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This just in....
2002-05-12 13:47:43
Do'h! Correction to the Spider-man review bits. Steve ROGERS is Cap. America, not Steeve Reeves. (Steve Reeves was in all the gladiator flicks.)
That, and I can't believe that I didn't make any cracks about Duck Dodgers in the Jason X review... -
"Your silver grin............still sticking in........"
2002-05-10 01:58:56
Quu showed us a video to that song last time we all got together for an anime showing, and I was reminded for the first time in years how much I love that line.....and hate the rest of the song. Bush manages to put so much wonderful inflection into that line that it sounds almost like a dusty old turntable getting up to speed, promising a cool set of absurdist or abstracted visuals, and then just falling apart into a nonsensical chorus repeated over and over again. I'll allow for a lot, but rhyming "down" with "mouth" takes a particular degree of mush-mouthed-ness that I can't particularly tolerate. You know, most of that goes for the movie it headlined in, "An American Werewolf in Paris." OK idea, crap execution.
This last month at work has been particularly frustrating. My cell cultures have been turning out sub-par repeatedly, and this week, where, by stretching the limits of "acceptable" just a tad, I finally got a nice set of plates for experiments, and we got a good blood sample, half of the plates pick up a bug from somewhere and get contaminated. (Matt's first rule of contamination. Are your cell cultures fuzzy? Yes, you have contamination.) Tried to run an experiment anyway, but had to call it off in disgust due to the unresponsiveness of blood stored overnight. I hate it when I can't use fresh. (Recent readers may want to go back a couple of months to where I describe my job.)
On the other hand, enough things have stopped smacking me around and I am in enough need of something creative and positive to do that I've finally recorded the song for my next vid into the computer. Depending on my mood, I'm only one coredump and defrag away from capturing.
For those of you who can't find yourself an "old timer" (ha ha Bowler) to explain the "Secret Wars" to you, the two sets went roughly like this: (Secret Wars I I only know from reputation and flashbacks, so someone out there correct me if I drift afield) An event in the Marvel universe punched a pinhole through into another universe. That second universe, which happened to exist as a single, sentient, nearly omnipotent force watched the Marvel universe for a while and then conducted the "Good vs. Evil smackdown" I described before. The contested ended without a resolution due (IIRC) to some "cheating" on the part of the Evil team. Eventually the second universe, dissatisfied with it's attempts to work out existence through its contest, came through the pinhole in the form of "The Beyonder" to take a good long look around from the perspective of a human. I won't go into all the details, but "The Beyonder" took on the form of a dark-haired copy of Steve Reeves (aka Capt. America...leaving him looking remarkably like David Hasselhof) and spent something like 32 issues hopping around between all of the different Marvel books. The thing is, he was essentially an omnipotent version of "Starman" (cheesy 80's flick) and his idiotic wanderings pissed off almost all Marvel fans. Perhaps the best example of the incidents is when he hopped into "Power Man and Iron Fist"'s comic. Power Man explained to the Beyonder (rather cursorily) that the purpose of life was the acquisition of wealth....so the Beyonder turned their building into solid gold...and it collapsed. Imagine 32 issues devoted to essentially an idiot-savant Mr. Mxtylplix (sp?) or the "popup" Impossible Man. There's an interesting side note that, despite the Beyonder's complete erasure of the entire New Mutants team (past present and future), Illyana's magic somehow withstood one of Marvel's few "omnipotent forces" enough to pass itself onto Kitty Pride, along with memories of the team.
Anyway, eventually the Beyonder was ambushed when he set his power aside through an enormously implausible sequence of events. Let's just say it wasn't Marvel's shining-est hour, and most old-timers will grit their teeth at the memory.
Oh, and I have to take back what I said about "something positive". The newly defunct (but still archived) "The Parking lot is Full" (www.pilf.com) is much more vicious than the other comic. Check out January 21, 2001 (frames...can't link directly).
Now that I've finished geeking-out in the comics sector, allow me to geek out in my standard review format.
A few days before I got out to see Spider-Man on opening night (as my lab insisted on seeing Spidey the moment it came out) I went with my friend Hil to see Jason X at the Lennox theater for the 10:15 showing. It turns out that it was damn lucky we went there instead of to Phipps, our original destination, as two people were shot and killed at the Phipps theater that night, and the cops kept everyone's cars until 8:15 the next morning. Dodged the bullet on BOTH figurative and literal levels there.
