms, a royal feud, the title “Ocean Master”, a modern-day pirate bad guy, Nicole Kidman as a trident-wielding mum, killer fish, a desert quest, killer fish men, beach training sequences, dinosaurs just in the background because why not, trash tidal waves, and a racist sea monster – and that’s barely scratching the surface. 

The not-so-secret to Aquaman's success is that while the story is actually kind of flaccid - it's basically a slow race between two Aqua-kings to see who can bring off their scheme first - it's constantly throwing new things at the screen. Over the course of the film Aquaman (AKA Arthur Curry) travels via ute, a regular submarine, an Atlantean submarine, a plane, by foot across the desert, a fishing boat and sea monster - plus he swims around using both regular and super-styles. He fights at least four different kinds of bad guy / creature, has multiple training montages, goes from punching dudes in the head to disrupting an epic fantasy battle, and occasionally drops a servicable one-liner. He's a very busy man.

With all that going on, it's no surprise that this is an uneven film at the best of times. The visuals are often stunning, but the dialogue is serviceable at best (there's a big speech about the difference between a king and a hero that had someone near me groaning), while the fight scenes are always competent but rarely memorable. But what this does get right is the world-building. To date DC's superhero movies have largely taken place in the real world, but this covers everything from futuristic underwater super-cities to "lost world" islands to desert ruins to teeming sub-surface nightmares in a way that still sells them as a (somewhat) cohesive whole.

It's all a bit exhausting, and Momoa's slightly subdued performance occasionally feels like a reflection of how the audience most likely feels at this onslaught of new sensation. But again, the slightly cheesy tone works in the film's favour: it may take it all seriously, but there's enough oddball moments scattered throughout that the tone is never grimly relentless in the way that something like Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice was. 

There's a moment where Aquaman wakes up on a fishing boat while noodlely nautical flute music plays on the sountrack, then he goes out on deck and sees his underwater tour guide Mera (Amber Heard) is actually playing the music on a flute she found; you can't hate a film that finds time for that.

- Anthony Morris

The best and worst of 2018

First, some caveats: I have not yet seen Aquaman, Eighth Grade or The Favourite, some or all of which might possibly sneak into my top ten. I also haven’t seen Gotti, because it didn’t get a commercial cinema release in this country and if we’re going to let direct-to-DVD titles into this kind of list then the worst movies of the year are all going to be things sensible people have never heard of. So these are all titles I saw at a cinema in 2018, otherwise the film of the year would have been Brawl in Cell Block 99 and we could have given up on movies by the end of January.

 

Best films of 2018:

As is often the way, I easily could have listed twice as many films here. While these are in no particular order, just outside the top ten were a whole lot of films, including Roma, Cold War, Upgrade, Won’t You be My Neighbour, Sweet Country, A Simple Favour, Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, First Reformed, The Breaker-Upperers, Juliet Naked and Tully. But this remains my top ten for 2018, for today at least:

*Lady Bird

*Can You Ever Forgive Me?

*Mission: Impossible: Fallout

*The Death of Stalin

*A Quiet Place

*The Boy Downstairs

*Incredibles 2

*Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

*A Prayer Before Dawn

*First Man

  

Worst films of 2018:

There were an awful lot of firmly average films out this year, most of which I’ve already forgotten (not Skyscraper though. Or Ladies in Black. Or all those films with Boy in the title). But all of these films felt like a waste of time at some stage or another: even when they weren’t actively bad it seemed like they’d deliberately made the choice to avoid being good.

*Truth or Dare

*Fifty Shades Freed

*That’s Not My Dog

*A Wrinkle in Time

*Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

*The Happytime Murders

*Flipside

*Peppermint

*The Predator

*The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

- Anthony Morris

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Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Author Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) is in trouble. Her last book was a flop, her agent is ducking her calls, she can't make any progress on her next book and she's hitting the bottle pretty hard. Worse, she's not exactly someone whose company people enjoy; when she's fired from a fact-checking gig (for drinking and swearing on the job) it's hard to see her securing steady employment around people any time soon.

When she stumbles across a letter written by Fanny Brice (the subject of her next book) she promptly tries to sell it - only to discover the lack of spicy content means it'll only bring in a small sum. Adding a gag-tastic PS bumps up the price, and soon Israel is forging celebrity letters left right and center, going so far as to collect a range of authentically old typewriters to give her forgeries some much-needed authenticity.

With this boost in her fortunes comes a boost in her personal life, as she makes a friend: Jack Hock (Richard E Grant), a flamboyant and itinerant local character. He comes in handy professionally as well, as a slip up with one letter means she now needs a front to sell her wares for her. But as her forgery career blossoms, just how long can she keep getting away with all this?

Israel may be an abrasive character but this film is a delight, shot through with wry humour even as Israel flails from disaster to disaster. Her agent dodges her calls, then invites her to a party where she's surprised Israel bothered to show up; to retaliate, Israel steals a warm winter coat from the check room and wears it proudly for the rest of the film.

She's harsh to friend and foe alike but the film is careful to surround Israel with people who are worse, from her snobbish, disinterested agent to various parasitical booksellers. The one buyer for Israel's merchandise who isn't a creep becomes something of a romantic interest; Israel's guilt curdles their relationship and gives her lightweight scam some real dramatic heft.

McCarthy's recent comedies have been dubious at best and forgettable on the whole, but here she re-establishes herself as one of America's strongest comedy performers with a performance that's abrasive and compassionate without ever slipping into caricature. Grant is a perfect comic foil in his best role in years, playing a warm-hearted bungler who always means well even when he's letting you down.

It's not just fantasy movies that can take audiences to another time and place: this film's recreation of the literary world of early 90s New York is consistently spot-on - and while that may not seem like a top movie getaway destination, this is so vivid down to the smallest detail that it becomes a place you won't want to leave. This is one of the films of the year.

- Anthony Morris