Review: ‘The Pirates of Somalia’, What Would You Risk For The Story Of A Lifetime?

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December 8, 2017

Not every film needs to have explosions or high speed chases
to be entertaining. Telling a good story is more than enough to sustain a film
without any of the extracurricular nonsense that tends to be thrown in
haphazardly. Sometimes it feels like that can be hard to find these days, not impossible,
but harder than it should be. The Pirates of
Somalia certainly delivers an interesting story and Bryan Buckley, who
wrote and directed the film, manages to find numerous ways to keep the audience
engaged.

The Pirates of Somalia
is based on Jay Bahadur’s biography “The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden
World.” The film tells the story of Jay Bahadur (Evan Peters) – who is a young,
aspiring journalist from Toronto, trying to find his big break. Jay is living
in his parent’s basement going from grocery store to grocery store conducting
market research about napkins. He knows that he is meant for greater things,
all he needs is an opportunity. As fate would have it, he crosses paths with
Seymour Tolbin (Al Pacino), a retired journalist who Jay has looked up to for
years.

Seymour is the one that convinces Jay that he needs get in
the thick of the action and that journalism is innate and cannot be taught in
school. Jay takes this advice to heart and settles on going to Somalia to tell
the story of their Democracy as well as Pirates that still have power there.
Jay makes some phone calls and is eventually put in contact with the President
of Somalia’s son. Before he knows it, this young writer with no experience to
fall back on has placed himself in the middle of a country that has been
virtually untapped by journalists before him. During his time in Somalia, Jay manages to build relationships with some locals, including his translator Abdi (Barkhad Abdi) and one of the Pirates wives Maryan (Sabrina Hassan). Jay must find a way to juggle the dangers of dealing with Somalian Pirates and dwindling funds all while trying to write a book that will lead to a publishing company giving him a chance.

Throughout The Pirates of
Somalia I found myself impressed with various stylistic elements that
Buckley incorporates. He uses hallucinations, stories, and dreams sequences to
be able to add scenes to the film including brief animations. These moments proved
to be very effective, both in continuing the narrative and helping The Pirates of Somalia stand out. As the
film progresses, Buckley does a masterful job of integrating music and camera
angles to help build tension within scenes. The entire situation that Jay has
placed himself in is a very dangerous one and Buckley makes sure that the
audience is made constantly aware of this.The Pirates
of Somalia is not an Earth shattering film that will be talked about for generations
to come, but it is a solid movie that successfully manages to convey a story
while mixing in original elements.

Rating 3.5 out of 5

Review: ‘The Tribes Of Palos Verdes’ Starring Maika Monroe & Jennifer Garner

By

John Nolan

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December 8, 2017

It’s hard to believe that an adaptation of Joy Nicholson’s once red-hot bestseller The Tribes of Palos Verdes is arriving with such little fanfare. I remember studios and filmmakers frothing at the mouth to bring her coastal coming-of-age story to the big screen, but that was years ago. It arrives now with music video directors-turned-filmmakers Emmett and Brendan Malloy, whose surfing expertise gives them a valuable insight into those who crash the waves as a way of life. It’s a competent effort that captures the mood and atmosphere of a gilded paradise that may as well be on another planet.

The brilliant Maika Monroe takes center stage as Medina, a troubled young girl who moves with her family from the Midwest to the west coast, settling in the beachside suburban glow of Palos Verdes. Imagine the setting of HBO’s Big Little Lies and you’ll get the picture; rich, competitive families in mansions overlooking the surfers on the beaches below. They’ve come for a fresh start; so their father (Justin Kirk) can be cardiologist to the seaside town’s rich and affluent. But trouble has only followed them. Medina’s mother Sandy (Jennifer Garner) was unstable before, and settling in a new and unfamiliar town has only made it worse. When her husband soon leaves them for a new woman (Alicia Silverstone), it sends Sandy spiraling into one of her “black hole moods” that she may never recover from.

But Medina has support in the form of her twin brother, Jim (Cody Fern), who has endured the rigors of their household right along with her. Medina feels bonded with Jim, and the two of them find an escape the way most kids their age do in Palos Verdes, by surfing. While Jim becomes friends with the local bullies (including one played by Mel Gibson’s son) who ward off outsiders, Medina takes to the waves like a champ. This is truly her story, and we see her take the delicate first steps into womanhood in a place where privilege has overtaken passion. Meanwhile, her brother has taken to hard drugs to cope with the pressures put upon him by Sandy, who has become unhinged from reality in a scary way.