Before I move into the review proper, there are two things I must do. First I have to go over the previews. I shoulda' known what sort of horror flick I was seeing when I realized that over half of the previews showing before Jason X were comedies. Horror and Comedy have a very uneasy truce in my book. Occasionally it can be used to accentuate the moment, but I've seen it used to utterly defuse what should have been wonderful penultimate scenes. Then there are the horror flicks that are essentially nothing but gory comedies. Eh. I try to take 'em individually, but some of the worse or more insulting attempts just make me despair at the direction the genre is moving. Anyway, it was all made up for by the preview for another horror film coming out. Halloween: Resurrection! (Uh, 7? 8? lost track, since the middle set were so hideously bad and H20 ignored the numbering altogether.) This time Michael Myers (no, not Mike Myers) is taking a stab at Busta' Rhymes. Seems only fair, since last time he got to swing at L.L.Cool Jay. Jamie Lee Curtis comes back for this one too. Frankly, I wish she'd stay out. She was great in the first two, and she proved her loyalty to the series by returning for H20, but I really don't think she really fits in as a scream queen anymore. Eh. Could be wrong.
Next, we go over to www.rottentomatoes.com to see what the critics of the world think. Out of 57 reviews, 48 reviewers panned the movie. What does this tell us? It tells us that "real" reviewers think that reviewing an honest-to-God slasher flick (as opposed to "intelligent" or "star studded" or "more money than God" slasher flicks) is about a half-step up from reviewing porn films. The vast majority of those reviews (from the few I browsed through) should just have "didn't get the point" stamped on them. Because, here's the windup, Jason X is a truly great movie.
I'll come back to the movie itself in a moment. See, I've been wondering something for a while. Whenever we see western horror represented in anime (usually in a parody format) there's always a Dracula, a Frankenstein.....and Jason. Think about it a moment. Remember the crewmember from Irresponsible Captain Taylor? The staged haunting in one of the earlier episodes of Maison Ikoku? This is really rather odd when you think about it. Freddy Krueger is at least as well known, and probably better liked here in the states (as he gets to wisecrack), and Leatherface was the real originator of the archetypal style. Nightmare on Elm Street has had seven films, most of them more successful than Friday the 13th. Texas Chainsaw Massacre has three sequels. Jason himself didn't really even acquire his most commonly identified form (the hockey mask) until the third film...and didn't really become the unstoppable Juggernaut of horror the world knows him as until the sixth flick, where he comes back from the grave. (Well, maybe. It's been a long time since I saw some of the earlier ones.) And after THAT, most of the flicks weren't very good.
I can understand why the generic concept of Jason was picked up so easily by the Japanese for parody in anime...it's the simplicity of the concept. It's like Jaws, "...all it does is kill, and swim, and make little sharks." Well, Jason doesn't even bother with that last one. All he does is kill, without need for reason or motivation. Your presence in the wrong place (anywhere near him) is enough to require your death. Michael Myers requires that you be between him and one of his sisters. Pinhead requires that you call him. Freddy Krueger requires that you be the children of one of his killers. Jason requires nothing. The archetype he represents is equally odd in that he, himself, hasn't been all that good at representing it. He hasn't shown up in 20% of his own movies. Was something of a whining "mama's boy" at his first appearance. Was a scrambling, running monster before he became the quiet plodding one. Was drowned in his own lake once. Was buried in the middle of his series. Fought to a standstill by and lost his mask to "Carrie" in VI. Strayed outside of his established hunting grounds in VIII. Re-written as a "demonic influence" in IX. In short, the "mindless but infinitely unstoppable killing machine" character that Jason Voorhees supposedly represents the epitome of has come about in SPITE of the actual events of the films. Merely the mood of the character, an insane behemoth stalking purposefully through the woods, hatchet in hand, has overpowered the films themselves through the quiet strength of the little kernel of fear it strikes a resonance with.
That's not really enough to sustain one through 10 films, though, and the makers of this recent edition know that.
Yeah, there's humor, but they do it RIGHT. Jason X is a truly great film. Grab a friend of yours whom you think is willing to tolerate a slasher flick, catch a showing in a mostly-empty theater (that would be....any theater showing this flick), sit far enough away from anyone else, and comment quietly to yourselves throughout the film. I haven't enjoyed a film this much since Godzilla 2000. One of Hil's friends described the film as "so bad it's great." Although I wouldn't agree with that, the effect is similar.
