Aquaman Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

3. Black Manta Is A Terrific Villain

If Orm aka Ocean Master is more of a familiar baddie we've seen countless times before in superhero films, secondary antagonist Black Manta is a decidedly more successful and interesting villain.

He's not in the movie a ton, but he's nevertheless built up to be an expectation-defying foil for Aquaman, with some surprisingly compelling motivations for revenge.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II does fine work bringing the beloved antagonist to life, aided by a supervillain suit that's comic-accurate to the point of absurdity and yet somehow still looks incredibly neat on-screen.

No spoilers here on Manta's fate in the movie, but hopefully this isn't the last we'll see of the character.