Sophomore slumps are an unfortunate reality for plenty of big-budget sequels, and that includes “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.” It’s still an enjoyable comic book flick featuring everyone’s favorite web-slinger, but it can’t muster the verve and pizzazz of its predecessor.
Its main problem is an overabundance of characters and plot. The best super-hero movies tend to focus on a single villain or existentialist threat, but here we’ve got storylines splayed all over the place like random spider webs.
Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) has to deal with at least three bad guys, including his best friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) slowly turning into the Green Goblin and Paul Giamatti rampaging (briefly) as the Rhino.
The main heavy is Jamie Foxx as Max, a shy social outcast who idolizes Spidey. He gets zapped by some electrical eels and turned into a living power generator who dubs himself Electro – with his emotions clearing having no voltage regulator.
Foxx makes for a terrific villain, a man deluded by his own quest for power, and compares favorably with Alfred Molina’s Dr. Octopus from the last Spider-Man iteration. But he’s not given enough screen time to fully flesh out the character. Similarly, the Harry/Peter and Green Goblin/Spider-Man twin conflicts show just enough promise to suggest they deserved their own movie to fully explore.
On top of all these super-villains to fight, Peter’s got a lot weighing on his shoulders: a will they/won’t they romance with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), guilt over the death of Gwen’s cop father, tensions with Aunt May (Sally Field), and the mystery of Peter’s disappeared parents.
The CG action scenes are still a blast, but sometimes less really is more. A more focused film would’ve been a better one.
Fortunately, the video extras are first-rate. The DVD comes with four deleted scenes with commentary by director Marc Webb, a feature length commentary track, and the “It’s On Again” music video with Alicia Keys.
Upgrade to the Blu-ray edition, and you add nine more deleted scenes and a comprehensive making-of documentary, “The Wages of Heroism: Making The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”
Just a short review today, folks. Joe is handling the main article over at The Film Yap, and ably so, so please head over there to check it out.
I was very cynical about the reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. As I wrote at the time, undertaking a production just so the creative rights to the character won't revert to the previous owner is a terrifically awful reason to make a movie. But director Marc Webb, his cast and crew came up with a fresh take on familiar characters and themes. It was exhilirating.
As I also wrote, "The Amazing Spider-Man" also took its time building up the mythology of their new-ish universe, grounding the characters and rendering them relatable as people. In other words, it earned its emotional capital for the kabloowie stuff later on.
With the sequel, I often felt like the filmmakers were using shorthand and shortcuts. Dialogue scenes barely begin before they reach their emotional crescendo. Action scenes jump straight to the big explosions and CG effects. There's no foreplay, just "hello" and wham-bang.
Maybe I'm getting old, but I need a film to stoke my fires a little bit before getting to the main event.
There are some wonderful actors in this movie -- Andrew Garfield, Jamie Foxx, Emma Stone, Chris Cooper, Sally Field, Paul Giamatti (briefly). But as I sat there watching them spout increasingly ridiculous and/or nonsensical lines, I kept wondering how ill-used they are. This movie fails the old Gene Siskel test if you'd rather just watch that same cast sitting around lunch talking about whatever.
It's not a bad super-hero movie. I think there's actually a really good story here, buried underneath the unnecessary subplots and excess of secondary characters. Peter Parker, haunted by the death of Gwen Stacy's father in the last movie, dithers about keeping his promise to leave her alone, despite their desperate love for each other.
The main bad guy is Electro (Foxx), depicted here as a mush-mouthed, timid electric engineer who gets zapped by experimental eels at the headquarters of the evil Oscorp company. This turns him into a blue-skinned, semi-transparent being who can manipulate electrical energy -- eventually, even dis- and re-assembling his body through electricity.
His motivations aren't really clear -- something about feeling invisible and wanting the whole world to see him. Previously a Spider-Man junkie, he becomes disillusioned when the web-slinger helps capture him.
The filmmakers also throw in Harry Osborn, played by Dane DeHaan, who was born looking like a fallen angel, with a cupid's-bow mouth and dangerous eyes. His nasty dad Norman (Cooper), on his death bed, passes along his contempt as well as the "Osborn curse," a heredity disease he describes as "retro-viral hypoplasia." Basically, it turns you into a gnarled green goblin.
