Saturday, November 22, 2008

Spider-Man 2

#43 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

I still think this is probably the best superhero movie of all time. X-Men 2 is marred by the fact that X-Men 3 sucks so bad. Batman Begins is marred by the fact that the fight scenes are tough to follow. Superman is marred by the fact that Superman flies around the world backwards to make time move (it's still on the list, don't worry). This one has practically zero problems. Except I still wish Spidey used more one liners. Then again, he does in Spider-Man 3 and that movie was terrible, too. I would like to add that the video game from this movie is amazing. Ha ha, get it, amazing like the Amazing Spider-Man? The comic? Eh? I know that was bad.

RATING: 91%

PS - I would like to add that I reviewed this movie before I saw the Dark Knight, which supplants it in the category of best superhero movie ever made.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I still just can't get into Spidey 2 the way everyone thinks I should. The first one is okay, and so is this one. I repeat: Spider-Man 2 is good. It's definitely the best of the three. Spider-Man 3 was the suckiest 2 and a half hours of suck that ever sucked.

People went on and on about how Spider-Man 2 was the best comic book movie of all time. I say no way. In order for a comic book movie to be great, it has to treat its subject matter in a way that makes us forget that we're watching fantasy. We simply accept that people can have these powers and let ourselves become immersed in the story. (Then there are films like The Dark Knight that turn the whole genre on its head, but that's another subject.)

You already know that I liked X-Men 2 much more than Spider-Man 2 (and your logic about X2 being marred by X3 does not compute. Superman 1&2 were followed by 3&4, but that doesn't mean that they aren't great.) X2 handled its fantasy elements well by mixing it with believability that brought urgency and importance to it. Spidey 2 has Doc Oc handling a miniature SUN (a nuclear reaction) with 20 or 30 people standing around with NO protection from the heat. I'm sorry, but a nuclear reaction, even one that small, would incinerate everybody in that room, even if they are wearing those idiotic goggles. Then later on (and it's been awhile, so forgive me if I'm mistaken and they actually do explain it) Spidey loses his powers for no apparent reason. Why? Because he stopped "believing in himself"? What is this, an After-School Special?

The relationship between Peter Parker and MJ is almost as badly and boringly handled as the Anakin/Padmé debacle of Attack of the Clones. It's just as awkward. Peter gets his lament about never getting what he wants answered by MJ showing up and offering him chocolate cake and milk. CHOCOLATE CAKE and MILK!? What is he, 6 fucking years old?

How long was Aunt May's speech about what it takes to be a hero? 45 minutes or so? Good time for a going-potty-and-getting-refills break.

In the plus column, the fights between Doc Oc and Spider-Man were outstanding. The special effects still look too video-gamey, but the fights were paced really well. The other two movies have all kinds of lame post 9/11 New Yorker patriotism (shots of firefighters and flags, and toughness ("If you want him, you gotta go through us first"). At least Doc Oc reacts appropriately, by beating the hell out of a dozen or so people with no effort.

Also, I really liked the humor in Spider-Man 2. It was often genuinely funny, especially in all of the scenes showing what a loser Peter Parker is.

Wow... I should stop writing now.

Anonymous said...

holy fuck tldr

laurie said...

I have have to argue that X-men 3 was the suckiest 2 and a half hours of suck that ever sucked, but I can't hold that against X2 which is the most entertaining movie ever. Better than Spiderman 2.

John said...

I thought both this movie and The Punisher had problems with plotting: the tension was distributed episodically and the overall arc was weak. Understandable in movies based on comics, I guess. Doc Oc was the best movie villain ever, though.

Anonymous said...

glen you should review these spidermans coz i watched one the other day and it was the worst 22 minits ive ever sat thru peace ;-)

Anonymous said...

Laurie, with regards to the "suckiest 2 and a half hours of suck that ever sucked", at least X3 had the decency to be only 1 hour and 45 minutes long, while Spider-Man 3 is 2 hours and 20 minutes of celluloid excrement. X3 had only one film's worth of story (albeit a weak one compared to X2) while Spider-Man 2 was trying to be about 3 or 4 movies at once, all crappy ones. =)

Hopefully this comment wasn't so "l" that nobody bothered "r"-ing it. =P

John said...

I read it. It was fucking long. Next time you should try breaking it up into 15 comments and working in your pet political agenda. You'll sleep like a baby, I swear.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for reading nonetheless, John. Thanks also for the advice. I was wondering how to fill the void in my psyche that my meager presence on the interwebs has created. =P

I agree with you, by the way, about the plotting problems of Spider-Man 2 and The Punisher, especially The Punisher. There was little for me to like in that one. The Dolph Lundgren one was horrible, too. As it stands, The Punisher is more like The PunishED until the very unsatisfying conclusion. It's a masochist's wet dream (a sadist's, too, for that matter). Hard To Kill, with Steven Seagal, is actually a better telling of the same basic premise as The Punisher.

HAL 9000 gets my vote as best movie villain ever, at least off the top of my head.

John said...

The day I read that Maxim magazine had called Steven Seagal a "fat fraud and a disgrace to martial arts," I felt as if they had called me a fat fraud and a disgrace to martial arts. Which I am, but that's beside the point.

Speaking of old Dolph, the Onion had a funny article about him winning his long, painful battle against fame.

Anonymous said...

hey did yall finish watching spiderman the next generation yet? holy fuck its some boring crap-got doogey howser as peter parker and lisa lobes in it but fuck me its so boaring feels like cgi discovery chanel

Anonymous said...

(or cgi version of op heh heh heh)

Anonymous said...

jk dude, i liek your enthusiasm!

LoCo said...

Glenn has heard this many times, but I don't understand WHY Aunt May has like a British accent. I think anyone with an aunt in Queens could do a decent impression of what dear old Aunt May should sound like...

Anonymous said...

btw: the onion, eh et tu internet john