Everybody Hurts
By SteveOne of the nice things about being unemployed is weekday matinées. (The other nice thing? Law & Order at 2 and 3PM.)
Since I was out of town Thursday-Saturday, I checked out Spider-Man 3 today. It’s a perfect example of what happens when each sequel is expected to outdo its predecessor. The first two Spider-Man movies are terrific, with Sam Raimi bravely making them totally corny big-budget spectacles. (Seriously, what time period are they set in? It feels like Peter Parker transported in from the idealized 1950s.)
But Spider-Man 3 adds a bit to everything, and it’s a mess. There’s not one, not two, but three villains. Each has his own tragic backstory—everybody hurts in Spider-Man—and there are multiple incoherently edited set pieces. (Seriously, it’s impossible to track what the hell’s going on. Sam Raimi’s manic style is overcooked in these scenes, and the fab looking CGI renders the fights sort of meaningless.)
But the perfectly modulated corn of the first two movies has been ratcheted up to schmaltzy levels. Oh no, Peter is losing Mary Jane; Spider-Man has a new love interest. Harry is angry/sad/happy/lovesick. When the symbiote shows up to turn Spider-Man into Emo Spider-Man—replete with Peter Parker’s Fall Out Boy-style bangs—everything goes off the rails. There’s a dance number (?), and another montage of Peter showcasing his new look (in Spider-Man 2, it was funny; here, it’s… well, actually, it’s kind of funny too, since he’s trying to be all cool and everyone is looking at him like he’s a tool).
But Venom is cool. Had the movie just been about him, it would have been a lot better. (He’s a douchebag from the start.) Instead, we have Sandman and his unclear physical properties looking cool but laying it on a bit thick about his motivations. (It’s OK he’s killing people; he has a dying kid!)
May 7th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
The overly negative buzz has prompted us to wait a few weeks. We’re gunshy when it comes to movies anyway - I can’t remember the last opening weekend we went to - but we were thinking about catching Spidey 3 pretty soon.
Now we’ll wait until the crowds thin out.
May 7th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Just wait a week. Shrek opens the 18th, then the next Pirates movie. The crowds for those will be huge, so you might as well see Spidey before they launch.
May 7th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
There’s not a single 3rd-part-of-a-trilogy sequel I’m legitimately interested in until Ocean’s Thirteen later this year. It’s the only one that looks to continue with the true style behind it, rather than succumbing to Hollywood.
As for Spider-Man 3… My expectations have been lower for it than for Rocky Balboa (which pleasantly surprised me until the fight itself - way too short) ever since I saw the original preview. It appeared to make three major mistakes, which I have only confirmed through the unanimous opinions of everyone who has seen it. There are three reasons why I will never see it in theaters:
-It broke rule #1. It messed with the classics (or semi-classics - I already consider Spider-Man 1 to be a movie classic in a way) and worse yet, it changed major plot points regarding dead characters. That’s not just a poor plot device, it’s disrespectful.
-Furthermore, it is entirely too cluttered for its own good. Given the more direct love story (relative to Spider-Man 2) and the obviously premeditated revenge story, there’s really enough plot to fill three hours right there. What we have is a 2.5 hour movie trying to fit in (I’m guessing) about three times as much plot. It sounds exactly like X-Men 3.
-Also similar to the X-Men series is the complete lack of pseudo-realism to the powers in the 3rd film. In the first two films, the powers didn’t feel comic book-y and were actually believable without significant suspension of disbelief. I did not become aware of the fact that I was watching something entirely fake. (in that awfully ironic movie sense…)
The sad part? If they had just followed rule #1, points 2 & 3 of my little rant would be eliminated automatically. They are simply derrived from the first point. It is the real culprit.
(on an unrelated note, we’re about to install my little brother’s CPU - thanks for the good deal!)
The first two Spider-Man movies are terrific, with Sam Raimi bravely making them totally corny big-budget spectacles. (Seriously, what time period are they set in? It feels like Peter Parker transported in from the idealized 1950s.)
Exactly! It feels like the 1950s escapist realm of cinema, and I eat it up every time I watch them. I didn’t even realize why it was that I did that until now.
In any case, I’ve recently been getting more and more into fan edits (it originally happened with the Phantom Editor’s two Star Wars prequel re-edits, and it’s kind of cascaded since I started buying all the VHS releases of the theatrical original trilogy now) and Spider-Man 3 is going to be my own first attempt.
My game plan? I aim to create a much more focused film that takes place entirely around the Peter/Harry revenge story and the Peter/MJ love story. I imagine it will end up being something like The Prestige. My hopes are not particularly high, given the lack of footage & coherence I’m likely to be provided, but I’m going to try to make my Spider-Man 3 “fantasy version” come true even if I have to force it.
