Spider-Man, 21 December 2020, streamed via Starz/Hulu
Remember when James Franco wasn’t, like, a walking happening? Anyway, this all would be so much more believable if these folks were supposed to be in college at first, not high school. For Pete’s sake (heh), we’re supposed to buy Joe Mangianello is still in his teens? That man was born in his late twenties. (To their credit, they speed through high school as quickly as possible.) And, of course, all of MJ’s outfits are specifically tailored to make sure we notice Kirsten Dunst’s breasts. Sigh.
Let’s get one thing straight: If you get bit by a spider tell someone. Especially if the bite immediately swells and you develop chills? And then weird substances start oozing out of your hands? Kids. *shakes head*
Spider-Man: Indistinguishable from That Hobbit, You Know the One
Spider-Man: Creeping on Your Neighbor Isn’t Actually Romantic
Spider-Man: That is Not How Pro Wrestling Works, Dude
Spider-Man: For Best Friends, Harry and Peter Sure Do Not Talk
Spider-Man: Willem Dafoe Leads a Theatre Workshop for College Sophomores
Spider-Man: “Do What You Need to Her and Then Broom Her Fast”
Spider-Man: CGI in 2002 Sure Is...Something
Spider-Man: Oh God, I Know All the Lyrics to This Chad Kroeger Song
Spider-Man 2, 21 December 2020, streamed via Starz/Hulu
Spider-Man 2: Peter Parker, Still Losing
“I liked seeing you tonight, Peter.” “Oh, boy, yeah.” WHO WROTE THIS DIALOGUE.
It may be the millennial commutarian in me speaking, but Peter being behind rent in a crap apartment while ALSO worrying about Aunt May living and being alone all the time seems to be a problem and solution at once. My brain cannot compute.
For real, though: Spider-Man 2, while super-rote in terms of “Our Hero is Torn About His Two Lives” tropes, makes the issue charmingly literal. Every time Peter feels extra-sad about how his hero-life is interrupting his mundane life, his powers start to blip out. Does it make sense? NOPE. Does it make it interesting? Yes. (Peter walking away from some kid getting mugged, without even trying to, like, call for help? WTF, dude? Not having superpowers doesn’t mean you can’t be a decent human being.) Though, once again, the “We Cannot Be Together Because Danger, Etc” thing doesn’t hold water--MJ is taken hostage because she’s friends with Peter, not because Ock thought she was Spider-Man’s girlfriend.
This movie also has the first “New Yorkers take care of Spidey when he’s down” scene, which I have always loved.
Anyway: “You can’t get off if you don’t get on!” *facepalm*
Spider-Man 3, 21 December 2020, streamed via Starz/Hulu
Guys, I legit did not remember anything else about this movie except that Emo Tobey happened. So imagine my horror when Peter (in costume) kissed Gwen Stacy at a festival thing, then thought, Hey, time to propose to MJ. Dumbass. Anyway, if they had cut the amnesia and everything, EVERYTHING, about the Venom storyline, this might have been a decent movie. Instead, we got this:
You guys, I think I’m less able to identify Tobey Maguire than I was before watching these three movies. Anyway, I considered going a purely chronological route for these movies, but my brain refused to go directly from Macguire to Garfield. The multiverse seemed a good interruption.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 22 December 22, streamed via Netflix
Starting off this movie with joking about the Macguire movies is possibly my favorite thing.
There is nothing about this movie that is not delightful. (Except for their Kingpin design; I hate it.) But seriously, a biracial, bilingual kid going to a charter school and pretending he’s less smart than he is? And he has a loving, if awkward, relationship with his parents? And he listens to Biggie? OH MY HEART.
Also great: Being animated, they don’t hesitate to pull in thought bubbles and narration, and using it to do some meta play--suggesting Miles’s perception of reality is altered as he becomes more comic-booky.
Then we get a little hero’s journey action, giving Miles a quest from his original Spidey, then OMFG giving him an older, crankier Spidey mentor?!
Having multiple Spideys is SO FUN, but also, having only one Peter, whose Aunt May had already passed, is heart-string-tugging. AND THEN Aunt May, who just lost her Peter, is a badass, techmaster, Spidey-wrangler. *hearteyes*
Guys, they gave us Gwen AND uber-kawaii Peni Parker! Noir Spidey and Spider-Ham are just icing, honestly. (And Ock is Olivia, too? LADIES.) Plus, the repeated origin retellings, lol.
This movie takes every trope, nods to each, then remixes them. It’s beautiful, and when Miles decides he’s really Spider-Man, well. I cry through this sequence every time.
