Aquaman is a silly character. He talks to fish. He's the product of a chance encounter between a lighthouse keeper and a member of an underwater race of super-people who fight with shiny tridents. I thought it was a good move to cast Jason Momoa as our hero, who goes by Arthur Curry on dry land, since Momoa is very visually distinct and has a big personality. He could ground some of the inevitable campiness of Aquaman having to fight for the throne of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis against a bitter half-brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), while wooing a watery warrior woman, Mera (Amber Heard). Oh, but camp doesn't even begin to describe what's in store here.
I mentioned in my "Justice League" review that I wasn't sure how the filmmakers were going to be able to build an entire feature around Aquaman when they hadn't figured out how to make underwater fighting look good yet. And they never really did. Instead, quite a bit of the hand-to-hand fighting takes place in submersibles and air pockets, while the big battle sequences just obscure things with explosions. There is, however, a big duel between Arthur and Orm that takes place underwater and looks totally goofy. However, it works because it leans into and embraces the goofiness wholeheartedly. And the rest of the movie is the same way. This is a movie that offers such delightfully bonkers images as Willem Dafoe riding a hammerhead shark, a human mercenary named Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) with a glowing bug head helmet, giant sentient battle crabs, and Atlanteans dressed in supersaturated bright colors straight out of the comics. Oh, and sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Yes, really!
The movie has no shame whatsoever about looking like a Saturday morning cartoon with plastic action figure characters, similar to the recent "G.I. Joe" reboots. However, director James Wan is skillful enough that the action is exciting, the characters are emotionally plausible (if occasionally overdoing the scenery chewing), and the simple story is well-paced and easy to follow. Momoa is an awful lot of fun as Aquaman, a big, charming lug who never seems phased by any of the absurdity. As for everyone else, well, keeping a straight face was surely half the battle. I give "Aquaman" a passing grade, but I have no doubt that this will be an instant favorite among certain twelve-year-old boys. And it does make me a little bit nostalgic for the equally pulpy "Conan the Barbarian" movies that I loved when I was that age.
Now on to "Bumblebee," a prequel and soft reboot of the "Transformers" series. Travis Knight of the Laika movies has taken over from Michael Bay, for a much more small scale adventure set during the 1980s. The alien robot Bumblebee comes to Earth, and is hiding out as a yellow VW Beetle when he crosses paths with a troubled teenager named Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), who never really got over the death of her father. "Bumblebee" fixes just about every single problem I've had with the Transformers movie franchise since the 2007 "Transformers." Gone are the crass humor, the often incomprehensible violence, and the endless ogling of the female leads. Instead, "Bumblebee" is very kid friendly, with a big heart, and there's never a question that the movie is about Bumblebee first and foremost.
The plot is familiar - essentially a retread of "E.T." with Hailee Steinfeld playing a sweeter, grease monkey version of her character from "Edge of Seventeen." It all works well enough, with Steinfeld doing an impressive amount of the heavy lifting. No doubt, the director's animation background helped give the robot characters more expressiveness and personality, so Bumblebee and Charlie manage to have a good amount of believable screen rapport. And in what I choose to believe is a further rebuke to Michael Bay's sensibilities, John Cena is is the biggest recognizable star in the movie, playing a rah-rah army lieutenant who turn out to be the movie's secondary bad guy. The primary baddies are a pair of Decepticons, Shatter (Angela Bassett) and Dropkick (Justin Theroux), who have followed Bumblebee to Earth and threaten to summon the rest of their army.
"Bumblebee" is not a great movie by any measure, but it's good enough. And it is such a relief to see the franchise on much surer footing now, with people in charge who clearly understand the appeal of the Transformers characters and concept. "Bumblebee" has enough story elements in common with that first "Transformers" movie that I can't help wondering what could have been if Knight and his collaborators had been in charge of this franchise in the first place.
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