Everyone hurtles through life adrift in this story, and the Malloys capture that feeling of west coast lethargy in their softly-lit, hazy camerawork. They employ a few visual tricks to convey Medina’s growing disconnect, and her desperation to find some small corner of happiness for herself and Jim. If atmosphere alone were enough then The Tribes of Palos Verdes would be among the year’s most effective coming of age films, but too much of it comes across as shallow and ultimately meaningless. Medina’s flirtation with an older surfer happens randomly and goes nowhere; and that type of surface level experience is all that we are ever treated to. Even when tragedy strikes and devastates the family it almost feels like an afterthought, with Medina’s narration frequently used to explain their emotions rather than the actors showing them. We never come to fully understand the so-called connection between Medina and Jim, other than they are twins which just seems inadequate. Many of the relationships in this movie go unexplored, which may be an intentional way of showing the family’s lack of unity, but then you can’t expect us to care about them falling apart.

While most of the cast are forgettable, Monroe and Garner deliver contrasting performances of equal ferocity. Monroe, who has shined in everything from At Any Price to horror It Follows, relays Medina’s quiet anguish, but also the freedom she feels when she hits the waves. Monroe excels at playing tough young women, but she allows room for us to see Medina’s barriers crumbling down when she surfs or when she connects with someone new. Garner, who doubles as a producer on the film, goes volcanic in ways we’ve never seen from her before. I like seeing her do something other than play the perfectly pretty and loyal housewife as she’s done in far too many films already. She should challenge herself more like this, hopefully in a film that is a little more challenging than The Tribes of Palos Verdes has any ambition to be.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Washington DC Film Critics Name ‘Get Out’ Best Film Of 2017

By

John Nolan

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December 8, 2017

We in the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association have put our heads together and come up with our picks for the 2017 WAFCA Awards. In a surprise move, surprising even to me and I’m a voter, we decided Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, Get Out, was the Best Film of the year. The brilliantly biting social satire also came away with Best Original Screenplay.

Leading the way with three wins overall was Martin McDonagh’s pitch black dramedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which earned Frances McDormand an award for Best Actress, Sam Rockwell for Best Supporting Actor, and Best Ensemble. Christopher Nolan was named Best Director for his thrilling WWII film Dunkirk, while Gary Oldman won Best Actor for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, which works as a perfect companion piece to Nolan’s film. And young Brooklynn Prince defeated a talented group to win Best Youth Performance for her funny and heartbreaking turn in Sean Baker’s The Florida Project.

The full list of winners is below:

Best Film:
Get Out

Best Director:
Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk)

Best Actor:
Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)

Best Actress:
Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

Best Supporting Actor:
Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

Best Supporting Actress:
Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)

Best Acting Ensemble:
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Youth Performance:
Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project)

Best Voice Performance:
Anthony Gonzalez (Coco)

Best Motion Capture Performance:
Andy Serkis (War for the Planet of the Apes)

Best Original Screenplay:
Jordan Peele (Get Out)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Virgil Williams and Dee Rees (Mudbound)

Best Animated Feature:
Coco

Best Documentary:
Jane

Best Foreign Language Film:
BPM (Beats Per Minute)

Best Production Design:
Production Designer: Dennis Gassner;
Set Decorator: Alessandra Querzola (Blade Runner 2049)

Best Cinematography:
Roger A. Deakins, ASC, BSC (Blade Runner 2049)

Best Editing:
Paul Machliss, ACE; Jonathan Amos, ACE (Baby Driver)

Best Original Score:
Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch (Blade Runner 2049)

The Joe Barber Award for Best Portrayal of Washington, DC:
The Post

Marvel Begins A New Era Of Heroes With Animated Film ‘Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors’

By

John Nolan

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December 8, 2017

One of the reasons I love Marvel so much is the outreach they do to try and expand the comic book readership. They’ve reached out to women and readers in other countries by introducing new female characters and heroes from different cultures. I hasn’t always worked, but in the times that it has, like with Ms. Marvel, the diversity is a benefit to the entire industry. And I see them taking that same approach with their upcoming animated initiative, Marvel Rising, which will lead to a feature film titled Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors.

