GrimTheLost: Come now, don't bite the poor guy's head off.
Just relax and remember that you just got given about $800 worth of goodies for free, you lucky beggar... I never win anything like that.
Still, I'm just happy that I'll get to see the film at all...Western movies are frequently released in China months late, or sometimes not at all, but for this one they've decided to go day-and-date with the US to reduce losses to piracy. Heck, thanks to the time difference, I might even get to see it
before any of you...there's a turn-up for the books!
I hope this one does it for me. Spider-Man's one of the only comics I've read extensively, mostly the really old-school Stan Lee stuff, so I really want the movies to be good. The first Spider-Man I thought was pretty fun, but as for Spider-Man 2...to be blunt, I found it to be the most disappointing cinematic experience of my life.
Above all, it showed me how different subjective reactions can be, because I found myself disagreeing in the strongest possible terms with every single aspect that every other reviewer seemed to be praising it for. I thought the dialogue and performances were totally unconvincing and sledgehammer obvious (in particular, at no point does Rosemary Harris's Aunt May seem even remotely like a genuine human being); the action was so over-edited and blatantly computer-generated as to become completely distracting; the storytelling was flabby and lacking any drive, with several scenes (notably the chocolate cake scene and the "comedy" scenes) feeling so pointless and drawn-out as to become actually embarassing; Doc Ock was a weak, confused and unnecessary rehash of Norman Osborn's "Peter's scientist mentor goes tragically insane" arc, except with a listless Alfred Molina instead of the charismatic Willem Dafoe...I could go on.
The worst thing for me, though, was the movie's apparently total lack of interest in Spider-Man himself as a character. The way I saw it in the comics, Spider-Man isn't just a costume to Peter Parker, he's a whole different persona, a genuine alter-ego; being Spidey allows him to forget that he's a socially awkward college student and become this brassy, confident, wise-cracking superhero, the much-referenced "friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man". It's that side of Spidey that makes him such a fun superhero in my opinion, which is why it was so jarring that across the first two movies, I can count the number of times we got even a glimpse of that character on the fingers of one hand; movie Spider-Man is never anything other than Peter Parker in a suit, a fact emphasised by the filmmaker's (or Tobey Maguire's contract's) need to have him take off his mask about ten times during the movie (usually in front of people too, which he almost
never does in the comic). This places the focus of the story exclusively on Maguire's Peter, a character who I cannot stand.
The reason that the Peter of the comics is such an accessible character is that he's just an average young man; good-hearted and smart, yes, but he's not
especially rich, strong, handsome or popular, he's just your normal guy dealing with his problems like any normal guy would. Instead, the movie presents Peter as an ineffectual milksop who fumbles his way through life in such an inept way that I just felt as though
anyone could handle the problems of being Spider-Man better than he does; his soon-to-be deadly quarrel with Harry Osborn, for example, is based entirely on a misunderstanding that Peter could have easily rectified, but bafflingly chose not to. Basically, I just didn't like him; and if you don't like Spider-Man, how good could a Spider-Man movie possibly be?
Blergh...I didn't mean that to be either as downbeat or as long as it was, but I guess the fact is that the movie is something of a sore spot for me. I was so excited before going to see it for the first time, and I've seen it twice more since, including another time in the cinema. Each time I psyche myself up, wanting it to prove me wrong, wanting to see in it what everybody else does; Lord help me, writing all that has made me want to watch it again to give it
another chance, but I know I shouldn't, because I'll just be disappointed again.
For Spider-Man 3, I'm keeping my expectations low, which I hope will increase my enjoyment of it; like I said, I love Spider-Man, and I really want to love these movies. I liked Sandman a lot in the comics, and though I've never read an actual Venom story, I know enough about him to know how cool he could be; I'm hoping they can turn this one round.