One of my standard metrics for comic book movies is you can rate them by how many villains they have. The truly terrific ones, like "Spider-Man 2" or "Blade," only need one really good bad guy to make things sing. With Spidey fighting Electro, the Green Goblin and even the Rhino (briefly), none of them get a chance to make a weighty impact.
Various subplots involving Peter's parentage, and his father's prominence as a scientist in the Oscorp machine, were better left on the writers' floor. Aside from muddying up the plot, it serves to diminish Peter as a character. The entire resonance of Spider-Man is that he's a nobody teenager who assumes great powers and, as we all well know, great responsibilities.
So: I liked the movie in pieces. There's a lot of good stuff here, and certainly the action sequences are fun and all you'd expect from a big summer blockbuster. This one just needed a half-dozen or so more rewrites to pare it down to its essence, instead of piling on the detritus.
Daniel Day-Lewis gives a mesmerizing, nontraditional performance as the 16th president of the U.S. in “Lincoln,” a biopic that makes its own bold choice. In narrowing the scope of that epic life to focus on only a single month of Lincoln’s presidency, director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner manage to reveal something of the man’s enormity while upending our conceptions of him.
Start with the high-pitched, quavering voice Day-Lewis uses. By all accounts it matches contemporaneous descriptions of Lincoln’s actual speech, but runs counter to most depictions of him as deep-throated and steady. In a sense, the cast and filmmakers have to rip aside the legend of Lincoln to uncover the truth of him.
The story covers the push to the pass the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery, even as the Civil War reaches its bloodiest stage. Other key players in the tale include Mrs. Lincoln (Sally Field), whose mental anguish threatens her husband’s public life; their son Todd (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who yearns to prove himself in battle; and Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), the fiery emancipator who wants to go further than Lincoln and declare equality between the races.
The script is a little uneven at times, as Kushner offers too-clever winks to the audience as the characters reminisce about how they will be perceived in posterity. I think the reason the film didn’t fare better at the Academy Awards is that most people viewed it as a terrific performance with only a pretty-good movie around it.
That’s too harsh an assessment. Though it sometimes indulges in wonky political discussions, “Lincoln” strives to reach the essence of a great man, and largely succeeds.
Video extras are pretty good, though Spielberg maintains the unfortunate tradition of most high-profile directors in eschewing a commentary track.
The DVD comes with “The Journey to Lincoln,” a pretty standard making-of documentary. Upgrade to the two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo, and you add a featurette on the historical tapestry of Richmond, Va.
Go for the four-disc set and you add a host of goodies. There’s a feature all about Day-Lewis’ meticulous construction of his character, and three more featurettes about the production design and costumes, a shooting diary and John Williams’ Oscar-nominated music score.
There exists a sweet spot for film biographies of pivotal American figures. Somewhere after enough time has passed following their death for some perspective to form on their life, but before their exploits and persona pass into legend, filmmakers have an opportunity to capture the essence of a great life.
For example, Martin Luther King Jr. belongs in the former category – his enormity, and the pain of his loss, is still too near. Older figures like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington have become so iconic that Hollywood has largely stayed away for many decades. They’re of the ages now, hence too remote to be truly examined.
Steven Spielberg’s grandiose “Lincoln” attempts to bypass this notion, and largely succeeds at doing so through a mesmerizing lead performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th, and many feel greatest, American president.
It’s a bold film that sidesteps the standard sort of hagiography, peering at Lincoln sideways and slantways, trying to get at the man behind the mythology. In the crafting of Spielberg, Day-Lewis and screenwriter Tony Kushner, the portrait that emerges is of a brilliant but isolated figure, who could enthrall the men he led while remaining a vexing riddle to them. They stare at Lincoln, recognizing his greatness but put off by their inability to truly fathom it.
In essence, the film pulls back the veil of history on Lincoln to reveal a man who was beloved but remained largely a mystery, even to his family and in some ways to himself.
