Well, I just got back from taking the kids to see the movie, and I have to say it did put it into a bit brighter perspective for me than I had with my previous review.
All the aspects that I mentioned not liking earlier I still didn’t like personally, but I do have to acknowledge (like Dan and I talked about earlier) that it did make it a much better movie for the kids, and I certainly can’t fault them for that. I think the goofy parts were also a bit easier to swallow knowing that they were coming as well.
One thing that really stood out to me upon the second viewing was that (especially for a kids’ movie, if that was the goal) it was a bit too drawn out. I never liked the movie’s shoe-horning of Sandman into the Uncle Ben murder part of the story, and now that I see it again, I’d almost rather they did the whole movie without Sandman at all, and took some random second or third rate Spidey villain(s) to pad out a few extra fight scenes but keep it down to maybe 1:30-1:45 instead of the 2:20 that it ended up being.
3 Comments
i agree that sandman was totally wasted here.
ok….finally someone who took their kids. We…i should say….levi really wants to see it…but everyone who hears that freaks out….saying it’s way to scarey and dark. He’s seen the other two….what’s your opinion? I’m kindof whatever…he understands it’s make believe (he’s own words), but at the same time not sure?
I think it’s fine for kids of all ages.
The fight scenes are really fast paced, but definitely not graphic at all. There is very little bad language in it (Emma told me later that she was counting, and she said there were 3 occurrences of “bad words” in the whole thing, but she was counting things like “damn” - definitely nothing more than that).
In terms of the “dark” side of it, the movie is basically about Peter resisting a “darker” side of his personality that the costume brings out, but there’s nothing really disturbing or adult / non-kid friendly about it. In fact, they even play up this part with some goofy scenes that most kids will probably laugh at. It makes it pretty obvious when he’s acting like a jerk that that’s a bad thing, but in a way that’s easily understandable by kids, and he is definitely repentant when he realizes what has happened.
As for the “scare” factor, the villains (including “Venom” - the one that could potentially be fairly “scary”) are pretty mild; I’d even say intentionally made non-scary to appeal to more kids. The only scene I can remember that could be slightly scary for some (other than sudden surprises, suspense, etc.) would be the scene when the black costume first gets onto Eddie and you see the Venom “face” for the first time when he looks up and yells. You’ve probably seen this part in the trailer (if not, it’s here, towards the end), and it literally does not last any longer than what they show in the trailer, and they don’t show that kind of “scare” shot any other time in the movie. Actually, I’d recommend watching that trailer, and if you think he’d be OK with everything in that then he will definitely be fine.
It’s funny trying to guess what kids will be scared of though. I remember taking our three to the second Spider-man movie (which was three years ago, so the kids were all younger then), and we actually had to leave towards the beginning when the Dr. Octopus arms were going crazy in that lab, crashing around and knocking things over. I think they were more scared because of the loud noise as opposed to anything actually on screen (well, actually Riley was fine with it and kind of mad that we had to leave). All that to say that it’s hard to tell what they’ll get scared by, but you’d probably know better than anyone, and I’d say that if he was OK with the first two he’d definitely be fine with this one as well.
PS - Make sure they take a bathroom break first, though, because it is pretty long (2:20).