Guijllons said:
While Tobey Maguire didn't play Spidey as the wisecracker he is, he did give a lot of humanity to the role. You say that the love story was mediocre, I disagree, I felt that it was rather freshly played and believable. I could easily put myself in Peter's shoes and see why he was attracted to MJ and vice versa without suspending any belief. I had something that many love stories in action movies don't have, real romance.
I found it to be unbelievably false. One of the most important conventions of the love story (up there with the "boy meets girl" scene) is the 'blocking character'. Or, the reason the lovers can't get together. In Shakespeare's day, parents were a good blocking character. Now, however, kids **** behind their parents back all the time. Teen pregnancies are proof of this. In the 50s, it was marriage. No divorcing or adultery without scandal. Now, divorcing is almost a commonplace occurence, as is adultery. It's a big fat cliche' that she won't go with Peter because she's about to be married. Real romantic stories aren't going, "Oh, I love you, but, I have a commitment to something else" but the continuous pursuit of that romance over those obstacles. The blocking characters of the modern day love story are either non-existent or shallow and as a result the story spends most of its time trying to make the blocking characters seem powerful obstacles to love, but in fact the obstacles don't do much of anything at all, and the lovers just talk about "Oh, I feel comitted". :sick:
Guijllons said:
Everything crap in Peter's life in the film is due to the fact that he's spiderman. This is someone who went from geek to hero in a matter of moments, he had his uncle gunned down, his aunt terrorised, the love interest put in danger, his schooling and everything else is all screwed up due to the fact that he's spiderman. This geek (with obvious confidence issues) is going to take everything on himself as blame, he's going to turn in on himself at times of trouble. It's absolutely feasible that he would find some way to block out all that was happening to him, of all the things that he can now overcome, the hardest would clearly be his own self.
I agree. But my point was that the illness was not resolved well. It was supposed to be a powerful triumph over his own fears and self-doubts, but instead, it just seems like he was faking it all the time. I was laughing my *** off and really, really enjoying the whole illness plot. Is he ill? Or is it psychosomatic? Or is it something worse? Turned out it was just him faking it. All he needed was "a reason" which was MJ being captured. Which happened last film. I thought we might get a replay of the old Lee/Ditko issue where Doc Ock challenges Spider-Man to a fight or he'll do something evil (I forget what) and Spidey's ill. He fights Doc Ock anyway, while JJJ and the Bugle lot watch. He loses miserably, and has his *** handed to him. Doc Ock unmasks him and JJJ thinks Peter's a hero because he pretended to be Spider-Man to stop Doc Ock being evil. No on believes its puny Parker. I just felt the psychosomatic 'resolution' was a big fat cop out.
That said, the subway train sequence was really, really well done from start to finish. I was elated with it.
Guijllons said:
Mask of the Phantasm was a scooby doo story, I'm not even gonna go there. And the incredibles was a great film, though I have concerns on whether I would put it in the category of a superhero movie. The "Supers" were there, but the heroism really wasn't, it was a family cartoon story. A superhero story in mind needs to have something powerful to overcome, something that gives real danger to the protagonists. This was as much of a superhero story as independence day, albeit a far better movie.
Well, I think it's a "Classic Superhero" (secret identity, fights crime, etc) with a blend of "Exotic Action Adventure" too. But it's better than any live action superhero film, no doubt.
As for the Mask of the Phantasm, it was a murder mystery and quite cleverly done. One of the major conventions of the superhero is the costume or mask. In murder mystery, the person whodunnit is (in most cases) the major mystery. But in a superhero story, you need a supervillain antagonist, so it cleverly kept the alter-ego behind the villain's mask a secret so as to have both the known villain and the mystery villain. Very clever mixing of the genres. Scooby-doo 'twas not. Also, it does a better job (and a much more succinct and concise one at that) of explaining Batman's origins and complicating the story with a love interest than was done in Batman Begins.
Which brings us nicely back on topic.
Understand I don't think Spidey 2 or Batman Begins are
bad films. They are actually not bad at all. I think they're fine, but I don't think they're particularly amazing films that get all this "best film ever" nonsense. They're okay, and somewhat entertaining, and I think, that's all they are. I don't see much depth to them.
