|
Post by fishyahoo on Jan 28, 2007 19:52:17 GMT 8
Coming 3 May... not far off either...
Alien symbiote costume, Sandman, Green Goblin... Venom?
|
|
|
Post by Hisham on May 5, 2007 7:48:21 GMT 8
A spoiler review of Spiderman.
SPOILERS begin after the space. Scroll down fast or hit "Back" if you don't want to be spoiled.
(Oh, and you can also find the review in my website at my signature below.... with a couple of pictures even)
One last SPOILER ALERT
Review begins:
Any movie with supers beating each other to a pulp and smashing buildings around them is a thumbs-up in my book. And do we have a bunch of bashing supers in this movie.
First, there's Peter Parker a.k.a. Spider-Man, who's shed his angtsy shell from the last two movies and embraced the fact that the whole of New York (sans one J. Jonah Jameson) loves him. Well, in the beginning at least, then he gets the alien symbiote on and he goes into furrowed-brow, bad attitude, sidewalk strutting and pelvis-grinding mode. Which can be fun, except that it's causing strain in his relationships. Then he goes back into angst mode. But only for a short while until he gets back to his red-and-blue costume.
I was hoping for a much more wise-cracking Spidey when he's in costume and cutting loose as Spider-Man like in the comics, but I guess that's not at the top of the filmmakers to-do list for this movie.
Harry Osborn is the so-named "New Goblin" after exposing himself to OsCorp's performance enhancers which his father had stashed somewhere in his house. This dramatic and crucial scene lasts .05 microseconds. With a new costume and sky slide, the "New Goblin" brings the character along a different route from the comics where Harry actually takes his on father's alter ego and costume. He still has the whirr-clicky and blinky pumpkin bombs from the first movie though.
New actors that add to the movie universe are Thomas Hayden Church and Topher Grace play more villains Flint Marko a.k.a. Sandman and Eddie Brock respectively, while Bryce Dallas Howard (or is it Dallas Bryce? I can never remember...) and James Cromwell bring Gwendolyne Stacy and her police captiain father George Stacy to life from out of the comic pages.
I see what they wanted to do with Sandman, but I thought his overall story arc was distributed badly across the entire movie storyline. He appears quite late in the movie, disappears for a long time and returns prior to the final battle. I guess it's a result of having too many balls in the air to juggle. His coda was a bit too forced. Sure, Peter forgave him for killing Ben Parker, but what of his dying child? Isn't that the reason he's on a crime spree? The reason still stands and they both just part ways all teary(sandy)-eyed? In any case, with the drama concerning his shooting of Uncle Ben and his kid, perhaps the writers overdosed the Sandman a bit with the "misunderstood bad guy" schtick.
I love Topher Grace's performance of Eddie Brock. Not the muscled up nut he is in the comics, Eddie here at first glance appears to be the perfect young man a lady might take home to meet her parents. But slowly, he reveals his under-handed, unscrupulousness at work, and finally when he prays to God to "kill Peter Parker", you know that this guy is a sociopath.
The Venom symbiote's origins would be too convoluted to tell with its Secret Wars origin, so it's simplified down to the creature coming down riding a small meteorite, which crashes unnoticed in Central Park. When it goes into full Venom mode with Eddie, it gives me the shivers to see its head an exact copy of the original Todd McFarlane design. I hope he returns somehow in future movies.
The Stacys were criminally underused, if you're aware of their tragic story arc, the end of which still reverberates throughout Spider-Man's storylines in the comics. I was half expecting (and hoping) Mary Jane would be killed off here branching away from the comics so Peter would finally be happy with Gwen. Anyway I thought Gwen was going to be a rival with Mary Jane for Peter's affections. It's substantially less than that even though she did give MJ a run for her money for a little bit.
In the topic of Mary Jane Watson, how many times has she been abducted publicly by supervillians? Someone should have guessed something is up with her, with the added fact that her boyfriend Peter is Spider-Man's unofficial photographer. Make the connection people. Just a couple of dots are missing. But you should be able to make out the general shape of the puzzle.
Curt Connors also get the same amount of screen time as per Spider-Man 2. One scene in class and another scene talking to Peter about the piece of the symbiote that Peter brought. It's already been two movies (three if you count the name dropping in the first movie); when will this guy get to turn into the Lizard?
