Darth_Stat
Feb. 2001 ist beigetreten
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If there is a list of ways you don't expect the sequel to an $800mil-grossing action-fantasy to start, then right up there near the top, perhaps around second or first, is seeing a superhero on pizza delivery. But after a brief reminder about Pete's crush and a heads-up that MJ didn't at the conclusion of the previous movie catch on to his dual identity crisis, that's exactly what we see. A bystander watches Parker disappear off into a sidestreet, pizzas in hand, and a moment later Spider-man emerges from the same alley with the same pizzas. The bystander's conclusion? "Hey! He stole that guy's pizza!" The writing team are tipping their hat to the ground rule that once again no one will ever realise that Clark Kent and Superman are never in the same room at once. For the brief moments with Spidey swinging up there among the rooftops again we'll wonder if that was what we enjoyed most the first time.
But then minutes later we're back in the cozy still-60s office of J. Jonah Jameson and the laughs are once again coming thick and fast. His secretary ducks in. "Jonah, your wife's on line one, she says she lost your credit card." Jonah booms gleefully back: "Thanks for the good news!" Pete's soon arguing for more cash, saying things are tough at the moment. "Awww," Jonah replies with mock concern. "Miss Brant," he bellows out to his secretary, who immediately ducks in looking expectant: "get me a violin!" We think no. Maybe this was what we enjoyed most the first time.
But soon Pete's entering the door of his old home. "Surprise!" come three voices in unison. The smiling faces of Harry, MJ and Aunt May are there. It's a major nostalgiac high, seeing them all again. MJ is dressed like a grownup now and Rosemary Harris has lost none of her charm. Harry has grown roughly three feet. The sullen, troubled youth is gone and we're beholding what looks like an action hero or a rock star. The clouds darken soon after as the tragedies of Uncle Ben and Norman Osborne are re-affirmed, both of these best friend's having lost a father. Especially with his remaining unrequited love for MJ still hanging over him, Spider-man is preventing Pete from being true in any of the most important relationships in his life. A whole movie of development awaits!!! Nope. Sorry Jonah, I wanna stay here for a while. Don't take it too hard if you find yourself feeling like that for the rest of the movie. The weirdest thing about being hooked within 15 minutes is that there isn't even a villain yet. But that soon enough Apparently with part 1 they had tried to include the ambivalent scraper-scaling vixen Black Cat but discovered that they had so much story to get through with Goblin. With part 2 they tried the same thing. Doc Ock was slated as the ideal follow-up villain and once again they were going to get out the black lycra and bon bons but, you guessed it, again, too much story. Spidey 2 is a solid two hours. It's clear very early on that this movie is going to be both very busy and very entertaining for every second of that. You could say another tragic, science-gone-wrong villain was a safety measure but as Arad says, that personal connection Pete has with all of his enemy's is invaluable. There was little time for delay in the first flick but this time we get to explore these relationships and enjoy about 5 parts drama to 1 part action. That's the dynamite of this caper. Some of the set-pieces though are: a classic bank-robbery scene, enough wall-clinging acrobatics and punch-ups, a elevated train Spidey-Ock fight sequence, a token street-crime foiling or two and a classic emergence scene for the eight-limbed Doc Ock. A thought is that we may have just farewelled the best Spidey-villain yet, but by the end of the movie we're only anticipating the third chapter a whole lot more, though many might be a little ashamed for having survived all those years of Jane Austin and the soaps only to fall hard for this ensemble.
With so much current fan-focus regarding Spidey 3 being on what villains it'll have, the true delight will be remembering on that grand day that the best moments of part 2 were the final ones, and they didn't involve a fight or a foe. Telling, could it be, that they signed Elizabeth "Peggy Brant" Banks on so soon? Hopefully 3 will raise the bar yet again in drama, taking Pete to brand new places and not fumble in delivering generously on part II's numerous establishments and potentials. Given my choice I wouldn't have brought Venom into the first trilogy. To begin with he's a completely different universe, but more importantly he was part of a whole saga (minus the planet) without which he might hardly be Venom. The fact that he's a big enough crucible to justify an entire movie standalone would indeed make him a useful pillar in a movie that was very busy otherwise, but it would also make him a wasted potential (great choice of actor if word is right though - making the journalist convincing and interesting is more important than the demon Rock and Diesel would have been bad ideas). It sounds like Manwolf is in too, certainly they'll need John to get Venom anyway. But how are they meant to carry Pete & MJ, Harry's tormented rise, John Jameson's affliction and the Eddie Brock backstory all in one movie? It shouldn't feel like a constant onslaught of developments like a certain recent third-chapter sci-fi. Space is premium is Spider-man flicks and the movie has to retain itself. They've established great drama as the attraction. I'm glad they wanted to take their time nutting this one out, but latest evidence indicates no limit to their capability.
