Aquaman

Stars: Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison, Yahya Abdul-Meteen II, Graham McTavish

Director: James Wan

Aquaman (pronounce it Ark-wa-man), the defender of the deep with his mighty trident, finally gets his own film after peripheral appearances in other DC-comic epics. And the visuals are wondrous, stunningly imaginative stuff, in contrast to the acting, and a pedestrian script that hardly taxes the actors anyway.

Momoa, the Hawaiian hunk who played Conan the Barbarian, can barely act at all, while Heard's cool and faintly unsympathetic personality is unsuited to the flame-haired heroine. Dafoe has almost nothing to do, and other roles are functionally filled.

But the undersea creatures that teem beneath the waves are breathtakingly well created and animated, from a gigantic lobster warrior, to friendly sharks that act as steeds for underwater soldiers.

I loved the huge octopus beating eight war drums, and David Attenborough would have had a field day with the hordes of trench monsters eager to make a meal out of our husky hero.

David Quinlan

USA/New Zealand 2018. UK Distributor: Warner Brothers. Technicolor.
136 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 23 Apr 2019

DVD review