Mr. Ditkovitch (undoubtedly named after Spider-Man's illustrator and co-creator Steve Ditko) and her daughter Ursula also had more stuff to do in this movie, and surprised me with some good scenes, and the line, "He's a good boy. He must be in some sort of trouble." Bruce Campbell returns once again, this time as an unnamed maître d' of a fancy restaurant where Peter plans to propose to Mary Jane. Although the dinner was a total disaster for Peter, Bruce helps balance it out with some humour for the audience. Too bad he didn't have a chainsaw for a hand here.
Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee gets to say his famous iconic line "Nuff said!" on screen when he talks to Peter on the street. Two hundred awesome points there.
And Flash Thompson from the first movie appears in the end in a non-speaking role. Good effort on the filmmakers for visual continuity.
Finally we return to Harry, who rounds off his story arc surprising me again by coming to Peter's rescue in the final battle, and redeems himself in battle. One element of the story that doesn't flow well is why he suddenly became good? His butler, Bill Paxton's dad (It's true, he is!) confirms to him that his father died of stab wounds from his own goblin glider... but it could might just as well meant that Spider-Man stabbed Norman with his own glider. Plus I also thought that the performance enhancers made Norman and Harry insane with rage (note the grimace, et. al.), via chemically imbalanced body. How could he just turn into a good guy on a dime without the use of an antidote? All griping aside, the scenes where Peter and Harry joined forces to take down Sandman and Venom were spectacular.
|
|
General Kenobi
Fan
Begun, the Clone Wars have... this is a call to arms! Prepare yourself to make a stand
Posts: 124
|
Post by General Kenobi on May 5, 2007 11:59:31 GMT 8
The spiderman trilogy has proven to be the bench mark of classic comics to big screen. There's much depth in the storyline & the cast is just brilliant... to the point where some great role-players are under used hehe X-men is a close 2nd.... but with X3... its really took a plunge. I'm quite sure Venom will be back... he is like most happening Spidey Villian of all time. Must have ur pop-corn to watch this movie Which one is the your favourite? 1 or 2 or 3???
|
|
|
Post by Mr.Engineer on May 6, 2007 8:25:10 GMT 8
I would still prefer how the symbiote came via the Secret Wars, just the appearance of the Fantastic Four (now) and how they tried to remove it before bonding with Eddie Brock. Maybe the part 4 might have carnage as well.........
|
|
|
Post by vkkf1977 on May 6, 2007 10:56:36 GMT 8
Since i've read the comics before, so no issues reading them spoilers. Kinda funny to read that Spidey and Goblin are good friends? Weird maaaaaan... mundo weird. Their supposed to be arch enemies, for crying out loud! ah well... movies...
In terms of drama, I would feel that SP1 has the best effect. When you have soooo many villains running around, you loose screen time and much of character advancement(?).
But I prefer SP2, especially the scene in the subway where he's trying to stop the train and eventually the passengers know who he is but prefer to keep their silence...
|
|
|
Post by The SITH OverLORD on May 7, 2007 0:51:57 GMT 8
But I prefer SP2, especially the scene in the subway where he's trying to stop the train and eventually the passengers know who he is but prefer to keep their silence... Yeah right Tobey Macguire's Spiderman has great big faith in people, or that's what the scrip writer wants. ;D In the comic books Spidey keeps his identity masked under the most dire circumstances.
|
|
|
Post by The SITH OverLORD on May 7, 2007 1:18:21 GMT 8
I would still prefer how the symbiote came via the Secret Wars, just the appearance of the Fantastic Four (now) and how they tried to remove it before bonding with Eddie Brock. Maybe the part 4 might have carnage as well......... Well Mr Engineer, in the Marvel Comic Books timeline it is really MONTHS APART where Spiderman got his Black Alien Symbiote costume during SECRET WARS I, issue #8 , returned to Earth wearing it until he got Mr. Fantastic's help to sonically blast it out of his body in AMAZING SPIDERMAN #259. Of course as you are aware that the Black Alien Symbiote returned in WEB OF SPIDERMAN #1 briefly until it was "killed" by the defeaning sound of the church bells. It appeared again as Venom in AMAZING SPIDERMAN #298 after it has sought out Eddie Brock and bonded with him, and as for the rest as they is history.
