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Inside: Cultural Sausage. ~ Ludic Lists. ~ Skullbucket. Outside: "yabble dabble" "eschaton secret identity" "leather Aryan biker" "Jon Morris doctor" "dago hammers" "the Ric Flair song" "wife to be fucked" "Halle Berry is shit hate bitch" |
07.06.2004
In my role as a semi-regular quasi-professional film writer, it is my duty to present to the reading public reviews that are fair without being fawning, critical without being cruel, and informative without being insulting. At times, this requires me to say more about a film than perhaps the audience might wish to know. But with movies, no less so than with any other consumer purchase, the buyer has a right to know what he is getting -- and, just as importantly, what he is not getting. Two hours of filmed entertainment is no different than a two-ton automobile when it comes to making an informed decision, and I don't intend to let my readers go in blind. So, be warned: the following are what the studios like to call "spoilers" for Spider-Man 2. They use this genteelly deceptive term because it makes the critic the bad guy for "giving away" information that they prefer to keep secret, so they can chide us for ruining the "surprise". But would it be a "spoiler" to tell you that your new car gets only 4 miles per gallon, that a computer you're thinking of buying can't run certain types of software, that a pair of jeans you're shopping for are made with cheap stitching and shoddy material? I think not. Please keep in mind, as you read these so-called "spoilers", that I have your best interests at heart. 1. The character of Doctor Octopus, while billed as being played by respected character actor Alfred Molina, is in fact portrayed by Anaheim Angels catcher Bengie Molina. While the career .269 hitter is energetic and seems to be having a good time in the role, his acting is atrocious, his poor grasp of the English language makes it difficult to understand many of his lines, and the attempt by the screenwriters to work in scenes where he calls pitches or lays down sacrifice bunts seem tacked on. 2. Speaking of the screenwriters, pre-release publicity has led many people to believe that one of them is celebrated novelist Michael Chabon. As a fan of Chabon's work, I looked forward to seeing his take on the spectacular Spider-Man. Unfortunately, his sole 'contribution' to the screenplay consists of Mary Jane Watson reading excerpts from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay out loud in a taxicab. 3. On the subject of Mary Jane, despite the hue and cry of certain studio publicists, it is not my intention to give away important plot points in this review. But suffice it to say that the much-hyped three-way sex scene between Mary Jane, Peter Parker and Betty Brant is not all it has been made out to be, and features minimal penetration, sub-par oral and no anal at all. Also, it takes place during an aerial attack by the Vulture, which is highly distracting and makes it difficult to focus on who's fucking who at any given moment. 4. Much has been made over the scene where Spider-Man saves a trainload of civilians from certain death at the hands of Doc Ock. While the critics who point out that the train is an elevated rail, which are not to be found in Manhattan, they do not go far enough. They fail to mention that the train is a high-speed mag-lev bullet train, normally found only in Japan; that the costume Spider-Man is wearing during the scene is a variant that he only wore one, in Amazing Spider-Man #147; and that during the sequence, the train clearly passes by the Coit Tower, the Pyramids of Ghiza, and the Space Needle. 5. The scene where Spider-Man unexpectedly and without explanation beats an infant to death and hurls his remains under the wheels of a street sweeper is, to be frank, out of character. 6. While no one appreciates more than I the attempts by the filmmakers to give little shout-outs to comic fans by bringing in cameo appearances by the book's creators, little-known supporting characters, and future villains, Spider-Man 2 simply goes too far, attempting to cram nearly 375 issues worth of Spider-foes into a movie that runs less than two-and-a-half hours. Beyond that, some of the cameos are questionable (the public has hardly been clamoring for a big-screen realization of Turner D. Century or Killgrave the Purple Man); others are badly miscast (I am on record as being fond of comedic character actor Joe Flaherty, but he hardly seems an appropriate choice to play Gwen Stacy); and others are downright illegal (Warner Brothers attorneys will certainly have something to say about the lengthy cameos by Green Lantern and the Joker). And surely there was a better way to resolve Steve Ditko's co-creator lawsuits against Marvel than for the producers of this film to allow him the entire first hour of its running time to explain in excruciating detail his Objectivist philosophies. 7. Finally, and most importantly, no matter what you or I might have heard, no matter what you or I might have been led to believe, this film is not a documentary. The producers, apparently too frugal to pay for the rights to actually visit New York and film the actual Spider-Man, have made a fictionalized version of his various deeds using actors, special effects, and other fancy cinematic trickery. If, after all I have told you, you still wish to see this compromised abomination, then by all means do so -- I give it four stars! |
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| TODAY'S DRIFTWOOD: "When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty, but when I am finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." (R. Buckminster Fuller) |