If not, I always have this little Spider-Man edit (painstakingly put together with only love, FRAPs, MS Paint, Audacity & many, many, many hours) to look back on:
http://donttellharry.ytmnd.com/
Just let me know if you ever want me to get less excited on your blog, okay?
May 8th, 2007 at 1:37 am
and worse yet, it changed major plot points regarding dead characters. That’s not just a poor plot device, it’s disrespectful.
What exactly are you referring to here?
May 8th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At a guess, he’s talking about the Uncle Ben/Flint Marko retcon.
I just wrote a way-too-long analysis of my issues with the movie over at QT3, but it boils down to Steve’s main point: Raimi really needs to focus. Somehow he’s going too slow (pacing) and too fast (throwing in everything but the kitchen sink) at the same time. I also thought this was an issue with SM2, but it was much less pronounced than it it is here.
Still, I liked it. Just not as much as I’d hoped.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
–QUOTE–
Instead, we have Sandman and his unclear physical properties looking cool but laying it on a bit thick about his motivations. (It’s OK he’s killing people; he has a dying kid!)
–END QUOTE–
Matt Keil had a nice line about this over at the aforementioned QT3 thread:
“But it’s really nice how Pete forgave the wanted criminal and let him fly away at the end to rob more banks or whatever. I was hoping after the sand cloud disappeared around the corner that we’d hear car alarms going off and women screaming as black smoke rose into the sky.”
May 8th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
I’m not sure what I’m more jealous about — the matinees or the Law and Order reruns. Enjoy it while it lasts ;)
May 10th, 2007 at 7:44 am
It’s cornier than cornucopia, yeah, but methinks you’ve already out-thought its ambitions. I loved it, and I usually hate stuff that isn’t Russian Ark or No Man’s Land or Tsotsi.
Kind of like Van Helsing: what an utterly ridiculous mess of a movie I saw three times in the theater.
May 10th, 2007 at 10:02 am
I’d agree that I’d out-thought its ambitions if it was preceded by two superior versions that were equally angsty without the schmaltz.
But Van Helsing? Dude, turn in your movie card. I like me some dumb action movies, but that’s off-the-charts whack.
May 10th, 2007 at 10:19 am
What movie card? Movie cards are for chumps.
And you thought Spidey 3 was angsty? That’s just off the rails for me. Half the audience was laughing when Tobey’s face screwed up at the end. Angsty like an episode of The Office, maybe.
May 10th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Well, angsty in a very high-school/comic book sorta way.
And yeah, it was laughable in Spidey 3, which is the problem; it wasn’t nearly as bad in the first two. They were corny, but had more heart… or something. (And Mary Jane wasn’t as annoying.)
Spidey 3? Schmaltz.
May 10th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Well the acting in the middle of Spider-Man 2 (and a few blatantly intentional grammatical errors added for “realism” in some of the speeches - damnit! I’m at the movie for escapism, not accuracy!) got to the corny level, but the overall flavor of cheese was tasty like cheddar throughout.
I still aim to turn corn into cream corn (another favorite flavor) with a fan edit. I just don’t have any software to do that yet… Well, there’s always FRAPs, GIFs, and Audacity for an oversized, glorified YTMND version…?_?…
Seriously, does anybody know what a good (preferably open source - or if not, then on the cheap) alternative to Adobe After Effects is?
May 10th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
There’s Windows Movie Maker, which lets you do timeline editing.
If you just want to hack the movie to bits and reassemble it, you could use Virtual Dub.
May 10th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
I’ve used Windows Movie Maker before in creating slideshow type YTMNDs, but I’ve always found it’s entirely useless when exporting anything but .JPG images. I’m a terrible Photoshop artist (but then, I don’t have the real Photoshop, and I use MS Paint whenever it’s capable for the job…) so I imagine I’ll be more of a timeline editor.
I may have to mess with eliminating lines in the script by cutting out surround channels & re-encoding it in stereo, but the audio part I’m on top of already.
This reminds me, that Nero package had some basic editing software of all varieties…
May 11th, 2007 at 12:05 am
The angst in the first Spider-Man was dead on, as best personified by the “I must walk alone” ending.
The angst in Spider-Man 2 started off poorly– with ill-advised daydream sequences with Uncle Ben and heart-to-hearts with hippie doctors at the university clinic–but resolved into truer moments such as the tearful confession to Aunt May.
The angst in Spider-Man 3 committed the sin of being boring. The one place I thought Raimi got the balance right between laffs and melodrama was the dinner scene where the dissolving of Pete and MJ’s relationship is contrasted by Bruce Campbell’s antics. But by that time, I was so sick of scenes of Peter as a clueless, self-absorbed goon that I just didn’t care.