Aquaman, directed by James Wan, is a fantastic comic book film. It showed everything that it needed to, and then some. I enjoyed every second of it.

The main plot covers the story of Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa), who must return to his home of Atlantis with Mera (Amber Heard) to prevent his brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson) from declaring war on the “surface world,” or the land. The storyline is intriguing, and I was always trying to guess what would happen next. There are a few small twists which were entertaining and unexpected.

There are a few other connecting plotlines all going on at once. The first and most central is Arthur’s and Mera’s quest for the ancient trident of Atlantis in order to defeat his brother. Another is Orm’s attempts at gaining the power necessary to attack the surface. The last is one concerns Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Manteen II), Aquaman’s arch enemy in the comics, which I won’t give away. There is a lot happening in this movie, but I was never lost, and all the plotlines come together in a satisfying way.

The acting is great and all the actors played their characters well enough that I wasn’t pulled out of the movie. Jason Momoa plays a fantastic iteration of Aquaman and he had me laughing all the time. Patrick Wilson does a great job as the film’s antagonist. You understand why he does what he does, and he doesn’t feel like a completely evil villain, and more of a sympathetic character. Yahya Abdul-Manteen also does a great job; my only complaint is I wish I saw more of him. A stand out to me was Amber Heard as Mera. She has some fantastic action scenes and is a really compelling character. She was my favorite character, other than Arthur. Willem Dafoe, Nicole Kidman, and Dolph Lundgren also all do a fantastic job in their parts. The dialogue is a bit cheesy in places, but that was expected from a comic book movie, but the acting is just plain good.

The action and special effects are incredibly good, and didn’t pull me out of the film. The underwater fight scenes were amazing and the choreography of the fights were perfect and even showed the personalities of the characters. If underwater fights could happen, Wan did an excellent job. One of the best examples of this is Arthur’s first fight with Orm.  The CGI was almost perfect, everything felt realistic and believable. feel the effects were better than Infinity War, the most recent Avengers film in the MCU. The direction was outstanding. James Wan used some beautiful visuals and transitions that just work incredibly well. The cinematography was smooth and never felt choppy.

“Aquaman” shows a bright future for the DCEU (DC Extended Universe). I was pleasantly surprised by what I watched and it gave me further hope for all upcoming DC projects especially “Shazam!” which releases in April. Aquaman is one of the best origin films I have watched in a long time. Be sure to see it over break, it releases Friday Dec. 21st. Rating: 9/10