Day-Lewis’ performance seems a little strange at first, especially the high, tremulous voice he employs for Lincoln’s soaring oratory. Perhaps it’s because it’s so at odds with the rumbling sonorous tones associated with prevailing fictional depictions of the president’s speech. Day-Lewis also holds his body at odd angles and moves in a strange hunched shuffle, evoking a decrepit bird of prey.
But after a slow start, the film gets moving and these affectations stop being distracting and start to seem part of the gestalt of Day-Lewis’ character construction. We cease thinking about the actor and his choices and submerge into the story of Lincoln.
Adapted from the Doris Kearns Goodwin book, “Team of Rivals,” the film concentrates on one month of his presidency: the lead-up in January 1865 to the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ending slavery. For history buffs like myself it’s riveting stuff, full of inside stories and forgotten bits of lore. Though I fear casual audiences may occasionally be lost amid the vast sea of characters and wonky discussions of constitutional law.
(I think of one section where Lincoln, an accomplished lawyer, parses out the different legal interpretations of his Emancipation Proclamation, acknowledging that the Supreme Court would be within their rights to declare it unconstitutional.)
Speaking of all those other characters – it’s a tremendous supporting cast, including Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as their son Robert, David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward and James Spader, John Hawkes and Jackie Earle Haley as a trio of flimflam men brought in to round up votes. One of the film’s revelations is that Lincoln and his allies were not above skullduggery, including bribery and blackmail, to achieve their noble goals.
The relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln is a troubled one, in which Abraham felt compelled to cede marital ground to the strong-willed Mary even as his armies marched inexorably deep below the Mason-Dixon Line. At one point he regrets not having her committed to a mental institution, and flogs her selfishness for creating problems for a man already bearing so much on his soul. “You may lighten this burden or render it intolerable, as you will,” he fumes.
Aside from Day-Lewis, the performance that really stands out is Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, a fiery Radical Republican who demanded not only total emancipation for the slaves but universal equality between the races – something even Lincoln resisted. It’s a strong portrait, a man who was heroic in his ideals but dastardly in his countenance.
Jones spits out his speech in clips and snarls, intimidating those around him like an angry alpha dog. When Stevens’ demands for harsh treatment of the post-war South threaten to tip both the passage of the amendment and the peace negotiations Lincoln is conducting in secret, the two men engage in a brooding contest of wills.
“Lincoln” is a spellbinding but imperfect film. Kushner’s screenplay is filled with several moments that seem constructed with a winking eye to how things will be perceived in the here and now. For example, Mary comments that she will be remembered only as the half-mad woman who provoked a president.
I also thought the coda about Lincoln’s assassination was included inappropriately. This movie was not intended as a comprehensive look at an entire life, but focuses on his leadership and vision, illuminated by a critical point in our nation’s history. Everyone knows the tragedy of his death, so including it feels like a ham-handed grasp for an unnecessary emotional crescendo.
Still, “Lincoln” aspires to much more than simple deification of its subject, opting to demystify Abraham Lincoln rather than merely exalt him. In aspiring to unwrap this puzzle of greatness, the film achieves some of its own.
For an absolutely unnecessary reboot of the web-slinging superhero franchise, "The Amazing Spider-Man" is terrifically well-done. It attacks the character of Pete Parker, a nerdy kid who gets bitten by a radioactive arachnid, from a darker perspective than the previous trilogy.
Andrew Garfield, taking over the lead role from Tobey Maguire, draws a portrait of a socially ostracized kid who was probably headed to a lonely life of despair if he hadn't been turned into a non-caped crusader.
Becoming Spider-Man teaches him harsh lessons about responsibility -- particularly after his believed Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) is slain because of his inaction -- but it also helps him come out of his shell, especially with regard to lady love Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone).
The heavy here is Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), a scientist who becomes Peter's mentor as they try to unlock the secret of transferring the regenerative power of reptiles to humans. It does help Connors regrow his missing arm -- but also turns him into the fearsome, toothsome Lizard.