So, we all know that Jason X is "Jason innnnnnn spaceeeeeee!" but how do we get him there? Step one, catch him. Already done at the start of the flick. The year is 2004 and the notorious Jason Voorhees, killer of over 200 individuals, is trussed up and awaiting cryogenic storage. (They had some trouble killing him so he'd stay dead.) [Wait, you say, wasn't he obliterated as an exorcized daemon and dragged down to hell by Freddy Krueger at the end of IX? Bah, I say. Details.] Of course, there's a military man who shows up at the last second an tries to transport him away for military research. Of course, Jason gets loose (surprise, surprise, it WASN'T the military guy's fault!) and kills EVERYBODY with his vintage condition, fire tempered, diamond edged machete. The sole survivor lures the big JV into a basement freezing chamber, but the somewhat befuddled behemoth just stabs her with the machete, in the gut, through a THREE INCH SOLID STEEL DOOR. Damn. The resultant coolant leak freezes her as well.
Apparently the janitor at this institute is really lax, as 453 years pass before they are discovered by a school field trip of gargantuan jawas. (No, really. Look at their outfits.) Finding the pair in near-mint condition, and the girl even revivable (after application of some snazzy nutech nano-repair) they decide to haul the two back to their ship...named "The Grendel." Uh Oh. ("Grendel", before it became a comic book by yours truly [just kidding] was a hideous man-eating creature that snuck into the king of Denmark's castle at night and tore men apart with its bare hands. Beowulf eventually killed it by wrenching its arm off.)
During the move, two important things happen. One, Jason manages to cut the arm off of the requisite "pothead" of the film while remaining ENTIRELY IMMOBILE, and two, the pilot of the drop-ship gets one line in that just tells you you're in for a fun ride.
Once we reach the Grendel we get a good look at the crew and come to the realization of exactly how much trouble EVERYONE is in, even before our main character is up and moving around. The students are all oversexed late-teens in fashionably "hip" clothing (Hil mentioned that he woulda thought low-riding jeans would've gone out of style, but I explained that 400 years made it "retro" enough to be cool.) including one girl with a neckline that plunged all the way to her crotch. (Essentially a vest minus the front middle third. By the end of the film you are intimately acquainted with the inner curve of her breasts.) In addition, however, the ship isn't owned by the students. Two words.
Space marines.
Yup, take out the H.R. Geiger aliens, insert Jason Voorhees. Needless to say, they don't stand a chance. I mean, they even have a gun they refer to as "the BFG!" Poor saps. Anyway, everyone settles in at the ship, and the twenty students of varying levels of importance pair off for "recreation," including the teacher, who, we discover, is screwing a student for passing grades. (uh....sorta. Weird sex lives on in the future...) Hmm. Which one of these two is gonna die? (Silly question. BOTH of 'em.) Jason's inbuilt nookie detector goes off and wakes up the newly-thawed killer. In the following scene you can just tell he's trying to catch up. Holding a struggling grad student (are there any other kinds?) I could just see the expression through his Hockey mask going
"uh...uh....creative death....creative death....crap!.....oh!... wait! What's this? *crink* **PASH!**"
What follows is what you'd expect. Only more so. Age and freezer-burn ain't slowed the classic down none. The result is something of a "Crystal Lake aboard the Nostromo".
Things I have learned from this film:
1) Do not call Jason Voorhees "Slappy". He doesn't like that.
2) If you are hunting JV, it doesn't matter if you split up or not.
3) Anyone off-screen is probably dead.
4) Whether you're good OR bad, never leave the corpse alone!
5) If you're really good, you'll be able to spot the one character to receive a momentary respite from gory hatchet-death before it is granted.
6) Creative deaths deserve humorous quips.
There's so much good classic stuff going on between the awakening and the end that I couldn't list it all. I should warn everyone that, yes, in the typical fashion there are a few topless scenes with the students' raging libidos. Also, the classic "kid who ain't gettin' none" predictably lives longer....but in the future you can always build someone to help you with your....uh....one-handed exercise. As far as his...uh..."aid" goes, we can positively say that if Data (ST:TNG) were a woman (who looked a lot like Janice Zuckermann [Mary Gross] from "Feds", only taller)...and watched way too many John Woo movies...she would really kick ass. She actually fights Jason to a standstill at one point, although I think that was at least partly due to surprise.