But then minutes later we're back in the cozy still-60s office of J. Jonah Jameson and the laughs are once again coming thick and fast. His secretary ducks in. "Jonah, your wife's on line one, she says she lost your credit card." Jonah booms gleefully back: "Thanks for the good news!" Pete's soon arguing for more cash, saying things are tough at the moment. "Awww," Jonah replies with mock concern. "Miss Brant," he bellows out to his secretary, who immediately ducks in looking expectant: "get me a violin!" We think no. Maybe this was what we enjoyed most the first time.
But soon Pete's entering the door of his old home. "Surprise!" come three voices in unison. The smiling faces of Harry, MJ and Aunt May are there. It's a major nostalgiac high, seeing them all again. MJ is dressed like a grownup now and Rosemary Harris has lost none of her charm. Harry has grown roughly three feet. The sullen, troubled youth is gone and we're beholding what looks like an action hero or a rock star. The clouds darken soon after as the tragedies of Uncle Ben and Norman Osborne are re-affirmed, both of these best friend's having lost a father. Especially with his remaining unrequited love for MJ still hanging over him, Spider-man is preventing Pete from being true in any of the most important relationships in his life. A whole movie of development awaits!!! Nope. Sorry Jonah, I wanna stay here for a while. Don't take it too hard if you find yourself feeling like that for the rest of the movie. The weirdest thing about being hooked within 15 minutes is that there isn't even a villain yet. But that soon enough Apparently with part 1 they had tried to include the ambivalent scraper-scaling vixen Black Cat but discovered that they had so much story to get through with Goblin. With part 2 they tried the same thing. Doc Ock was slated as the ideal follow-up villain and once again they were going to get out the black lycra and bon bons but, you guessed it, again, too much story. Spidey 2 is a solid two hours. It's clear very early on that this movie is going to be both very busy and very entertaining for every second of that. You could say another tragic, science-gone-wrong villain was a safety measure but as Arad says, that personal connection Pete has with all of his enemy's is invaluable. There was little time for delay in the first flick but this time we get to explore these relationships and enjoy about 5 parts drama to 1 part action. That's the dynamite of this caper. Some of the set-pieces though are: a classic bank-robbery scene, enough wall-clinging acrobatics and punch-ups, a elevated train Spidey-Ock fight sequence, a token street-crime foiling or two and a classic emergence scene for the eight-limbed Doc Ock. A thought is that we may have just farewelled the best Spidey-villain yet, but by the end of the movie we're only anticipating the third chapter a whole lot more, though many might be a little ashamed for having survived all those years of Jane Austin and the soaps only to fall hard for this ensemble.
With so much current fan-focus regarding Spidey 3 being on what villains it'll have, the true delight will be remembering on that grand day that the best moments of part 2 were the final ones, and they didn't involve a fight or a foe. Telling, could it be, that they signed Elizabeth "Peggy Brant" Banks on so soon? Hopefully 3 will raise the bar yet again in drama, taking Pete to brand new places and not fumble in delivering generously on part II's numerous establishments and potentials. Given my choice I wouldn't have brought Venom into the first trilogy. To begin with he's a completely different universe, but more importantly he was part of a whole saga (minus the planet) without which he might hardly be Venom. The fact that he's a big enough crucible to justify an entire movie standalone would indeed make him a useful pillar in a movie that was very busy otherwise, but it would also make him a wasted potential (great choice of actor if word is right though - making the journalist convincing and interesting is more important than the demon Rock and Diesel would have been bad ideas). It sounds like Manwolf is in too, certainly they'll need John to get Venom anyway. But how are they meant to carry Pete & MJ, Harry's tormented rise, John Jameson's affliction and the Eddie Brock backstory all in one movie? It shouldn't feel like a constant onslaught of developments like a certain recent third-chapter sci-fi. Space is premium is Spider-man flicks and the movie has to retain itself. They've established great drama as the attraction. I'm glad they wanted to take their time nutting this one out, but latest evidence indicates no limit to their capability.
You could take that to mean the original two Batman flicks and Begins but I'm certainly talking about the 3 comic book-film sagas that have actually made it above water. 'Catwoman's, 'Punisher's, controversial 'Hulk's, etc give comic book movies a bad name justly or unjustly. 'Blade's, 'Hellboy's and 'Sin City's can subsist for costing less but the big, trans-labelled three are X-Men, Spider-man and Batman. If Superman Returns and The Flash make it next year then it'll be good to have DC back in the light for the Marvel era. RIP the Superman-Batman DC age, 1978 to 1997.