Launching in 2018, it will begin as a series of animated short films featuring lesser known Marvel characters. That will lead to an eventual feature film titled Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors. The shorts will all be centered on Gwen Stacy aka Spider-Gwen, going by the new name of Ghost Spider. She’ll be joined by other characters like the popular Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, Squirrel Girl, Quake, and more. And in many cases they’ll be voiced by their live-action counterparts. For instance, Quake will be voiced by Agents of SHIELD‘s Chloe Bennett. Squirrel Girl gets New Warriors star Milana Vayntrub.

And no, it isn’t part of the MCU, even though you have Bennett voicing Quake this is a much younger version of the SHIELD agent and powerful Inhuman.

Check out this introductory teaser followed by a breakdown of the heroes you can expect to see:

•Gwen Stacy aka Ghost-Spider (formerly Spider Gwen) voiced by Dove Cameron – a free spirited teen who found her calling to be a super hero after being bitten by a radioactive spider and gaining spider-like powers. As Ghost-Spider, she aids those in need, but has to keep her alter-ego a secret from her father, Captain George Stacy, who sees Ghost-Spider as more of a menace than a hero.

•Daisy Johnson aka Quake voiced by Chloe Bennet – a leading agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. whose tendency for rule-breaking gets her into trouble now and then. Daisy befriends the young group of heroes and through them discovers how to become a better leader. She can generate powerful vibrational waves, which produce effects similar to earthquakes.

•Dante Pertuz aka Inferno voiced by Tyler Posey – a brooding, dark loner on the run. Dante has the power of pyrokinesis, which makes him capable of generating flames – however, he is not fully in control of his fiery abilities. It’s a thin line between good guy and villain for the unpredictable Inferno.

•Victor Kohl aka Exile voiced by BooBoo Stewart – a charming, handsome, and troublesome young Inhuman whose quest for superiority places him into the wrong crowd. He can use Darkforce energy to create weapons and portals that allow him to teleport.
marvel-rising-secret-warriors-poster
Image via Marvel

•Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel voiced by Kathreen Khavari – a devoted fan of Super Heroes, especially of her mentor Captain Marvel; she is determined that she too can be a great hero! If only she’d be taken seriously. Kamala is equipped with metamorphic powers that allow her to stretch, enlarge, or shrink her overall size, parts of her body, or alter her physical appearance. She is especially fond of “embiggening” her fists.

•Doreen Green aka Squirrel Girl voiced by Milana Vayntrub – the uber-positive, hilarious best friend and teammate of Ms. Marvel. With advanced computer skills, enhanced strength, agility, durability, and senses of a squirrel, Doreen (along with her squirrel partner, Tippy Toe!), is primed and ready to become a successful hero.

•America Chavez voiced by Cierra Ramirez – a strong, independent young hero whose painful past drives her to reject leadership and remain a loner. America’s powers include superhuman strength, speed, and durability, plus the ability to fly.

•Rayshaun Lucas aka Patriot voiced by Kamil McFadden – a natural born leader who is quick to leap into action to impress his colleagues at S.H.I.E.L.D. Rayshaun strives to live up to Captain America’s legacy with integrity, honesty, and order above all. His skills include heightened strength, speed, stamina, and durability.

•Gloria “Glory” Grant voiced by Skai JacksFron – Gloria, or ‘Glory,’ is Gwen Stacy’s friend and member of their garage band “The Emm-Jays.” Gloria is a smart, hard-working girl that genuinely cares for Gwen, but has felt a distance growing between them ever since their friend, Kevin, was murdered. When being casual, Gloria’s known to be funny, sarcastic and sassy.

•Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel voiced by Kim Raver – a bold leader who doesn’t sugar-coat and is guided by a strong sense of duty and honor. She’s the ultimate inspiration for our band of misfit heroes. She is equipped with superhuman strength, can fly at high speeds, and can project intense energy blasts.

•Hala voiced by Ming-Na Wen – Hala is a Kree Accuser bent on galactic domination. She’ll go to any length or treacherous means to achieve what she, and the entire Kree race, wants: Power. Hala is cold, cryptic and nefarious, often challenging those who try to oppose her.