Humor runs throughout the film working on several levels, from straight one-liners, to hyperbole, to classic references. But here's the key: the humor never really makes fun of the monster. Since Jason never speaks, everyone else gets to say their own and each other's death quips, but they never really act to reduce the presence of Jason's menace. Works to excellent effect.
The best scene by far (I nearly fell out of my chair) involved Jason wandering through a holodeck, and the few remaining victims trying desperately to distract him. This leads to one beautiful line. "He's done with the campers." (*gasp*).
The worst scene involves a repeat of the end of Aliens 4. (With a victim, not the monster.) I really need to do the calculations some time, but the essential point is that pinpoint decompression of your spacecraft is very bad, but it will NOT puree you through a hole in the hull. The pressure difference between inside and outside the ship is only 1 atm. Air will flow out of the hole very fast, but would be plugged by human flesh. You'd probably die by way of the bends (nitrogen bubbles coming out of solution in your bloodstream due to decreased pressure) or associated low-pressure-exposure effects, but you would NOT be sucked apart.
(To those of you "in the know" a bit more, you should know that cyber-Jason doesn't show up until the last 15-20 minutes of the film, and is sorta reversed at the end. Don't worry, it's fun.)
In short, this is a horror movie that knows how to do it right. It doesn't have the long-term foreboding tension built up that was characteristic of the best early Friday the 13ths, but it takes the central idea and has fun with moving it in new directions without insulting the audience or mishandling the themes. At several points it purposely controverts expectations by responding differently (more intelligently) to traditional shtick plot points. An excellent revival of a character suffering from a few bad sequels. I am SO getting the DVD when it comes out. -
2002-05-09 15:54:09
Kusoyaro: It's a joke. The whole thing was obviously a joke if you actually read through the petition explanation and the vast majority of the signees. Coupl'a imbeciles thought it was serious and ranted away, couple'a news sources got ahold of the ranters and reported the petition without looking at it.
Or did you mean that Jeannette Walls is too stupid to live for not realizing that it was a joke? -
"He's done with the CAMPERS!"
2002-05-07 22:24:20
You know, it occurrs to me that my little entries were much better when I was reviewing crap. Reviewing popular movies is just adding a voice to a cacophany. It's not like my opinion would alter anyone's intention to go see Spider Man one way or another, and pussyfooting around with excuses to try and avoid classification as one of the 'haters I decried without coming off as an absolute slathering fanboy screws up my style. It seems my real talent lies in examining the absolute drek that no one else will touch and providing the lone voice of dissent to say that it's actually worthwhile. Maybe I will review Mr. Vorhees aniversary run next time.
And I just realized that I mixed my metaphors in the first line on that last entry. Things come 'round the pike or down the pipe, not down the pike. Bleh. -
"You know what? Fuck it. Rocks fall, everyone dies."
2002-05-07 18:22:15
The quote above comes from "something positive," perhaps the least PC comic to come down the pike since "Sexy Loosers." I mean, you know all bets are off when the FIRST comic is this:
http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12192001.html
(The top line comes from their D&D game and a very frustrated GM.)
Rattle around in there for a while if you ever feel yourself slipping too far to the "nice" side.
My apartment's microwave has an interesting function. If you get through with putting in your appropriate time and power setting, and then, in your confusion, hit the "micro cook" button instead of start, it stores the previous data and presents you with a new screen, with only a tiny little II in the bottom corner of the screen. If then, you, in your confusion, enter the data AGAIN and remember to hit start, the microwave will, without asking, run the two settings back to back and burn your dinner. Clever, no? (Crunch, crunch.)
Absolutely nothing to do at work today, so I came home at two to see if I could get through this pile of exceedingly boring background papers and get something added to my proposal. I think you can guess how well that's going.