I've changed my position on the original 4 Batmans since seeing Begins. Batman has to be dark, not an MTV merchandising hub. Keaton getting battered and tossed by villains is frustrating, there's the height question to irritate, but I like the darkness, laughs, noir, score, sadistic edge and tragic overtones of Burton that polarize it from otherwise rainbow superheroes. Batman Forever; interesting story, the best Batman portrayer, though unfortunate that Kilmer didn't put on enough muscle for the role, good score, animated performances. It holds up unto itself, but not alongside the others and especially Begins. Where is the credibility in two athletic young bachelor billionaires each scarred by an early family-loss co-existing in the tabloids with two gadget-rife, turbo-powered, militarily-vehicle, thug-slugging city avengers, one barely even under a mask, bearing remarkable resemblance? Robin out. Skip to Drake and Nightwing if totally necessary. Begins is realism.
So Batman Begins didn't exactly wow with its gross, but that was completely predictable. Already the most enduring and arguably biggest comic book movie series, a lot of territory was covered and much of the Batman urgency was spent. Any fallout from the protested part 4, an agreeable renter but no challenge to its predecessors. The appropriate seriousness, subdued tones and discretion of the Begins trailer, not a kiddie puller and heeding to pre-suppositions. Probably above all, there was no popular villains. Scarecrow, though one of the originals, was a lurch from obscurity for the masses those popularised in the 60s TV show that gave Batman such an edge with modern audiences were Burton or Schumackered. Lastly, there was the shot of that Bat-mask. People were never going to flock to see a mortal in blocky rubber as they had before Spider-man, Xavier's troop and all the rest of the super-powered lot had swung. At first. Initially, it was going to feel like a step back on some level.
But that is the transcendental beauty of Batman Begins and Batman: the superhero that isn't super. He wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider, he was never hit by gamma or radiation, he never left the earth's surface. What he did was don the guise of the bat and struggle manfully against organised crime and equally scarred maniacs for love of a city that had plagued the world's nightmares since metropolises first began springing up. Every thud, every leap, every drop of blood was that of a man no more super than any of us. The mask was what was truly fantastical, an overpass to power, mystery and unrelenting justice. On one side of it was a dark and fearful legend, unnatural in the word of folk. On the other was a face from high society. The cave, the car, the hook, the belt, the batarang, were Batman's super powers; what made him a one-man army where the masses that a dark metropolis could throw at his lone cause might have overwhelmed. Bruce's journey to the point of that transformation is the excitement in precisely the same way his troubles retaining his sanity and humanity beneath the mantle are afterward.
Begins signals his Detective Comics age, where a bit more sunlight is allowable with his movement in the real world. At the height of population there was the entire team of Batman, Robin, Alfred, Gordon, Nightwing, Oracle, Catwoman, Batman understudy Jean Paul/Azrael and others all fighting a global cause. After such a dense and exciting first chapter establishing Batman the hard work is done and we haven't even got to the real fun yet. Do I hear a green-haired maniac's demonic cackle? Bane awaits. It may not have 'Spider-man'-ed or even 'X-Men'-ed at the box office but they'd be idiots not to think they're sitting on a Matrix Reloaded opening with part two (and no more of that legacy). Shame about Holmes, her presence was welcome, the performance was solid, and I don't want this to be the beginning of yet another infuriating Bond tradition of changing women every movie. Fisher taking up the same role is one of the first things we'll forget about once we're watching a solid sequel, but otherwise, coming up with a satisfactory way to write Dawes out is the first hurdle. And in case they're wondering, yes, a certain brain-damaged horse rider does return in part II.
NO TEAMUPS! The biggest fun is ahead. What we're dealing with is the clash of a psychotic shrink with the city's deadliest nutter. I don't want, and I suspect many second the motion, another wussy villain team-up in part 2, or a sidedish baddie. Joker is the villain intent on pushing Batman as close to the edge as possible, and he'll do anything to stop someone killing Batman because that would ruin his fun and his whole cause for being. The movie that it can be at best with yet another dark alliance isn't half what a three-way powerplay can be. Dynamite. NO TEAMUPS! Like the X-Mens and the superb Spider-man 2 they have left a number of threads to take up in the sequel. In Begins they don't get to explore the duality of Bruce Wayne and Batman, where one ends and the other begins. Joker is the tool invented for that very purpose. Great work.
