Well, as regular readers (if there are any) know, I pretty much gave up on Marvel movies -- except Spider-man. I like those movies because they're a little more relatable. Spidey has issues, he's got girl problems, and he's got a sense of humor -- pretty much descriptive of every regular guy there is, outside of the whole shooting webs out of your wrists thing. But you can identify with him more than you can with, say, Batman.
This movie has a little less confusing story that most Marvels, although I still didn't understand a lot of it. Suffice to say that, as usual, there is a dire situation that must be solved. In this case, rather than the universe or the galaxy being at risk, it's a little more personal (spoiler alert - stop reading right now if you haven't seen the movie): Spidey gets shot and is fighting for his life in a New York hospital.
When that happened, I realized that, given the fact that I still like the Spider-Man movies more than the other Marvels, I still don't give a crap about this character. Why? Well, because we know he isn't REALLY in any risk at all. He's GOING to be saved, otherwise Sony would lose the rights to the Spider-Man character and he'd revert back to Disney and we just can't have that. And even if he really gets killed, thanks to all the multiverse bullshit they came up with several decades or years or wahtever ago, he'll come back to life in a different universe (maybe played by a woman or an Asian guy) and life wll go on.
So they've made it so we don't have to care about the characters.
Didn't any of these filmmakers ever see "Old Yeller?" In that movie, the dog dies and you know he's never coming back, and it breaks your heart. Or "Bambi," where his mom gets shot and you know she's never coming back and you really feel for the young one left behind. Or "Love Story," where Ali MacGraw dies and it breaks Ryan O'Neal's heart and everyone in the audience too.
If those movies had been made by Marvel, Yeller or Bambi's mom or Ali MacGraw would still be romping around movies today, making sequel after sequel and probably saving the universe in the bargain.
So the movie was enjoyable, there were a couple of good laughs in it, the action scenes were spot-on, although I get a little irritated with Spidey's web being able to do anything with no physical restrants at all -- stop a train, hang 20 bad guys up from a lamp post, keep a bus from falling on a person...but whenever some of it gets in the way, anybody can just brush it aside like it's last week's cobwebs. Just once I'd like to see Spidey jump off a building, throw a web around a cornice to swing from, and then have the cornice break off, or maybe the surface of the cornice is wet and the web won't stick to it. Or maybe Spidey could throw a web and miss the target. Anything, just make these heroes the least bit vulnerable to SOMEthing so we can be a little afraid for them.
Gripes aside, I was entertained. 3 out of 5 stars from me. An extra star awarded because it's doing great business -- we had 100% sellouts the first two nights, which I don't think has ever happend -- we always have three or four empty seats, but not this time.
This movie has a little less confusing story that most Marvels, although I still didn't understand a lot of it. Suffice to say that, as usual, there is a dire situation that must be solved. In this case, rather than the universe or the galaxy being at risk, it's a little more personal (spoiler alert - stop reading right now if you haven't seen the movie): Spidey gets shot and is fighting for his life in a New York hospital.
When that happened, I realized that, given the fact that I still like the Spider-Man movies more than the other Marvels, I still don't give a crap about this character. Why? Well, because we know he isn't REALLY in any risk at all. He's GOING to be saved, otherwise Sony would lose the rights to the Spider-Man character and he'd revert back to Disney and we just can't have that. And even if he really gets killed, thanks to all the multiverse bullshit they came up with several decades or years or wahtever ago, he'll come back to life in a different universe (maybe played by a woman or an Asian guy) and life wll go on.
So they've made it so we don't have to care about the characters.
Didn't any of these filmmakers ever see "Old Yeller?" In that movie, the dog dies and you know he's never coming back, and it breaks your heart. Or "Bambi," where his mom gets shot and you know she's never coming back and you really feel for the young one left behind. Or "Love Story," where Ali MacGraw dies and it breaks Ryan O'Neal's heart and everyone in the audience too.
If those movies had been made by Marvel, Yeller or Bambi's mom or Ali MacGraw would still be romping around movies today, making sequel after sequel and probably saving the universe in the bargain.
So the movie was enjoyable, there were a couple of good laughs in it, the action scenes were spot-on, although I get a little irritated with Spidey's web being able to do anything with no physical restrants at all -- stop a train, hang 20 bad guys up from a lamp post, keep a bus from falling on a person...but whenever some of it gets in the way, anybody can just brush it aside like it's last week's cobwebs. Just once I'd like to see Spidey jump off a building, throw a web around a cornice to swing from, and then have the cornice break off, or maybe the surface of the cornice is wet and the web won't stick to it. Or maybe Spidey could throw a web and miss the target. Anything, just make these heroes the least bit vulnerable to SOMEthing so we can be a little afraid for them.
Gripes aside, I was entertained. 3 out of 5 stars from me. An extra star awarded because it's doing great business -- we had 100% sellouts the first two nights, which I don't think has ever happend -- we always have three or four empty seats, but not this time.
Comment