The Amazing Spider-Man, 22 December 2020, streamed via Starz/Hulu
Starting with child Pete and his parents is a very Waynes-at-the-Theatre move, isn’t it? Then we ONCE AGAIN meet a high school Peter who is edging towards his late 20s. Having this Peter be more skater-art-school kid is a switch-up from the traditional nerd is a nice change. I mean, it pretends this takes place in an age where aggro football dudes are more popular than proto-hipsters, but whatever FAKE QUEENS. And then we have to watch Uncle President Bartlet die, sigh.
Meanwhile, if the Maguire movies were all about Kirsten Dunst’s breasts, this set is much more interested in Emma Stone’s legs. THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU WEAR TO THE LAB, GWEN.
Peter breaks into Oscorp and gets a rain of spiders showered down on his head, so this movie wins for most horrifying scene. Then after having the requisite my-hands-stick-to-everything scene, there’s a bit where Peter catches a fly with his fingers and then licks his fingers and I never noticed it before. It’s an excellent and extremely gross little detail.
In a nice change of pace that Peter almost immediately tells Gwen his secret identity. Watch and learn, superheroes. (The whole “I can’t be your boyfriend” thing still happened, but catalyzed by her father instead of Peter himself. Goddamnit, patriarchy.)
In another nice change of pace, Peter clocks who the villain is immediately, thanks to Freddy the Nightmare Mouse Thing. (They did their damndest to make us feel sympathetic to Connors, even giving him a full Smeagol scene, but dude started a eugenicist and ended a eugenicist, so.)
And another “New York Saves Spider-man” scene, also heart-warming. I mean, 100% unsafe to have all those cranes just, like, hovering, BUT STILL.
Anyway, Peter and Flash are, like, a three-act love story and nobody can tell me different.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2, 22 December 2020, streamed via Amazon Video
Peter arguing with Gwen about his feelings about her dead father is...intensely manpainy.
Meanwhile, both our major antagonists, Harry Osborn and Max AKA Electro, are the kind of stories where I’m, like, good for working out that rage, my dudes. (Would I watch a Gossip Girl-style series starring this Harry Osborn and Felicia Hardy? Yes. Yes, I would.) I mean, I call them primary antagonists because they get powers, but to be fair, the board of Oscorp is pretty specifically painted as the real villain of this universe. (Y’know, like how Tony Stark is the villain of all his movies.)
Out of all the stunt choreography in this film, I think the coffee pratfall scene remains the best:
Anyway, I’m sure I’m not the only one who got chills when Gwen showed up wearing That Outfit. (Once again, I wonder how folks who didn’t know Gwen is best known for dying reacted to all this.)
This is the kind of stuff that shows why strict adherence to the canonical text is annoying hell--Gwen didn’t have to die. In a multiverse, she could have lived. Eventually, she and Peter would just, like, go their separate ways, and then Mary Jane would enter the picture. BUT NO. Even though they had Gwen shouting, “This is my choice!” like, every other line, it’s still a pretty definitive fridging. (I also recognize that if they had kept her alive, the gripes would be all about how they went for the cheap happily ever after. Sigh.)
Then they had that tiny kid face off against Rhino, which was so cute and inspiring, YOU MONSTERS. Also, kind of Rhino to wait while Spidey had a heart-warming talk with the kid.
Venom, 23 December 2020, streamed via Google Play
I honestly considered skipping this one, but since they brought the symbiote into Spider-Man 3, well. Here we go. (I don’t dislike it--it’s just so tonally different from the rest.) Anyway, there is something both poignantly real and ridiculously fantastical about a crusading local journalist at some 24-hour news network being blackballed by a giant pharmaceutical corporation.
Seriously, if my partner broke into my classified files and tanked my job for the sake of his own, I’d drop them faster than lightning, too. I’m tempted to say it's an example of amorality, but it’s more a question of, uh, teleological morality--the ends justify the means. Eddie Brock: Chaotic Good. But also, uh, why did they ask Brock to do the interview?
I would have 100% watched an entire movie about Corinne Wan, the EMT who got possessed by the symbiote first. (One point in favor of this movie: They don’t subtitle the Mandarin.)
Meanwhile, for an out of work journalist in SAN FRANCISCO who has started looking at dishwashing jobs, Eddie’s apartment is HUUUUUUUUGE.
The casting for the movie is pretty fascinating: Jenny Slate, not doing comedy but doing something beyond what in another movie would be a Bond Girl role. Michelle Williams, once again playing the role of disappointed and wistful ex-partner. (Would I watch a movie wherein she gets to be Venom? Yes.) Riz Ahmed, somehow dampening his natural charisma into something flat and unnerving.