•Captain George Stacy voiced by Steven Weber – Chief of the NYPD and Gwen Stacy’s loving, but fiercely protective father. Captain Stacy is a very disciplined, hard-working man that will stop at nothing to obtain justice – who unfortunately sees Ghost-Spider as a menace and a threat to society.

•Lockjaw and Tippy Toe are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. Two lovable and heroic sidekicks: Lockjaw is Kamala’s trusty, teleporting mutt and Tippy Toe is Doreen’s partner in crime and best squirrel friend.

Elastigirl Steps Up In First Official Image From ‘The Incredibles 2’

By

John Nolan

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December 8, 2017

While we’ve already seen how ~~dangerous~~ powerful young Jack-Jack might be in Pixar’s long-awaited sequel to The Incredibles, it’s good to know his family is around to make sure he doesn’t do too much damage. EW has revealed a new look at The Incredibles 2, featuring the super-heroic Parr family preparing for action. Most of them, anyway. Jack-Jack looks pretty happy about the whole thing.

Craig T. Nelson is back as powerhouse Bob aka Mr. Incredible, Holly Hunter is voicing stretchy matriarch Helen aka Elastigirl, Huck Milner is speedy son Dash, and Sarah Vowel as Violet. Samuel L. Jackson returns as their icy friend Frozone, with Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener voicing undisclosed characters.

We still don’t know much about the plot except it picks up where the last movie left off, and may turn much of its attention to Helen while Bob is on parental duty. I think you can see a little bit of that in this photo, with Helen stepping up to take the lead. Perhaps the villain is someone she shares a personal history with?

The Incredibles 2 opens June 15th 2018.

Post-‘Justice League’, Heads Are Finally Starting To Roll At DC Films

By

John Nolan

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December 8, 2017

It was inevitable that Justice League‘s disastrous box office would lead to some heads rolling over at Warner Bros. and DC Films. I mean, how could it possibly earn less than the other DCEU movies? It takes a screwup of epic proportions to pull that off, but so far that’s what they’ve done. And all of this comes just as a new initiative to lighten things up and make the movies fun, a good idea in theory, has fallen flat. The damage may have been too far gone.

So the axe has come down and it has hit the head of DC Films, Jon Berg, who is moving into a producer capacity. They say this plan has been in the works for months, but I guess it was just a coincidence it happens right after the company’s biggest failure. Slightly less certain is the future for Chief Creative Officer, comic book pro and all-around swell guy Geoff Johns. While he is staying at his current position, Variety suggests his role could “evolve” into something lesser, like an advisory position.

Neither Berg or Johns is expected to get full producer credits on future films, either. They’ve been hit hard for sticking with Zack Snyder, who will remain in a producer capacity for a while, even though his films have been disappointments overall. An early cut of Justice League alarmed studio execs for being too bleak, prompting a lighter tone from Joss Whedon that never quite meshed into a cohesive movie.

All is not lost, though. The studio, while disappointed in the numbers, is happy that Justice League effectively introduced both Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and Ezra Miller’s Flash into the DCEU. That should set them up for future movies down the line that they hope will be as successful as Wonder Woman. We just had the first look at Momoa in the film which will be directed by James Wan and opens next year. The Flash’s movie, titled Flashpoint, has had a difficult time getting up to speed and currently has no director attached.

Speaking of Flashpoint, it’s expected that Ben Affleck will appear as Batman, but he’s not likely to have anything to do with Matt Reeves’ standalone The Batman. Reeves wants somebody new in the cape and cowl, with recent rumors suggesting Jake Gyllenhaal as the frontrunner.

The point of all this is that DC Films is a mess and desperately needs a singular hand guiding the ship. I noted how ridiculous it was having Margot Robbie, in the middle of a random TV interview, announcing a brand new Harley Quinn movie, which is like the third or fourth movie featuring the popular Suicide Squad character. None of them have gone anywhere yet, but she’s already announcing another. That’s just nuts, and you don’t see this kind of sloppiness over at Marvel where Kevin Feige is the only voice you hear on these matters. I’m not saying Warner Bros. should ape the Marvel way, but this is one are where they should.

First ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ Trailer Erupts With Crazy Dinosaur Action

By

John Nolan

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December 8, 2017

I don’t know if anybody expected the crazy $1.6B success of Jurassic World, but it happened, proving that audiences were eager to see foolish humans running away from genetically-created dinosaurs again. Will they be as excited to revisit it next year with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which looks like pretty much the same thing? Well, tonight’s debut trailer is a good first step in building anticipation.