OK, I said I wasn't going to do this, but the deluge of recent events surrounding the Spider-Man movie have prompted me to write now rather than later. It really is rather remarkable the response this film has garnered from critics and audiences nationwide. The simple fact that it's the first movie EVER to break $100 million in its opening weekend is remarkable, but the fact that praise for the film is so unilateral caught me completely by surprise. I was expecting fallout at LEAST on the scale of Lord of the Rings with the petty whiners about Tom Bombadil's absence or the imbecile complaining about the lack of a real ending. It looks, however, like the film was attended by EVERYONE who was a fan of the old comics, and, after sitting through the film one or a dozen times (depending on your fanboy dedication) everyone went home, sharpened up their baseball bats (yes, I know that metaphor doesn't work) and stood tensely poised over their computers, ready to BEAT THE EVER LOVING SHIT out of the first person to question the flick's quality. It appears that movie fans HAVE learned something from the LotR discussion, that there will always be someone ready to pick apart your fun into tiny, un-fun bits. THIS TIME they all swore not to be taken off-guard. It also seems that the critics, nitpickers, and the general assholes who never allow themselves to like anything and attend movies just to piss other people off all got wind of that dangerous vibe coming off of the rest of the theater. When they went home, checked all the regular places, and found them strangely destitute of their fellow critics, they sorta, kinda, maybe, figgered they should just sit back for a bit before responding. Other unapologetic fans are doing something of a pre-emptive strike on possible critiques, especially Lileks, wherein we find that disliking "Spider-Man" is a strike against America:
http://www.lileks.com/bleats/index.html (or, if you go there after today: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/050702.html
(OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I think he's gotten a bit carried away. "this movie is more important, in the long run, than any other movie, novel, artwork or musical composition that will be produced in 2002.")
Before I go any further, I should state, out of simple fear of a swarm of...uh...two dozen angry fans, that I did really like the movie. This is not to say that it was perfect, however. (OW! HEY! Who threw that?) Frankly, I think that this review is gonna read like a long list of caveats, gradually disqualifying me from reviewing the film at all. Here goes anyway.
I never read the comics. This may come as a shock to some of you, but I am not qualified to talk on EVERY subject one tends to associate with absolute geekery. Oh I loved/love comics, and in 20/20 retrospect, I would have probably prized Spider-Man above all other Marvel comics. Hell, I'm a glasses-wearing only-child science-geek (card-carrying chess club member) who had his fair share of bullies as a kid. The problem was that when I finally got into comics (picking up right when the X-Men title was re-released at #1 to run alongside the original "Uncanny" and working outward from that point), I approached the Marvel spectrum almost solely through the X-men angle. Marvel, for a long time, seemed pretty solidly divided up between their main flagships. One side was all the X-books and "mutant issues" stories that dealt with their own set of world-shattering menaces like the Brood, the Adversary, Mojo, Apocalypse, or Inferno, and the other side was everyone else. Avengers, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Captain America, Thor, The Punisher, etc. etc. A few characters had the superhuman ability to cross-over, (Wolverine, Beast, etc.) but when was the last time Captain America was seen in an X-book? This is actually a pretty important distinction in style and aspect, at least from my perspective. In my entirely one-sided perspective of the Marvel universe; while the X-men as a concept stretched back to near the beginning of Marvel, the characters themselves had kinda traded out for the introduction of an entirely new team after about, what, 70 episodes? (X-Men Giant Annual #1) The, to some degree, "stepping back" of the original team members and introduction of the new, multi-national team (Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Shadowcat, etc.) essentially re-made the entire book and wiped the slate clean. This gave the writers free reign to make new stories with entirely new villains, new hero origins and mysterious histories, and generally leave a lot of the silver-age trappings of X-Men behind in the dust without having to introduce a new book. (It helps that X-men actually missed much of the Silver age since their book went into reprints for a few years with no new issues coming out.) When it was established that the revision of the entire team wouldn't kill the book, Marvel used this technique to update the comic every few years through the introduction of new "hip" teammates. (Just look at the team's glam-rocker Longshot or the roller-skating pop-diva Dazzler, or, more recently, the angsty gen-X militia team "X-Force".) The trend continued through to today, until now, three years after I dropped the books in disgust, I can't recognize half the characters in the primary lineup. So, what does this have to do with anything? Through the X-men's continuing attempt to remain cool and teenager-appealing angsty, I acquired a rather strong dislike for all the campy old heros and villains that the OTHER half of Marvel was still dragging around. Yeah, they got partial makeovers as well, but there's only so long you can hold a straight face while reading about the threat posed by "Egghead" or "Radioactive Man" (Avengers villains). In contrast to the vast array of old, weirdly themed-enemies dealt with by the solo adventurers from Marvel or the great conglomerate odd-couple groups like the Avengers (East or West coast), the X-men had comparatively few campy leavings to deal with. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants perhaps tops the list, but, being a team, could also be updated with time. Magneto aged surprisingly well as a main villain, the Sentinels could always be upgraded (see: Nimrod).