I've changed my position on the original 4 Batmans since seeing Begins. Batman has to be dark, not an MTV merchandising hub. Keaton getting battered and tossed by villains is frustrating, there's the height question to irritate, but I like the darkness, laughs, noir, score, sadistic edge and tragic overtones of Burton that polarize it from otherwise rainbow superheroes. Batman Forever; interesting story, the best Batman portrayer, though unfortunate that Kilmer didn't put on enough muscle for the role, good score, animated performances. It holds up unto itself, but not alongside the others and especially Begins. Where is the credibility in two athletic young bachelor billionaires each scarred by an early family-loss co-existing in the tabloids with two gadget-rife, turbo-powered, militarily-vehicle, thug-slugging city avengers, one barely even under a mask, bearing remarkable resemblance? Robin out. Skip to Drake and Nightwing if totally necessary. Begins is realism.
So Batman Begins didn't exactly wow with its gross, but that was completely predictable. Already the most enduring and arguably biggest comic book movie series, a lot of territory was covered and much of the Batman urgency was spent. Any fallout from the protested part 4, an agreeable renter but no challenge to its predecessors. The appropriate seriousness, subdued tones and discretion of the Begins trailer, not a kiddie puller and heeding to pre-suppositions. Probably above all, there was no popular villains. Scarecrow, though one of the originals, was a lurch from obscurity for the masses those popularised in the 60s TV show that gave Batman such an edge with modern audiences were Burton or Schumackered. Lastly, there was the shot of that Bat-mask. People were never going to flock to see a mortal in blocky rubber as they had before Spider-man, Xavier's troop and all the rest of the super-powered lot had swung. At first. Initially, it was going to feel like a step back on some level.
But that is the transcendental beauty of Batman Begins and Batman: the superhero that isn't super. He wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider, he was never hit by gamma or radiation, he never left the earth's surface. What he did was don the guise of the bat and struggle manfully against organised crime and equally scarred maniacs for love of a city that had plagued the world's nightmares since metropolises first began springing up. Every thud, every leap, every drop of blood was that of a man no more super than any of us. The mask was what was truly fantastical, an overpass to power, mystery and unrelenting justice. On one side of it was a dark and fearful legend, unnatural in the word of folk. On the other was a face from high society. The cave, the car, the hook, the belt, the batarang, were Batman's super powers; what made him a one-man army where the masses that a dark metropolis could throw at his lone cause might have overwhelmed. Bruce's journey to the point of that transformation is the excitement in precisely the same way his troubles retaining his sanity and humanity beneath the mantle are afterward.
Begins signals his Detective Comics age, where a bit more sunlight is allowable with his movement in the real world. At the height of population there was the entire team of Batman, Robin, Alfred, Gordon, Nightwing, Oracle, Catwoman, Batman understudy Jean Paul/Azrael and others all fighting a global cause. After such a dense and exciting first chapter establishing Batman the hard work is done and we haven't even got to the real fun yet. Do I hear a green-haired maniac's demonic cackle? Bane awaits. It may not have 'Spider-man'-ed or even 'X-Men'-ed at the box office but they'd be idiots not to think they're sitting on a Matrix Reloaded opening with part two (and no more of that legacy). Shame about Holmes, her presence was welcome, the performance was solid, and I don't want this to be the beginning of yet another infuriating Bond tradition of changing women every movie. Fisher taking up the same role is one of the first things we'll forget about once we're watching a solid sequel, but otherwise, coming up with a satisfactory way to write Dawes out is the first hurdle. And in case they're wondering, yes, a certain brain-damaged horse rider does return in part II.
NO TEAMUPS! The biggest fun is ahead. What we're dealing with is the clash of a psychotic shrink with the city's deadliest nutter. I don't want, and I suspect many second the motion, another wussy villain team-up in part 2, or a sidedish baddie. Joker is the villain intent on pushing Batman as close to the edge as possible, and he'll do anything to stop someone killing Batman because that would ruin his fun and his whole cause for being. The movie that it can be at best with yet another dark alliance isn't half what a three-way powerplay can be. Dynamite. NO TEAMUPS! Like the X-Mens and the superb Spider-man 2 they have left a number of threads to take up in the sequel. In Begins they don't get to explore the duality of Bruce Wayne and Batman, where one ends and the other begins. Joker is the tool invented for that very purpose. Great work.
I mean we had Brad Pitt in the Trojan War, we had the Mummy Man pitching the genius concept of a Hammer "Versus" revival, we had Ridley Scott going all epic on us again(!!!), and this is of course excepting the showstopper and king, Spider-man making a victory lap. How will Scott do? Troy I can tell you is great, the Spidey trailer couldn't look better
Van Helsing sucks.