Director Marc Webb was an unlikely choice for a big-budget action film, his only other credit being the indie romance, "(500) Days of Summer." But Webb and the trio of screenwriters have made something genuinely new out of something old.
Please note, "The Amazing Spider-Man" will be released on video Friday, Nov. 9.
The film comes with a heaping helping if extras, even with the base DVD version. It boasts a feature-length commentary track by the filmmakers, deleted scenes, product art gallery and footage from stunt rehearsals.
Upgrade to the Blu-ray/DVD combo, and you add more than 90 minutes of behind-the-scenes documentaries, focusing on casting, story development, costumes, locations and special effects. There's also a Second Screen App for mobile devices with storyboards, interviews and more.
Opt for the 3-D Blu-ray combo and you add some featurettes on 3D imaging processes.
Go all in for the 4-disc Limited Edition Gift Set and you also get special packaging and collectible figurines of Spider-Man and the Lizard.
Let's just get this out of the way: no, there was absolutely no need for this reboot of the Spider-Man movie franchise. The first film came out just a decade ago, and the last one was a mere five years ago -- and was underwhelming at that.
From what I understand, "The Amazing Spider-Man" had to be made or the rights to the iconic comic book hero would've lapsed. As motivations go for spending a reported $220 million on a movie -- or even $220 -- it's a pathetically shabby one.
But that's the studio honchos. The filmmakers and cast, however, have attacked the material with pure hearts and dedication, and come up with a genuinely terrific super-hero movie.
(Of course, the studio bosses are the ones who hired the movie-makers, so let's give them that credit.)
The most obvious question people will have about this new version of Spider-Man is how it differs from the previous trilogy, starring Tobey Maguire and directed by Sam Raimi. Without giving too much away, the answer is: quite a bit.
This Spidey is more of a throwback to themes of the original comic books, in which young high school student Peter Parker is a socially outcast science whiz who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and finds he can climb walls, lift cars and sense impending danger. He's lost and shut off, especially after his wise father figure, Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen), is killed by a robber Peter could have caught but chose not to.
Andrew Garfield's Peter is much more alienated than Maguire's relatively smooth and serene take. Garfield stammers, won't look others in the eyes and hunches his shoulders like he's trying to collapse into his torso.
His lady love isn't Mary Jane Parker, but Gwen Stacy, who's just as smart as him and is played by Emma Stone, one of the best actresses of her young generation. It's a bit of a mystery why a brainy, popular girl like her would fall for the nerdy Peter, but Stone offers little grace notes that help us feel the connection.
Director Marc Webb's only other feature film was the wonderful "(500) Days of Summer," which had approximately 1/30th the budget of this movie. It was a bold choice to pick him to helm a mega-budget production like this, but one that has paid lovely dividends.
Webb chooses to go light on the CGI to depict Spider-Man's web-slinging -- at least initially. For awhile, he's more akin to one of those parkour guys, bouncing around walls like an Olympic-grade gymnast. Webb lets us to see Peter slowly grow into his powers.
Another interesting change is the use of Spidey's webs. In the previous films, the web-slinger utilized them almost exclusively for locomotion, whereas here it's an integral part of his fighting style. Also notable is that they're not an organic part of his package of spider powers -- as many have pointed out, if it was then the webbing would come out of his butt instead of his wrists. Instead, it's a bit of technology that Peter "liberates" from a huge corporation and adapts for his own use.
That company is Oscorp, known from the other movies as the brainchild of Norman Osborn, aka Green Goblin, who is absent here. Instead, Oscorp's top scientist plays the heavy.
Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) is a leading herpetologist looking to perform cross-species DNA splicing.
He has a very personal motivation: Connors wants to use the regenerative powers of reptiles to regrow his missing arm. After some mad scientist experimenting, he turns into the fearsome Lizard, full of scales and muscles, who soon tangles with Spidey.
Rounding out the cast are Sally Field as Peter's Aunt May, Irrfan Khan as an Oscorp toady and Dennis Leary as the stern police captain who views Spider-Man with contempt -- and also happens to be Gwen's father.
