Spiderman 3
Tuesday:
While Pip enjoyed the delights of Strada, I wage-slaved in San Francisco. After work, we made tasty quesadillas at home before going to Spiderman 3 which was quite dreadful.
Spiderman 3, in a word, fails. It falls short of comedic atrocity, offering the viewer no hilariously corny lines or uproariously dreadful plot developments. It also falls short of actually being a good movie.
I was under-whelmed by the special effects-- ironically since the special effects made Spiderman 3 the most expensive movie in history. Although they were visually impressive, I was so bored by the long, laboring plot that even well-choreographed and dazzling fight scenes left me wondering what time it was. The only moving special effects occur when Sandman struggles out of a heap of dust where his human incarnation died. Something about his painful emergence reminded me of Michaleangelo’s unfinished Prisoners in the Rocks. Sadly for me, this beautiful segment accounted for only three minutes of the film.
One of the largest problems is that the film cannot sustain three super-villains as well as meaningful character development. Instead, everything about it (acting, plot, character development) is painted in short-hand strokes of mediocrity. This was especially true of the film’s vague attempts to show Peter Parker’s dark side and engage issues of egoism, jealousy and revenge.
Any weight the viewer might give to Parker’s darker yet human side, is eradicated by the explanation that an intergalactic pile of glup is the cause. (The symbiot, Venom, to the initiated.) “It wasn’t ME being an egotistical, vengeful prick, honey! See, there was this evil, black extraterrestrial meteor ooze that followed us home one night and glued itself onto my superhero outfit and took over bits of my brain and made me comb my hair down in front of my eyes and IT MADE ME DO IT!”
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm……… ‘kay.
The symbiot, the learned professor tells us, would amplify its host’s characteristics or latent traits most particularly its aggression. This fails to explain why, in addition to “making him be” cruel and vindictive to Mary Jane et. al., the symbiot turns Peter Parker into a disco queen. Perhaps all he needed was icky black space puss to make him realize that he wants to make bitchy wise-cracks, upstage others with his crowd-pleasing Broadway moves and suddenly develop (dark! emo!) fashion sense. That said, at some points he still swaggers down the street like a clueless geek-boy, totally oblivious to the disgust of the women around him.
Other problems abound, though this entails spoilers:
1) Does M-J have short term memory problems? Evil!Harry shows up on a hover board and threatens Peter’s life unless she breaks up with him. M-J tearfully acquiesces. And then forgets all about it. And doesn’t do anything. Except get kidnapped.
2) M-J & Peter’s relationship difficulties (jealousy, both romantic and career, inability to communicate, etc) are swept under the run when Peter and Harry save M-J from not just one, but TWO, super-villains.
3) Why did Harry have to die? Oh, right: because this is the Spiderman Franchise, not the Spiderman and disfigured frenemy / fellow super-villian-hero Franchise. But really, why are we so convinced that the only way to atone for wrongdoing is to die with foolishly heroic self-sacrifice. Grrrrrrrrr…. (We worry the same fate lies in store for Severus, alas. Oh, Severus! Don’t do anything idiotically Gryffindor in Book 7! Don’t you dare throw yourself in front of an Avada Kedavra for Harry! Um… but that’s another topic.)
The whole thing was rather like bad sex: I sat there watching it, hoping it would just reach its climax soon so I could go home (unsatisfied) and get some sleep.
The highlight of the whole experience was seeing half of the Harry Potter preview (damn our tardiness!) in which Snape says, “You must DISCIPLINE your mind!” and seeing the preview for “Across the Universe,” Julie Taymor’s next film which has guest appearances by Iggy Pop and Bono. It’s a ‘60s and ‘70s odyssey which will afford many opportunities for her trademark surreal and sometimes trippy visual sequences. Mmmmmmm…… July13th and September 27th cannot come quickly enough!
While Pip enjoyed the delights of Strada, I wage-slaved in San Francisco. After work, we made tasty quesadillas at home before going to Spiderman 3 which was quite dreadful.
Spiderman 3, in a word, fails. It falls short of comedic atrocity, offering the viewer no hilariously corny lines or uproariously dreadful plot developments. It also falls short of actually being a good movie.
I was under-whelmed by the special effects-- ironically since the special effects made Spiderman 3 the most expensive movie in history. Although they were visually impressive, I was so bored by the long, laboring plot that even well-choreographed and dazzling fight scenes left me wondering what time it was. The only moving special effects occur when Sandman struggles out of a heap of dust where his human incarnation died. Something about his painful emergence reminded me of Michaleangelo’s unfinished Prisoners in the Rocks. Sadly for me, this beautiful segment accounted for only three minutes of the film.
One of the largest problems is that the film cannot sustain three super-villains as well as meaningful character development. Instead, everything about it (acting, plot, character development) is painted in short-hand strokes of mediocrity. This was especially true of the film’s vague attempts to show Peter Parker’s dark side and engage issues of egoism, jealousy and revenge.
Any weight the viewer might give to Parker’s darker yet human side, is eradicated by the explanation that an intergalactic pile of glup is the cause. (The symbiot, Venom, to the initiated.) “It wasn’t ME being an egotistical, vengeful prick, honey! See, there was this evil, black extraterrestrial meteor ooze that followed us home one night and glued itself onto my superhero outfit and took over bits of my brain and made me comb my hair down in front of my eyes and IT MADE ME DO IT!”
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm……… ‘kay.
The symbiot, the learned professor tells us, would amplify its host’s characteristics or latent traits most particularly its aggression. This fails to explain why, in addition to “making him be” cruel and vindictive to Mary Jane et. al., the symbiot turns Peter Parker into a disco queen. Perhaps all he needed was icky black space puss to make him realize that he wants to make bitchy wise-cracks, upstage others with his crowd-pleasing Broadway moves and suddenly develop (dark! emo!) fashion sense. That said, at some points he still swaggers down the street like a clueless geek-boy, totally oblivious to the disgust of the women around him.
Other problems abound, though this entails spoilers:
1) Does M-J have short term memory problems? Evil!Harry shows up on a hover board and threatens Peter’s life unless she breaks up with him. M-J tearfully acquiesces. And then forgets all about it. And doesn’t do anything. Except get kidnapped.
2) M-J & Peter’s relationship difficulties (jealousy, both romantic and career, inability to communicate, etc) are swept under the run when Peter and Harry save M-J from not just one, but TWO, super-villains.
3) Why did Harry have to die? Oh, right: because this is the Spiderman Franchise, not the Spiderman and disfigured frenemy / fellow super-villian-hero Franchise. But really, why are we so convinced that the only way to atone for wrongdoing is to die with foolishly heroic self-sacrifice. Grrrrrrrrr…. (We worry the same fate lies in store for Severus, alas. Oh, Severus! Don’t do anything idiotically Gryffindor in Book 7! Don’t you dare throw yourself in front of an Avada Kedavra for Harry! Um… but that’s another topic.)
The whole thing was rather like bad sex: I sat there watching it, hoping it would just reach its climax soon so I could go home (unsatisfied) and get some sleep.
The highlight of the whole experience was seeing half of the Harry Potter preview (damn our tardiness!) in which Snape says, “You must DISCIPLINE your mind!” and seeing the preview for “Across the Universe,” Julie Taymor’s next film which has guest appearances by Iggy Pop and Bono. It’s a ‘60s and ‘70s odyssey which will afford many opportunities for her trademark surreal and sometimes trippy visual sequences. Mmmmmmm…… July13th and September 27th cannot come quickly enough!