Day 682

Aka Thursday 13^th December 2018

Today I carried on with prepping for next week’s interview…

…then I went into London Town to (a) pick up this week’s New Comic Book Day gems:

…and (b) meet up with a friend to see 'Aquaman', which was a weird viewing experience. It’s competently written, filmed, acted, set dressed, etc., but it doesn’t grab you or pull you in. The bare bones plot is of an exiled prince going home and claiming his crown, and there are references to grand mythical stories, such as the King Arthur legend. But the film doesn’t seem to trust in this and often seems ridiculous, for example when the baddie says he will not just be king but Ocean Master, it doesn’t come across as scary, but as hokey, as ridiculous, as daft. Or when Aquaman boldly states his name, it doesn’t inspire grander, but titters. 

Basically, the film doesn’t seem to know if it’s got it’s tongue in cheek or if it’s being deadly serious. Instead, it just throws scenes at you, without investing in them. Here’s the young Aquaman being taught how to fight, here’s the fake attack which sets up the films plot, here’s Aquaman emoting about his dead mother, here’s Aquaman and Mera falling in love, here’s the big epic CGI fight. It feels like a checklist and not like a story, so much so that I started to nod off at a few parts. Even the big epic CGI fight at the end, which should have kept you on the edge of your seat, just felt perfunctorily. It’s not a bad film, but it’s not a good film either. This Mark Kermode review sums things up pretty nicely. 5/10.

…on the train home I finished reading ‘Broadsword Calling Danny Boy’, a great little book which perfectly captures the joy and silliness and fun of 'Where Eagles Dare', and started on James O’Brien’s ‘How To Be Right…In A World Gone Wrong’…

…and I did the G2 Crossword:

…and the song gets even worse as I need to cheat on close to half the clues (ten out of 26). The answer reservoir is well and truly empty, but I did learn that ‘Peel’ is a ‘Manx port’, that a ‘lint’ is a ‘wound dressing’, that ‘spindrift’ is ‘fine snow driven by the wind’ and that ‘fens’ are ‘low-lying wetlands’.