Need to Have Your Oil Changed?

Might I suggest you choose a car service place right near a movie theater? Luckily, that's what I do when the oil needs to be swapped out.   Instead of sitting with a bunch of losers in a waiting area, I walk the block to the Arclight Theater in Culver City and spend the two hours watching a movie.  Sometimes, the showing times work in my favor.   Other times, not so much.

And that's how this super hero-movie-hater wound up going to see...gasp..."Aquaman."  

Since I'm pretty much under exposed when it comes to anything Marvel or DC Comics, I had no clue about this particular character except, of course, I figured the guy lived in the water.  Duh.   Have no fear.   They give you the back story in the first five minutes.   Some lighthouse owner finds a mermaid (Nicole Kidman???!!!) washed up on the shore.   They fall in love and she immediately gets pregnant and gives birth to young son Arthur.  

Then we go off the rails.   It turns out the mermaid is really the Queen of Atlantis and a bunch of water logged centurions abduct her.   They allegedly kill her but, because you know Nicole Kidman wouldn't take a role with such little screen time, she figures to turn up around the end of the picture.   Oh, spoiler alert.   She turns up around the end of the picture.  

But, meanwhile, young Arthur has special powers and, since the Queen also had a son with another denizen of the ocean, he's got an evil half brother.   And then the battle begins to rule over Atlantis, the seas of the world, and maybe even Robert Mueller.   Indeed, this movie takes longer to finish than the latter's Washington investigation.

So, Arthur AKA Aquaman run around the world fighting all sorts of things until the inevitable final battle.   Some of it is amusing.  Some of it is downright confusing.   But Jason Momoa as Aquaman does get the joke and there are a lot of clever one-liners (PS, in real life, he is married to Lisa Bonet of "The Cosby Show").   But the rest of the characters act like they are doing Shakespeare and this renders a very high level of stupidity.  Particularly out of place is Nicole Kidman, who hasn't shown this much confusion since she was married to Tom Cruise.

But what the hell do I know??  "Aquaman" has made a fortune and I am guessing there will be at least six or seven sequels.  I will be likely to see any of them.

Unless, of course, if I need my tires rotated.

LEN'S RATING:  Two stars.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.