I'm soo glad that I have kept the original issues of my Amazing / Web of Spiderman and Secret Wars I comic books that chronicled these historical events in Spiderman's life. ;D
|
|
|
Post by kalkamel on May 15, 2007 15:27:23 GMT 8
Finally watched this movie. And what I was afraid of has finally happened. Spider-man has gone the way of the Joel Schumacher Batman. Sam Raimi has finally lost touch with the franchise and it shows. The plot is fragmentary and disordered, the villains too many and weakly divided, and the personal conflicts poorly defined. I mean, the narrative here is all over the place. It's got good guys turning bad, bad guys turning good, good guys turning into bad guys turning into good guys, bad guys turning into.... I mean, halfway through the movie, I was going "What the FRAK??"
And don't get me started about the whole unnecessary dancing scene. Humor when properly injected into the storyline is good, but this is bordering on parody, which definitely does not belong in this movie.
"Spider-Man 3" suffers from the same things last summer's deeply flawed "X-Men: The Last Stand" did: the theory that bigger equals better. Bigger fights, bigger explosions, better CGI, longer run time, more villains, more story lines. Honestly, this film is crowded to the point it almost feels rushed. Two new origin stories (Sandman and Venom) and throw in Gwen Stacy in a thankless extended cameo role. At least in the case of X-Men, we can all blame Brett Rattner's cheesy taste for his failure to live up to Bryan Singer's directing talent. But Spider-man 3 is directed by Sam Raimi, but yet it totally feels like it was directed by a mediocre director who intended to piss all over Raimi's legacy established by Spider-man 1 and 2!
Conclusion, Spider-man 3 down right sucked. Big time. I never thought a movie involving Venom would ever suck, but, hey, show's what I know. I should've known it when they announced Topher Grace as Eddie Brock. YUCK! What next? Ashton Kutcher as Kraven???
With this movie, I think the Spider-man movie franchise has outlived its usefulness. I truly hope Marvel will call it a day with this flick, before it gets a lot worse. Let's just say, as an analogy to the Batman franchise, Spider-man 3 is at the Batman Forever stage. Let's hope there won't be a Batman and Robin equivalent making its way to the big screen soon.
|
|
|
Post by kalkamel on May 22, 2007 16:32:55 GMT 8
Things I learnt from Spider-man 3 (SPOILERS WARNING!):
-When a wounded man in ripped up clothes brings another wounded man into a hospital, no one asks questions.
-One should totally re-write the history of the main character's motivation when one desires.
-also, why worry about things set up in previous films at all?
-Plot devices/partial characters simply drop from the sky without explanation.
-forced humor is a MUST
-Scientists use giant open air sandpits for their controlled experiments. When an unknown element is detected, they brush it off and continue anyway because, after all, it surely wouldn't effect your experiment of making the world's largest sand blender.
-CGI effects looking real isn't important. What's important is that they move really, really fast.
-It's awesome when a long time close companion (like say, a comedy relief butler for example) pops in last minute and lets you know that not only has he been abreast of everything that's gone on, but (it's important to now note) that the object of your hate filled revenge fantasy in fact didn't do what you thought he did. A fact you could have apparently gleamed if you had taken a moment to speak to him rather than ordering that second Jack D on the rocks.
-Oh by the way, maybe it would have been nice to know that before half my face was blown off Jeeves. Yeah, thanks for the late breaking news there.
-It is a prerequisite for butlers to have extensive medical or forensics training in case they need to explain wounds.
-Have I mentioned that there needs to be MORE forced humor?
-It's oh-so important to take a funny Saturday Night Fever joke and run it into the ground for 10 minutes longer than needed JUST to make sure you got it.
-Physicists-while not biologists-sure know a HECK-UV-A-LOT about biology. Also, apparently its commonplace that someone brings in a jumping, oozing, sentient, gelatinous creature...just make sure not to get any on ya.
-It makes perfect sense that a man made of sand who only wants to get money for his daughter and a demon looking spidey clone would meet for the first time in an alley... and within 2 minutes forge an alliance.
-In case I haven't said it enough, three words. More forced humor! Cant get enough of that stuff.
-How do we make a character hip? I know...GIVE HIM A SURFBOARD!
-A news report is a great way to take care of every bit of your third act exposition. It also helps to have lots of cliche statements made by the anchors.
-In the middle of your final action scene, its imperative to cut away and spend a lot of time on a forced disposable camera joke.
-Money cures disease. And in the end, its not important what happened to the motivation for a main character-like, say a sick daughter- he should simply be forgiven and blow away with the wind.
|
|