In December of 2018, we found a number of exciting things: Christmas, end of school, the new year, and of course…the movies. Now, normally we always have a Star Wars movie but this year two other movies took the cake to be the most anticipated movie. Aquaman and Bumblebee. Here I will write about the positives and flaws of both movies, as well as my opinion on which one you should see.

Bumblebee released on December 21st, 2018. The Transformers movies have had a pretty bad run over the last decade, starting from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to last year’s Transformers: The Last Knight. While most of the Transformers movies made over a billion dollars ,last year’s entry failed to impress. This is where this year’s Bumblebee comes into play. Acting like a soft reboot, it follows a journey between Bumblebee, who was sent from a war-raged planet to seek refuge on Earth, and Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), a teenager who lost her dad recently. As they meet, they become good friends, ultimately realizing what a good friendship can mean in times of hardship. The best part of the movie was easily the setting in the 80s, opting for a more cheesy and more pop culture driven film. The movie also was 3 hours long like the previous movies and the pacing and script were very strong. My only issue was the cheesiness and forced military subplot, like in every Transformers movie. While John Cena was entertaining, he didn’t seem to offer anything to add on to this movie. Regardless, I had an incredibly fun time watching this movie and I’m going to give it an A-. I highly recommend you check this movie out as it is currently playing in theaters.

Aquaman also released on December, 21st, 2018. The DC movies have been OK up to now, and while critics are raving about this movie’s fun tone and action, I personally found it disappointing. The queen of Atlantis is on the run, has a kid with a human, and that kid is Aquaman. Fast forward around 20 years and Atlantis is in danger. Someone from Atlantis comes to Aquaman to try and convince him to save Atlantis once and for all. I did talk to a few of my friends as well as looked up reviews from other people, mostly saying this movie was good. My initial reaction was also okay in that I gave the movie a B-. My issue with the movie was not that it was too cheesy or anything, but rather that it tried to do too many things out of order. The events were poorly handled in that the protagonists do something, realize they need to do something else to win, follow that, and then get sidetracked with something else. In other words, the movie was messy. Granted, there are some positives in that Jason Momoa played Aquaman really well, the music was pretty good (except for that one Africa cover), and the CGI was extremely well done. I am going to give Aquaman a C.

At the end of the day, I would highly recommend checking out Bumblebee as it is my favorite movie for December 2018. Be sure to check out my review next month and as always have a fantastic rest of your day.