Is it any surprise I really loved the X-men movie?
On the other end of the scale was Peter Parker. I love the concept of Spider man. Why didn't I get into comics from that end of the scale? Because, when I started, Spider man had already expanded into five titles, and that was just to follow a SINGLE CHARACTER. The X-books at least all had different teams. Different groups showed up in X-men, Uncanny X-men (sorta), Excalibur, New Mutants (gone when I started) and X-Factor, so if you hated one, you could drop that book entirely, excepting crossovers.
As much as I liked the idea of Spider-Man, I've hated almost all of the character concepts for his villains. They always felt terribly campy and mis-matched to me. X-men always had a natural source of villains, namely ill-intentioned mutants. Spider Man, more often than not, ended up fighting "ordinary human with uncanny access to a super suit". Scorpion, Dr. Octopus, Mysterio, The Vulture, etc. They even went all metatextual with Venom and made a super-suit itself the villain. With the exception of "The Lizard" no one really paired off against Petey on his own ground. It didn't help that, whenever Superheroes from DC and Marvel paired off during crossovers or on playground "who could beat up who" lists, Spider-Man always got paired to Superman. I'm sorry, but that's just not fair. HULK vs. Superman, and BATMAN vs. Spider-Man. There.
Boy, this has gone on for a while. Everything here was in aid of a single point. I really, really disliked the Green Goblin. Just on principle. I know he was the original nemesis of Spider-Man, and his glider combined with PP's swinging made for some of the best action sequences, but come' on. Pumpkin bombs? Green and purple outfit? Even the name screams early 60's comics. That, and most of his plans were of the Snidely Whiplash "Nyah Hah Hah" variety of "stupidly evil lunatic."
That said, I went into the film with much trepidation. There's really no-one else that Spider-Man could have been squared-off against in the first film, especially since Marvel actually did a complete arc with the Goblin, all the way to his death. (Although I understand it was much later retconned away and he was brought back to life. Nnnnnggghhh.)
The story. OK, if you don't know the origin story of Peter Parker, you've been living under the equivalent of a Comic-rock. There were a few significant changes to the story as it was told in the film, but they're significant only in that they were deviations from an ALMOST WORD-FOR-WORD telling of the story from the comics. For example, the spider that bites our budding chess nerd on the field trip to the university is genetically engineered, not radioactive. (Equally silly, but more contemporary.) Mary Jane Walker is remade as a sort of combination of Peter's early crushes.
And the web spinners. Yes, they're organic. (All the whiners cry in horror.) In the movie version, they come part-and-parcel with the spider-bite. This is both a big deal and no deal at all. See, in the comics, Peter is an extraordinary science whiz and makes up the webbing, and his web-shooters all on his own. This really would have been an unneeded digression on the part of the film. Making them part of his superpowers both allows for one of the funnier scenes in the film, and saves us some time to tell more important plot points. On the other hand, fully half of the Spider-Man stories I've ever read all involve Peter running out of web fluid halfway through a battle. So you can see why it matters to some people.
Anyway, basic story. Peter Parker, bitten by a *ahem* special spider, develops extraordinary spider-related powers which enables a bit of vindication for all the years of bullying he's tolerated, but only serves to drive this terminally shy nerd into a more secretive shell. Now, I admit to little knowledge of the exact details of SM's origins, but I do remember the bit where he attempts to put his super-powers to work for him...in AMATEUR WRESTLING! And it's IN THE FILM!
How cool is that?
As if that wasn't enough, Bruce Campbell plays the ringmaster for the fight. And in the ring?
Macho Man Randy Savage. (Aka "Bonesaw")
Either you know what follows on the heels of his first wrestling match, or you don't, and I won't ruin it for you.
The film actually stretches long enough to see Peter out of high school and moving out to the city where he rooms with Harry Osborne, an old friend, and works as a freelance photographer for J. Jonah Jameson.