"The Amazing Spider-Man" does take a while to get going. Like an epic roller-coaster climbing that first big hill, the first 75 minutes or so carefully -- sometimes painstakingly -- build up the characters and the universe. But in a moment, you can feel the movie achieve takeoff. For the next hour, it's an amazing ride of action-scene thrills and visceral twists.
Even though I found the first section slow-going at times, I realized as I was watching the latter part that the movie had earned its emotional capital so it could pay off dividends.
Webb and his trio of veteran screenwriters -- James Vanderbilt, Steve Kloves and Alvin Sargent (who also penned the last two Spider-Man films) -- clearly are gearing up for another run of several movies. There's a vague framing story involving the disappearance of Peter's parents that tickles us with possibilities without giving anything away.
Based on this strong reboot, though, I hereby withdraw any objections to more Spidey flicks.
I am secure enough in my manhood to proudly proclaim that I enjoy chick flicks -- good ones, at least. Two hours of maudlin sentiment and bitchy encounters may be some guys' idea of torture. But if it's well-executed and engaging, I'm there.
Somehow I'd missed "Steel Magnolias" in the 21 years since it came out. It's fair to say my teenage self was not as enlightened about feminine-themed movies, so I didn't catch it in theaters. And even the most ardent film lover will have a few seminal films they just never got around to.
I'm so glad to have rectified the oversight. What a wonderful pageantry of lively Southern womanhood. The film is based on Robert Harling's play (he also wrote the screen adaptation), which is a fictionalized account of his sister's death at a young age. Director Herbert Ross (who also helmed "The Sunshine Boys," featured here not long ago) has a wonderful touch with his huge cast of talented actresses.
This was Julia Roberts' big break-out role (she earned an Oscar nomination for supporting actress), but for me the film is notable for having so many great parts for actresses of a certain age: Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis. It's hard to imagine a movie being made today with so many gray-haired spitfires.
And what great one-liners they get: "Steel Magnolias" is filled to the brim with crackling dialogue. They're delivered in a showy, punchy way -- so much so that you can practically hear the wind-up. But even if there's that bit of inescapable artifice whenever a stage work moves to the screen, we don't mind because the lines are so great, and delivered with such panache.
Consider:
"The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize." "I'm not crazy, I've just been in a bad mood for 40 years!" "I'm just screaming at my husband; I can do that any time!" "Well, you know what they say: if you don't have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me!" "I think we should pray." "Oh, I'd rather eat dirt!" "We went skinny dipping and we did things that frightened the fish."
The plot itself is pretty simple, centering around the mother-daughter relationship of M'Lynn Eatonten (Field) and her daughter Shelby (Roberts), who's about to get married. M'Lynn has spent her whole life fretting after he daughter because of her severe diabetes, and isn't quite ready to cut the apron strings.
Later, Shelby insists on having a child of her own, despite dire warnings from the doctors about the impact it could have on her health. Sure enough, her kidneys fail and she has to receive a transplant from her mother. But eventually she succumbs and dies.
The men stay on the sidelines, where they belong. (The stage version takes entirely inside a beauty shop, and the males are discussed but never seen.) Tom Skerritt has a nice turn as Drum, M'Lynn's exuberant husband, and Dylan McDermott plays Jackson, Shelby's new husband.
By the way, you can tell we're in the Deep South by all the character's names. There's also Truvy Jones (Parton), the town's best beautician and gossip; Annelle Dupuy Desoto (Daryl Hannah), the resident Bible-thumber; Clairee Belcher (Dukkakis), widowed wife of the mayor and number-one socialite; and Ouiser Boudreaux, the neighborhood S.O.B. who dresses like a charwoman but knows that "the only reason people are nice to me is because I have more money than God."
These names may sound made up, but anyone who's actually spent time below the Mason-Dixon Line knows that colorful monikers abound. Consider Tillie Tooter, the Florida woman who became famous a few years ago for surviving several days trapped in her car.
The story takes place in Chiquapin Parish, a fictional Louisiana town that is apparently devoid of black people. (Actually, one mother and her child crop up near the end.)
"Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion," one of the women says, and it perfectly sums up the wonderful appeal of this Southern-fried gem.