Compared to the early Spidey movies, this does bring another point to the discussion of good vs. evil. If you look at the Goblins and Ock and all, they clearly have other “evil” selves that the “good” selves struggle against--the Smeagol dialogues are the clearest evidence of that. With the Venom suit of Spider-Man 3, there wasn’t a clear voice, but they made it clear that the symbiote was something that brought out the worst impulses of the wearers. That said, in all those cases, the influences were internal. With this Venom, there’s a clear other “self” that the core personality has to integrate with--the wrongness is externalized. I’m not sure of what to make of all of this yet, but there’s something there. (There’s another bit to consider: Most of the time, it’s the bad guys that get smooshed. With Venom, they additionally crush law enforcement who--at least at that point in time--were considered a relative force for good.)
Anyway, the sound levels for the Venom voice are SO LOUD, and my sound system is relatively small. I can’t imagine how painful that must have been in the theatre. The effects are decent, though. Given that it’s supposed to be disgusting.
And now, darling of the MCU! And I gotta say, LORDY, I am so glad we don’t have to watch Uncle Ben die again. This is a nice and subtle little scene--if you know the backstory, you can see it when he glances away and stutters once.
Spider-Man: Homecoming, 23 December 2020, streamed via Amazon Video
Previous notes on this movie can be found in my post on MCU Phase 3A.
One of the things I remember post-Civil War is how pleased everybody was that Peter Parker actually looked like a high school student. And we get to keep him in high school! I think, though, what enables this most is that Spidey isn’t the only superhero around. With the Avengers and, particularly, Tony also around New York, we don’t have to deal with the paradox of Peter Parker fighting crime during school hours. The presence of actual adults means we get movies where Peter can be a kid.
I also have heard New Yorkers celebrating this iteration of Spider-Man feels like he’s actually from Queens and compared to the previous two versions? Yeah, this movie actually seems like it’s actually in real places with real people. (Also, back from Civil War, there was Peter hollering, “Yo buddy, I think you lost this!” which was some quality flavor there.)
I dig that Donald Glover plays Aaron Davis in this movie--Miles Morales’s uncle! The Prowler! Maybe he doesn’t become a costumed villain or anything, but he’s got the same kind of chaotic neutral vibe. “I just need something to stick up somebody, I’m not trying to shoot them back in time.”
I didn’t notice before that Peter tried to tell Tony he didn’t need to go to college! I get that the superhero life isn’t compatible with class schedules (we saw that particularly with Maguire’s Spidey...it’s unclear if Garfield’s Spidey actually went), but PETER. A good third of the Avengers have doctorates! Multiple doctorates! You may be hella smart, but you gotta get some book learning, man.
As they stand in high school, however, I like that they’re given some clear specialties. Like, both Ned and Peter seem to be into engineering, but Ned has the jump on programming/hacking, while Peter’s branched into chemistry and, uh, fluid mechanics? Which I like much better than the all-purpose geniuses we often see in these types of stories. Also, how long did it take these cherubs to create their special handshake?
Though the revelation with Ned was pretty fun, I have a deep and abiding love for how Aunt May finds out about Peter.
It now occurs to me that though Peter’s prevention of that hijacking was brave, had he known he still had the attention of Stark and Happy, he might well have just texted them, Liz’s dad is hijacking your plane. Damn it, Tony.
Spider-Man: Far From Home, 23 December 2020, streamed via Google Play
I wrote about this movie in my previous post on MCU Phase 3B.
So, like, there’s maybe a half a year between Homecoming and Far From Home, maybe? I mean, in blipped time. When did Peter get really into MJ? Is he, like, really, really responsible about decathlon practice now? (Also, Nerdist collated all of Peter’s T-shirts and it’s wonderful.)
As compared to Maguire and Garfield, this Peter is a more believable nerd, mostly because they aren’t striving to prove he’s a nerd by, like, wearing glasses and being bullied. (Flash is annoying, but Peter’s only ever momentarily bothered by it.) Peter’s social awkwardness is more along the lines of, like, I have FEELINGS where do I PUT THEM. People interacting romantically confuses the hell out of him.
The destruction of Venice made me SO MAD, you guys. Those buildings are CENTURIES OLD, and the foundations are CRUMBLING, you can’t just smash them for your stupid villain PR machine! This is the real reason Mysterio had to be stopped. In the meantime, it’s kind of neat that, with his hair wet, Tom Holland almost looks his actual age! That waviness Peter usually has in his hair is doing a TON of costuming work there.
Anyway, this version of MJ is my favorite version of Spidey’s girlfriend. She’s so weird and smart! She fits in nowhere! Maybe she’ll be a model in the future, but for now, she’s just a weirdo badass. SHE IS THE BEST.
In conclusion, Night Monkey.
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