The dynamics of the film get a little complicated, though, with the backstory for Green Goblin. See, Norman Osborne (a part that had the HELL acted out of it by Willem Defoe, especially in the boardroom), the cold, distant, struggling industrialist father of Harry (who has a deep-seated admiration for Peter Parker's integrity and intelligence from VERY early in the film) undergoes a testing procedure to gain approval for one of his inventions, a treatment that causes permanent strength amplification. The result is a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality that Norman unwittingly employs to further his company's aims. His "evil self" continuously torments and taunts him into furthering its goals, until it takes over completely. When Spider-Man nearly thwarts Goblin's homicidal takeover rebuff, and then refuses to join up with GG, the Goblin takes it personally and sets out to destroy Spider Man. In truth, the stories are much more closely intertwined, but it would take too long to elaborate on them. As I said before, I really don't know the Spider-Man comics, but nearly every significant scene I saw in this film I vaguely recognized as being from pivotal moments of the Spider-Man history, slightly tweaked to fit the storyline. From the "with great power" line to the torn Spidey mask near the end, to Harry's final encounter with Spider Man and the end of the Green Goblin, the film has been assembled by someone who CARES about getting it right.
Now, all that (whew) having been said, I'm gonna do a bit of review in the fashion I did for LotR, namely, I will nitpick, but readily admit that these are niggling little nitpicks that really don't detract from an otherwise good film.
The CG: In several spots, to varying degrees, it does look pretty fake. The one that struck me the most was when Peter was running along the rooftops, jumping from edge to edge.
MJ: Cute as a button, but boy she got a couple of pretty lame lines. (The tight sweater in the rainstorm didn't hurt none either.
Peter: Boy, he got a couple of pretty lame lines.
Norman Osborne: Boy, he.....you get the idea. Actually, the problem, IMO, was easy to spot. It appeared briefly in a crowd scene during Macy Grey's concert during the Goblin's first public attack. Stan Lee appears briefly in one crowd scene ducking for cover, and his hands appear all over this film. Make no mistake, I love the guy and he gave us the raw material for some of the best comics ever made, but, typical of anything he has directorial control over, there's a whole lot of melodramatic exposition and pointing up in the sky, shouting "It's Spider-Man!", as well as a heap of...well....lame lines. Most of ‘em are good, but there's a couple of stinkers in there. Much of the film is teetering right on the edge of excessive melodrama. Whether or not you think it went over into camp is sorta a matter of personal taste, and whether you think it MATTERS is also a matter of personal taste. They also make fun of it to an extent (the Superman references, etc.) which tends to blunt any criticism, but they also bring it in full-force when there should have been some buildup.
I really, really hate the Green Goblin. I thought he was lame before, and I think he's lame now. That's really more of a personal problem, though. In the comics, however, the costume was really just a costume. In the film, the costume is an armored flight-suit. While I'm sure that dramatic expression would have been difficult to get through a rubber mask, it's even harder to get through an armored faceplate. We can see SOME movement behind the mask, but not any subtlety, and Willem Defoe's movements are rather hampered by the bulky suit.
J. Jonah Jameson was absolutely nailed. Perfect through and through. I knew I recognized the actor, but couldn't place where he came from until someone told me. He's J.K. Simmons, best known for playing the thoroughly evil neo-Nazi skinhead Shillinger on HBO's OZ.
Tobey Maguire does an admirable job as Spidey (despite occasionally sounding exactly like a young Michael J. Fox), although, among all of his lines, I was rather disappointed to note a lack of quips. My favorite thing about Spidey was the dozens of one-liners he spouted off during his fights. Unfortunately, only a couple got out, likely because they needed all the room to...you know...tell the story. Nonetheless, this was the one thing I really missed. I'm hoping that, since the origin story has been told, there'll be more room for quips in the sequels. Come to think of it, GG didn't get many quips either, and he should've, considering how emphatically Defoe was playing him. I think GG gets only four jokes in the whole film, and most of that is just situational.
In the end, this isn't my favorite comic book film. My loyalties lie solidly with the X-men. Nonetheless, this is an exceedingly good film, suffering only from the inherent difficulties of translating years worth of comics into a single 2-hour story, and its uncomfortable relationship with the inevitable camp factor. My bets for sequel material are, in order, Dr. Octopus, and Venom. If they do Venom, they're gonna have to create him from scrap, because his original story is simply to elaborate to tell on film. (Venom was a symbiote picked up by Parker in another, sentient, universe when that universe had sucked all of the Earth's heros and villains into a massive smackdown to determine if good or evil was superior. Ask a comics old-timer to tell you the story about "Secret Wars I." Then step out of range and ask them about "Secret Wars II.")
JOURNAL: MCWagner (Matthew Wagner)
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