the first big movie of the summer finally came. i went to a midnight showing (against my better judgement) and really enjoyed it. the only problem is that it becomes less enjoyable the more i think about it. and now, after a second viewing, i have become even less fond of it.
as a comic book nerd growing up i always longed for movies about the heroes i loved on the big screen. ive gotten to see many of those dreams fulfilled- through x-men, batman, blade, and even hellboy. now, i must admit, ive never really cared for spiderman. he just never grabbed my imagination. comics aside, his movie adventures have often found me cheering. the first spiderman movie was a lot of fun and a joy to see the cool effects of spidey swinging around the city. the second spiderman was infinately better, it had a good villian, a great story, and all the fun and adventure i could have asked for. i would say it is one of the best comic book movies i have ever seen. needless to say my expectations were quite high for this latest outing. the previews looked great, and venom is definitely the best spiderman bad guy out there.
unfortunately the movie doesnt live up to the standard set by the second one. the problem is one that plagued another superhero '3' movie- x-men: the last stand. its got too much going on. i dont know why they thought they needed three bad guys, two love interests, and a total reworking of stuff they already covered in the first one. it just ends up being overkill. i can understand the culmination of harry's story, its something that has been building since the first movie, but the other two bad guys are contrived and poorly executed. who thought it would be a good idea to totally rewrite the murder of uncle ben? by doing this it totally throws out the whole reason peter parker become spiderman in the first place. what ends up happening to sandman? why does harry flip his alligance so quickly- and so often? why introduce a new love interest for peter, hes having a hard enough time trying to make it work with mj as it is. and whats with the black goo from space? no attempt is ever made to explain it. we just have to accept it and move on because thats obviously what the writers did.
even with all those questions though, it is still a fun movie and is quite entertaining. it has its flaws, but the action and effects are good at distracting attention away from them. at least for a while. but eventually even all that shiny stuff cant keep you from realizing its a bit of a dissapointment.
i dont know if youve ever seen the movie 'crank', but its really cool. i wrote about it when i saw it in the fall. the idea is there is a guy who has been given a poison that will kill him his his adrenaline goes down. crazy setup, crazier movie. but one of the really memorable and cool things in the movie is the ring tone of the main character. the whole movie feels like a drug trip, and the ring tone has that feeling as well.