As we’ve seen in previous teasers, the film reunites Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard as Owen Grady and Claire Dearing, with the latter having started a dinosaur sanctuary on Isla Nublar. The problem? It’s near an active volcano, which is perhaps the dumbest thing a human has done in this franchise, and when it erupts she needs Owen’s help getting the dinos to safety. Oh, and Owen’s favorite velociraptor, Blue, is alive and well…for now.

The film is directed by J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) with Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, Toby Jones, and Rafe Spall in the cast. Oh yeah, and some guy named Jeff Goldblum as some minor Jurassic Park character named Ian Malcolm. Anybody excited about that or anything?

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opens June 22nd 2018.

Review: Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘The Shape Of Water’ Is Pure Cinematic Magic

By

John Nolan

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December 7, 2017

The best movies, the ones that stand the test of time, can be many things to many different people. Guillermo Del Toro has crafted just such a film with The Shape of Water, a film that is as beautiful as it is bizarre, as terrifying as it is heartbreaking. Part creature feature, part swooning 1950s romance, and part paranoid Cold War-era thriller, The Shape of Water is a perfect blending of Del Toro’s capricious sensibilities and his most successful film since Pan’s Labyrinth, with which it would make a perfect companion piece.

Set in Baltimore at the height of Cold War tensions, when Russkies were believed to be around every corner, the story follows Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute woman abandoned as a child and has grown to live by her own rigorous routine. You can set a clock, and literally Elisa does this, to the boiling of her favorite hard-boiled eggs which gives her those precious few minutes to bathe, pleasure herself, and prepare for work. Elisa may be silent, and the apartment she lives in resembling a nightmarish Bates Motel under the best of circumstances (plus it’s always dark and rainy!), her life is a full one. She’s besties with her neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins), a closeted man who does advertising art and crushes hard over the guy at the pie shop. She and Giles spend their evenings glued to the TV watching old black & white musicals, films you wouldn’t think to be an influence on Del Toro’s vision for The Shape of Water but, well, you’d be surprised.

Del Toro paints such a vivid character portrait that he could almost make a full-figured film out of just one half of Elisa’s life, but thankfully he didn’t. Because it’s at her job, cleaning up a top secret government facility cleverly known as Occam (as in Occam’s Razor), where she meets the latest “asset” to be researched. A merman (Doug Jones), straight from The Creature from the Black Lagoon (a Del Toro favorite) has been held captive there by the menacing, cattle prod-wielding Strickland (Michael Shannon). A wild, untamed creature, not unlike Jones’ Abe Sapien from the Hellboy movies, it senses a kindred spirit in Elisa. And she too senses their connection, and soon she’s sneaking in to feed it hard boiled eggs, and to serenade its ears with music, which always soothes the savage beast, you know. All of this comes at the confusion of Elisa’s chatty co-worker friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer), when she begins to sense Elisa’s growing attraction to the creature.

Of course, this attraction is anathema to a racist and a sexist like Strickland, who sees the creature as merely something to be dissected and studied for use against the Russians. But to Elisa he’s just like her, a mute creature with a sensitive soul; he “doesn’t see what I lack, doesn’t see that I am incomplete”, as she signs passionately at one point. Elisa may see herself as incomplete, but thankfully Del Toro doesn’t depict her as such. It’s refreshing to see Elisa as a woman who is happy in her own skin, which makes it easier for us to accept her loving someone from a completely different species, for the merman is a gentle spirit regardless of his scary exterior. Meanwhile, Strickland, who has some weird fascinations of his own to contend with, may be handsome but he’s utterly revolting. When two of his fingers are bitten off and reattached to his hand, they continue to blacken and stink just like that black heart beating in his chest.

While unmistakably a love story, with big operatic moments of passion literally flooding the screen like tidal waves, Del Toro recognizes the world in which The Shape of Water enters. At a time when hatred and prejudice have stitched their way into our society’s fabric like never before, Del Toro brings a message of acceptance, love, and harmony that we could all use a lot more of. Of course, Del Toro expresses these themes by enveloping them in a story that is also pretty violent and surprisingly gripping. There are some seat-of-the-pants thrills, a couple of surprising twists, and a fair amount of blood spilled.

