response 108 of 323:

Jul 12 16:56 UTC 2004

  Saw "Spiderman 2" over the weekend and managed to stay entertained
  for a couple of hours (though only just barely in a few parts, I'd
  say the pacing could/should have been tightened a bit.)

  I thought they did a fantastic job with the Doctor Octopus special
  effects; Doc Ock was always one of my favorite Spiderman villains
  and they did an excellent job with both his motion and the sheer
  physical menace of his mechanical limbs.

  It's odd but the parts I liked best of the comic books are the parts
  I thought dragged the most in the movie -- Peter Parker's hapless
  struggle to master the everyday life of an intelligent outsider in
  a world he really doesn't fit into.  The real genius of the Spiderman
  comic books was that the focus of the story really wasn't Spiderman's
  struggle against the supervillains, it was Peter Parker's struggle
  against everyday life.  The fights with the supervillains were just
  added inconveniences heaped upon an already staggeringly overburdened
  young misfit who rarely got a break.  And if things weren't confusing
  enough for young Peter already, half of the time the villains turned
  out to be people he cared about from the everyday life he was trying
  to cope with -- you can see them setting up for that in this latest
  movie with the introduction of John Jameson (who, in the comics, turns
  into some sort of man/wolf beast after a moon mission goes wrong) and
  Dr. Curtis Connors (becomes "The Lizard" after an experiment in limb
  regeneration goes wrong -- notice a pattern here?) and, of course,
  with Harry Osborne, who eventually becomes the second Green Goblin
  (after his father's scientific experiments and subsequent supervillain
  career go wrong, naturally..)

response 110 of 323:

Jul 12 18:00 UTC 2004

  Well, in those days when a comic found a successful niche, it stuck to it.
  If you were a "tampered with things man was not meant to know / science
  experiment gone wrong" sort of comic-book reader you were probably a 
  Spiderman fan.  

response 116 of 323:

Jul 18 08:32 UTC 2004

     
     Spiderman2 is as annoying as the praises that some 
     people do it when you think this is just the review 
     of a child who only wants to see action and special 
     effects & the special effects transformed some directors 
     in Mandrakes.
     
     Don't get me wrong this is not a bad movie, but it's 
     not a good one either. As all the others (Hoolywool 
     production line stuff) it's forgotten QUICKLY.
     
     The story was boring and the message so expertly crafted 
     in the first movie was simply repeated (over and over) 
     in this one till it go boring but if you like these 
     kind of stuff, it will entertain you for about 2 hours.

     After watching it, immediately boot it to the trash can!

     ...

     

response 118 of 323:

Jul 19 16:19 UTC 2004

Spiderman 2 was good, but Elfman gave the horns and chorus the best part. 
The trombone chorus got their usual unsheathed dagger danger part.  Anyway,
it was a serviceable score, but I'm very envious of the best going to the
horns.  [Spiderman inside the subway train]

Victor is certainly right, though.  I guess the audience really wouldn't
want something too different from a character defined in a both a previous
movie and decades of comics.  At least the director spared us a repeat
introduction of how Parker received his preternatural powers.

Maybe Spiderman 3 will have some surprises!  Like does Parker blow a
sticky web when he sneezes snot or ejaculates?  Does he fear coitus
because of the fate of other male arachnids?

response 120 of 323:

Jul 19 16:25 UTC 2004

I caught "I Robot" over the weekend.  I've never read Asimov, so I can't
compare, but even the credits say, "Suggested by the book by Asimov", in what
I would imagine is a plea for everyone to just back off and let the movie
happen.  I think what impressed me is how much I like Will Smith.  He's a good
actor, but he really has what it takes to be a great action star.  

response 122 of 323:

Jul 19 17:18 UTC 2004

  re #121:  it had plenty of tentacles and arachnids.

response 124 of 323:

Jul 19 21:52 UTC 2004

Re. 120:  The book is nothing like the movie, which is understandable as
the book was an anthology of robot-related stories.

response 126 of 323:

Jul 26 13:40 UTC 2004

I personally don't give a rats a$$ if the movie is different from the book,
especially if it was never intended to be like the book.

I haven't seen "I, Robot" yet, but I want to, and I suspect I will enjoy it,
as I enjoyed Spiderman 2 and many other "hollywood" movies.

Yes, I even enjoyed "The Day After Tomorrow", because I went to see it as a
fan of "good" disaster movies.  In such movies, the acting and plot holes are
irrelevant.  As long as the disaster actually OCCURS, I'm good.  (This is why
I didn't like Deep Impact or Armageddon)

response 128 of 323:

Jul 26 15:47 UTC 2004

Re. 126: "the acting and plot holes are irrelevant."  Your kidding,
right?  Without these elements, what's the point?  Oh, wait, you already
answered that question.  Then you'd probably like "The Chronicles of
Riddick."

I went and caught this mind-numbing piece of celluloid at the dollar
show.  Good thing, too.  I'd hate to think I'd coud'ov wasted five or
more bucks on this.  The movie stars Vin Diesel, which immediately tells
you this is going to be an over-the-top action flick with little
character development and as little plot.

Here's the story:  The place, a agalaxy far, far away.  The time, who
knows.  It seems there's this evil empire going around blowing up
planets if the inhabitants don't bow down to their will.  There's also
this guy (Vin) who's got a bounty on his head and has been hiding out
for some indeterminent length of time.  When a group of bounty hunters
comes gunning for him, he returns ot his homeworld (after apparently
wasting the bounty hunters, of course) to find out who ratted him out
and find out who put the bounty out on him.  Blah, blah, blah...

It's no surprise this didn't last in the theater.  Nothing about Riddick
stands out.  The costumes, S/F, music...all very typical.  Something you
might see on the Sci-Fi Channel.

If you like seeing things get blown up, punched out and burned to a
crisp, without all that bothersome plot/character thing, then you'll
love this.

response 130 of 323:

Jul 26 16:58 UTC 2004

As an action movie, "Chronicles of Riddick" was so-so.  This isn't
because of plot problems -- action movies, from 'Indiana Jones' to
'Independence Day', never really have good plots.  But the action scenes
in Riddick kind of sucked.  Many of the fight scenes were shot in a
headache-inducing strobe-light style that just made it hard to tell what
was going on, and a lot of the spacecraft special effects shots were
unconvincing.  Let me know when CGI reaches the point where it's more
convincing than old-fashioned scale models, and I'll start to pay
attention again.