Tell me honestly that you weren't drooling when he pitched the idea? Come on: Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man versus an IndyJ. revision of the first (and coolest sounding) Vampire hunter? Alas it's an affront to logic but Sommers took exactly the same approach with Van Helsing as he did with Mummy 2. What's wrong then, you ask? Better question. Where to start?
Firstly, check the cast list Sommers, Brendan Fraser isn't in this one. Without his irresistible goofy wit the one-liners will flatten. And without his reliable gung-ho, love for the hero is also sliced in half. Without Oded Fehr to back him up there's no co-adventurer we'll swear allegiance to. Without the hot-as-hell AND adorable Rachel Wiesz there's no heroin we feel aloud to love from afar. Johnathan and Beni? Without them what do we have to chuckle at.
The second I saw that early concept art of Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man I thought Sommers DID know what to do. He was goth-ing it up, I was prepared to sacrifice the humour because I knew it just couldn't sit. I thought Van Helsing would be a clashing of myths. You can't Nintendo it all up and make these beasties as commonplace as vermin! These characters existed before they existed, every culture knows em, passed down over centuries. They could have chopped that $180mil in half, and put a few hundred grand into a powerplay story that we actually wanted to watch.
I cant believe he actually dared to use the same junk that not only every other adventure movie used but that his own leading man lived off. Come on, forgotten pasts, dark secrets, soulful quests blah! Thats not only Wolverine and the Mummy movies it's the entire genre! We've had way too much of that already! And sexy as Beckinsale is she cant be both the quest and the love interest and fellow-adventurer and victim etc, thats just absurdly bland.
And Dracula! Uh boy. As big a fan as I am of Ozzie actors penetrating Hollywood I'm afraid my countryman was miscast. Dracula HAS to be VERY tall and VERY menacing. Oldman was a stupid choice and so was Roxburgh.
He cribbed from Godzilla!!! I mean for goodness sake, there are some movies you just don't touch! Rather than grand-scale it all up he should have put some quality time into the character that the entire "franchise" depended on!
Likely, Jackman is still looking for that much touted Indiana Jones to succeed his Han Solo (Wolverine), but my greatest fear is that this will be the finishing attempt at resurrecting the Vampire King. Please, please no.
Tell me honestly that you weren't drooling when he pitched the idea? Come on: Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man versus an IndyJ. revision of the first (and coolest sounding) Vampire hunter? Alas it's an affront to logic but Sommers took exactly the same approach with Van Helsing as he did with Mummy 2. What's wrong then, you ask? Better question. Where to start?
Firstly, check the cast list Sommers, Brendan Fraser isn't in this one. Without his irresistible goofy wit the one-liners will flatten. And without his reliable gung-ho, love for the hero is also sliced in half. Without Oded Fehr to back him up there's no co-adventurer we'll swear allegiance to. Without the hot-as-hell AND adorable Rachel Wiesz there's no heroin we feel aloud to love from afar. Johnathan and Beni? Without them what do we have to chuckle at.
The second I saw that early concept art of Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man I thought Sommers DID know what to do. He was goth-ing it up, I was prepared to sacrifice the humour because I knew it just couldn't sit. I thought Van Helsing would be a clashing of myths. You can't Nintendo it all up and make these beasties as commonplace as vermin! These characters existed before they existed, every culture knows em, passed down over centuries. They could have chopped that $180mil in half, and put a few hundred grand into a powerplay story that we actually wanted to watch.
I cant believe he actually dared to use the same junk that not only every other adventure movie used but that his own leading man lived off. Come on, forgotten pasts, dark secrets, soulful quests blah! Thats not only Wolverine and the Mummy movies it's the entire genre! We've had way too much of that already! And sexy as Beckinsale is she cant be both the quest and the love interest and fellow-adventurer and victim etc, thats just absurdly bland.
And Dracula! Uh boy. As big a fan as I am of Ozzie actors penetrating Hollywood I'm afraid my countryman was miscast. Dracula HAS to be VERY tall and VERY menacing. Oldman was a stupid choice and so was Roxburgh.
He cribbed from Godzilla!!! I mean for goodness sake, there are some movies you just don't touch! Rather than grand-scale it all up he should have put some quality time into the character that the entire "franchise" depended on!
Likely, Jackman is still looking for that much touted Indiana Jones to succeed his Han Solo (Wolverine), but my greatest fear is that this will be the finishing attempt at resurrecting the Vampire King. Please, please no.