Posted by Pimped-Out-Jedi-Knight at webcacheb03a.cache.pol.co.uk on June 02, 2002 at 11:17:25:
In Reply to: After Multiple Viewings of Spider-Man I'm ready... posted by TheMadSpin on June 02, 2002 at 11:02:28:
...(as Spidey doesn't come out in the UK for another week or so) how much of the movie does Defoe spend as Osbourne and the Green Goblin? I'm a big fan of the guy, so I'm hoping he gets a chance to, y'know, act, rather than flying around New York in that ridiculous costume.
: To weigh in.
: Everyone knows by now that I liked it and that I'm a huge Spidey fan.
: There is no denying that... but I have to hope for better when they pop out the sequel.
: First my pros:
: 1. Batman wasn't great overall, but it sucked you in by having a great leading actor(though maybe a shock), an accomplished director(though maybe a shock), and a great, great, Oscar caliber villian.
: All of these things are true for Spider-Man and all for the better.
: 2. Like it or not, other than organic webshooters and the change from a Radioactive to Genetic Spider(which makes more sense these days honestly) this was about the most true adaptation of a comic book we have seen yet.
: Take away the fact that Gwen Stacy never wound up dead in webbing and it's a very rushed, yet very true depiction of the books.
: 3. I like Kirstin Dunsts nipples... (but in this movie that's about all I liked about her... more on this later...)
: 4. They did a great job on the costume. After all the crap we've seen I wasn't sure how the costume would look, but the raised webbing was very cool and the Oakleys made for great two-way mirrors.
: 5. Tons of internal easter eggs. Mentioning Eddie Brock, Dr. Conners, Betty Brant being there and on and on. Stan Lee during the Unity Fest, Joe Quesada standing up screaming during the fight... it was all cool for a fanboy to see... plus there was Bruce Campbell... who does a ton of stuff in the game by the way. Thankfully Willam Defoe also does the voice stuff for the game as does Toby... but not Kirstin... go figure.
: 6. J. Jonah Jameson... nuff said! "I trust my barber."
: Now for the cons:
: 1. Can we rush things any more? We've got two hours and we spend a fourth of it on speeches about how great either Peter or MJ are. Then we rush the rest of the story as much as we can.
: 2. Speaking of love stories... how many blockbusters can we have this year with romance as the weakpoint. The opening bit with Peter: As all stories this is about a girl...
: Well thank god that was a lie. This was about Spider-Man. The love isn't even requited and happened way too early. It's great that she was thinking about Peter up on the bridge, but did I have to listen to her fake tear filled voice for 5 minutes? Ok, I didn't time it, but I got uncomfortable the second and third times I saw it... especially the third time.
: Attack of the Clones and Spidey could have done better to include 30 more minutes of Yoda and J. Jonah Jameson than the awful love stories... sadly both needed the love stories to pave the way for sequels.
: 3. Can we get J. Michael Straczynski and Kevin Smith to write the sequel?
: I hate to echo Kevin... not because he's usually wrong, but because I hate to sound like I don't have an original idea, but jesus... what the fuck happened with the dialogue.
: Aunt May throws out the word ass for the first time I've ever heard it, MJ and Peter go off on scene killing tangents, Macho Man and Bruce Campbell had better dialogue than half of the major scenes in the movie. I could go on and on. How about a huge lack of quips by Spidey? Kevin could certainly spruce up that department... hell I could spruce it up. I've read enough Spidey that I've got 20 quips on hand for each villian.
: 4. Toby was great, he did a great job with the good dialogue and fought through the bad dialogue... Kirstin couldn't have acted her way out of a paper bag in this movie.
: I know she can act. I've seen her do some great stuff, but she is the worst Mary Jane I could imagine. Hell, in the Marvel Ultimate Guide to Spidey the description of MJ includes, "she's a natural red head."
: Anyone who isn't in denial from their own use of hair products could tell she wasn't a red head, and she had anything but the fiery personality of MJ. She delivered one Tiger that was ok, and the rest was piss. I like KD and I'm sure she can do better, but she should actually read the source material. Maybe she made a mistake and read the stuff after MJ left.
: 5. Hi, my name is Willem Defoe, I'm an Oscar nominee and I'm a great actor... you can't tell that because I have on a green jello suit, but I am.
: Many have asked this and no one has an answer. The glider was fine, the pumpkin bombs were fine, but the Green Goblin wasn't. Anyone who reads the comic knows how bad it was so I'm going to leave my gripe at that.
: 6. In the Unity Festival scene where the Green Goblin swoops in and it takes over a minute... did anyone else feel like they were watching a commercial? I mean how long did we have to stair at that Cell phone commerical as well as a few others? I know the production cost of Spider-Man was 130 million or something, but you can't tell me they didn't recoup a bit right there. If their add revinues for that are based on ticketsales they are on their way to paying for 1/4th of the budget through advertising. Another minute of the movie wasted when we could have been watching a beat down.
: 7. Bendis didn't write it.
: Overall I loved it. I'm too big a Spidey fan to have not loved it. It's a good movie, but it suffers from several things that make it tough for me to watch. I imagine I'll get the DVD next year and watch the parts I like and read the VA messageboard during the parts I didn't and live happily ever after with my extras.
: There you go.