With her elven, expressive features Sally Hawkins is the ideal Del Toro leading lady. Without saying a word she expresses so much more emotion in her eyes and gestures, matching the wonderfully emotive turn by Doug Jones. In a career that has seen him vanish into one creature’s skin after another, Jones has finally hit his high water mark with this one. And while Shannon excels as the loathsome, bullying Strickland, we can’t overlook yet another delightful performance by Jenkins and the effectively powerful one by Michael Stuhlbarg as the secretive Dr. Hoffstetter. Whisking us from the mildewy labs of Occam to the sweeping currents of the deep blue sea are Alexandre Desplat’s haunting score and DP Dan Lausten’s superlative visuals, which may give Roger Deakins’ gorgeous Blade Runner 2049 a run for their money.

Del Toro has given us a small piece of cinematic magic with The Shape of Water. It’s funny; Del Toro hits me right in the wheelhouse with Hellboy and Pacific Rim but those films have nothing on The Shape of Water or Pan’s Labyrinth. Nobody does dark fairy tales better than him; he’s a true master of the art form and right now he’s at the height of his powers.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Star Trek’ Movie Will Be R-Rated, Of Course

By

John Nolan

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December 7, 2017

This is pretty extraordinary. Earlier this week the incredible news broke that Quentin Tarantino was negotiating to possibly direct a new Star Trek film for Paramount and producer J.J. Abrams. It didn’t even seem real at the time because, despite Tarantino loving the franchise, it just wasn’t something we could imagine him doing, especially with his directing career so close to wrapping up. But there are real steps being taken now, and a big one is that Tarantino may have decided on a writer who can make his vision come true.

And of course, that vision will include Star Trek being R-rated. Expect more than the usual allotment of F-bombs from Starfleet if Tarantino’s movie gets off the ground. Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) has emerged as frontrunner to write it after a meeting with Tarantino that included writers Lindsey Beer (Chaos Walking) and Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3). It’s a little odd that Tarantino isn’t writing it himself, but he has work to do on his upcoming Manson era movie. Presumably he’ll do a rewrite on anything that gets to him, anyway.

There are a bunch of questions here, but I’ll start with this: Will Tarantino’s movie be part of the universe established by Abrams or perhaps a standalone? I could see it going either way. Will this count as Tarantino’s 10th movie and thus be his final one before retiring? Is he still planning to retire? And finally, what are the chances of Samuel L. Jackson playing the first black Captain Kirk? I put the odds at 50/50 right now.

Paramount is moving fast on this one, so hopefully more news will come soon. [Deadline]

First Look At ‘Aquaman’ Features A Ripped Jason Momoa

By

John Nolan

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December 7, 2017

Justice League is only a few weeks old and already Warner Bros. just wants to forget that whole thing happened and move on to the next thing. That would be Aquaman, which brings back Jason Momoa as the heir to the seas himself. The film promises to be a very different (ocean) beast, and you can tell from this first image because Aquaman looks ready to kick more ass than he did in all of Justice League. Let’s keep it real, he was pretty unimportant to the whole thing.

Yeah, EW has the first look at Momoa who is friggin’ jacked here. I just watched him last night in The Bad Batch and he was big, but here he looks like he could carry all of Atlantis on his shoulders. Momoa took time from his workout schedule to talk about the role of Arthur Curry, and he promises a more substantial glimpse at the hero’s life than we got in Justice League…

“Justice League was only a weekend in Arthur Curry’s life. This is a totally different beast. In Aquaman, you see when his parents met and what happened to hem. Then the little boy being raised and finding his powers and going through that and never being accepted on either side. And then becoming this man who puts up all these walls. You just slowly see this man harden up and be completely reluctant wanting to be king and not knowing what to do with these powers he has. I think James Wan just killed it.”

Wan talked about how his movie will differ from Justice League, because being different from anything Zack Snyder seems to be the mandate now, and also why he chose to direct Aquaman rather than The Flash…

“It’s going to look very different, it will feel very different — aesthetically, tonally, story-wise — it’s my own take. It’s a much more a traditional action-adventure quest movie.”

“Aquaman has been the joke of the comic book world, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought how cool that would be. Let’s take the character everybody makes fun of and do something really interesting with him.”

Aquaman opens December 21st 2018 and co-stars Willem Dafoe, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Dolph Lundgren.