Saw Aquaman tonight. It was solid. I liked it better when it was How to Train Your Little Mermaid Thor Panther 2 but it worked. Sure it was corny in some points, but it's an Aquaman movie. Hard to avoid it. I still think casting a Polynesian actor for the King of Atlantis is a little weird, but whatever. Got my wife to want to see it. Seeing Jango Fett as his dad was a nice bonus for her as well. No biggie. I thought he was fine for what he was asked to do. Nicole Kidman and Amber Heard were plenty hot for me.
The CGI was great. Orm was a little offputting. It looked like Patrick Wilson was sitting down with a green sheet over his body the whole time. Nobody else really bothered me. Mera's powers were well done. I liked Black Manta. Really cool to see him on the big screen like that. Looking forward to seeing more from him in Aquaman 2. The setting for the big battle sequence featuring him was excellent. It was really unique to see a big superhero battle scene in that type of place.
Some of the visuals in the end battle made me think of Kevin Smith's story about being asked to add a Giant Spider fight to his Superman script. Otherwise, the sea creatures and machines and such were well done. I definitely liked seeing the other underwater realms.
Last week, I watched Age of Ultron for the first time since the release. This film is in the lower tier of MCU for me. I went back through old posts. I had forgotten that I liked a lot at the time. I just thought it was missing a lot. So I liked it in the theaters, upon reflection liked it less, and after seeing the MCU take a leap forward, didn't like it that much. Now I'm rewatching it and I remember why I liked it and found more reasons to like it in retrospect. It works better as a psychological drama. I just doesn't do a great job of splitting the difference with a between basic superhero film. The stuff that works well works quite well. Hawkeye and his family, character moments aside from the mixed up Thor stuff, Hulk vs. Hulkbuster, our introduction to Ulysses Klaue, the twins, Vision. The stuff that doesn't quite work is annoying. But the legacy of this film should be that it directly set up the best MCU films, Civil War, Thor 3, Black Panther, and AIW. It was a necessary step despite the flaws.