I should probably take a few minutes to cool off after just getting out of the theater to post this, but I don’t feel like it right now.
Let me start by saying that the action scenes were great, for the most part. The effects during the actual fight scenes were absolutely top notch; no question about it - probably the best fight scenes in a Spider-man movie so far.
Unfortunately, that one good point is like a piece of a tortilla chip drowning in an order of nachos, with extra, extra, WAY TOO MUCH cheese.
Where do I begin to describe what went wrong in this movie? I won’t ruin it for anyone, but when you first see Peter “under the influence”, me (and several other people in the theater) let out an audible laugh. Oh, if only that was the low point of the cheese factor, but unfortunately it was just the peak of a very steep downward slope. It got to the point where it was quite obvious that they meant to go overboard with it, but (to whoever’s idea that was) sorry, it didn’t work out for you (or at least for me). Some of the cheese even seeped into the fight scenes, when you see Spidey fly (and pose) in front of a US flag that just happens to be flying at the battle scene.
The Eddie Brock character was actually fairly well done, at least until he turned into “you know who”. The post-transformation character was not as impressive as I think it should have been. I admit I did have my doubts about whether they could do Venom well in a movie, and I think they fell a bit short in that area as well. That’s a minor complaint, though, relative to other parts of the movie. If you see it, you will know exactly what I’m talking about.
I’ve heard rumors that several of the main actors in this series don’t want to do another sequel. Initially, when I heard that, I thought it was bad news, since I really can’t see anyone else playing Peter and Mary Jane at this point; I thought they were very well cast. Now, however, I don’t blame those actors in the slightest. If another Spider-man film is made (or I should say when, because it’s still probably guaranteed box office cash no matter what), it is going to have an uphill battle recruiting serious actors to play in it, and maybe even with getting serious fans to watch it as well.
In summary, I’m truly sad to say that (in my opinion) most of that movie really sucked. The worst part about it is that I deliberately did not set my expectations too high. I really did appreciate the first two Spider-man movies, and if this one would have been half as good as either of those I would have been very pleased. When I say that I’m sorry it wasn’t, I really do mean it. I grew up reading comic books, and I generally still really enjoy the movies they make based on them. I appreciate them for what they are, even when they dumb things down substantially to appeal to larger audiences. Heck, I even was borderline OK with the first Fantastic Four movie, and that is a bug stretch. This one went beyond the bounds, though, as far as I’m concerned.
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[...] with Jared after the movie we figured the cheesy factor was for the kids. But like I said it was almost as if [...]
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i felt like the cheesy parts you mention were intentional. like i said on dan’s blog, i think they didn’t think they could pull off certain aspects of the movie and just didn’t even try to do so in a realistic way. maybe it was disrespectful to do that, but i thought it worked as a secondary option in terms of general audience entertainment.
i thought the “under the influence” stuff was deliciously cheesy. in my show, it wasn’t just a few people laughing out loud, it was the whole audience completely cracking up.
Yeah, like I said above as well, it was obvious they meant to go overboard with it; I just didn’t think it was a good idea. He’s a good actor; with decent writing and direction they could have done something better than that.
I’m thinking they could have made him act it out but then again kids wouldn’t get it. It would be interesting to see if they had two cuts and they chose the easy way out.
PS - No more Stan Lee cameos, please. Please.
I respect the guy for what he did in his time (with a lot of help from Jack Kirby), but his cameos in the Marvel films (along with other stuff he does, like that TV show) are just getting cheesier and cheesier. I even like the concept of him having small cameos in all the films, but that doesn’t mean he needs a speaking part.
Well the film can’t be faulted for special effects, they were amazing. However I found myself looking at my watch a couple times during the movie willing the film to end. Not the best film I have been to see and wont be watching it on DVD when it comes out.