the vynsane asylum

that's alright, i caught that fumble

Good news: Morgan Freeman is in the next Spiderman. (skip to 1:39)

Bad news: it came at the cost of special effects.

Spidey fought a Yeti that sticks food up his butt?

Yes.

Did you really not know that?

It's in the same issue where we first learn Thing is Jewish.

One of the perks of my new job promotion is that I get to "quality check" movies ahead of release. (Back when movies were actually on film, this was a legitimate endeavor. Had to make sure the splices were all correct and no scratches or bad sound, etc. Now that everything's digital "qc" is just an excuse to watch the movie)
Tonight I watched ASM2. It was great, but I liked Cap 2 better. I had some gripes with it.

I'll go into more detail after it officially opens and you've had a chance to see it.

okay, i've now seen it and it's my site so now we can discuss it without worrying about spoilers. i have spoken.

so, thoughts? there were a lot of things i liked about it, but ultimately i felt let down. the action was great, the effects and, in fact, everything about Electro was awesome, but the plot was an utter trainwreck.

they actually finally got the costume right. spidey looked like he jumped right out of the comics. this was the best version ever - they took the best aspects of the raimi trilogy version and tweaked it just right. they knocked they eye design out of the park. i don't even care that it's so radically different from the first ASM because i never liked that version. i also liked the fact that it looked like actual fabric, in the web-swinging shots it fluttered in the right places, for instance. it still has that cellular design, but it's not as bumpy as the first version. the raised webbing wasn't as pronounced or metallic looking as in the raimi version, too.

i had no problem with the Rhino being bookends to the movie. in fact, it was almost what i said it should be earlier in this topic. I liked the armor.

as i said before, everything about Electro was awesome. his 'teleporting' effects, his voice, the luminescent quality of his skin.




but...

why spend an entire movie talking about norman osborne just to kill him off in the first quarter of the second movie? my wife answered "because they're catering to the young demographic who doesn't want to see an old man fighting spider-man" which is probably right. maybe reports of his demise, etc, etc...

the 'bond' between harry and peter is strained at best. he should have been introduced in the first one, or at the very least been featured in the flashbacks in the beginning, being there for peter after his parents died, something. give me some reason to believe in their relationship other than an awkward conversation after peter presumably just shows up asking to speak to harry.

harry's descent was too quick, which would have been assuaged by introducing him in the first one. yeah, he's dying of a genetic disorder, but his father lived a good long while (not healthily, mind you) but he had more time than he was acting. but his face-heel turn was almost instantaneous and forced.

the entire deus ex machina of the subway car lab seemed like it was going to be a much bigger plot point and revelation than a simple skype-from-beyond-the-grave moment to clear richard parker's name, at least in peter's eyes. i guess it also revealed that the spider venom would only work on someone of his genetic line. but it seemed like there was going to be a lot more to it.

since peter and gwen break up pretty quickly into the movie and remain so basically until the climax, it's hard to really become invested in their relationship, taking some of the weight away from the fall. also, i'm disappointed that it wasn't on the bridge. obviously, they did it so it wouldn't be too like the climax of the first raimi spider-man with MJ.

I'm pretty much on the same page.

Much like the first one, everything about Spider-Man was great, from the new look to the web-slinging to the wise-cracking. Peter and Gwen's relationship is great, as is the Peter and May stuff. The emotional character stuff is what director Mark Webb does very well.

Everything else was pretty underwhelming.

Also, like the first flick, it feels like there was an hour of plot cut from the movie, which we've seen a lot of in the trailers (like Peter being under surveillance by Oscorp). Every plot point feels forced and there is no time to establish any new character in a way that makes us actually give a crap about them. Electro was a cartoon. Harry develops the worst parts of his disease and gets worse pretty rapidly, where his father apparently took years.
And don't tease 3-4 (depending on Electro) of the Sinister Six.
Still no J. Jonah Jameson.
Felicia - Hardy? Who knows? Who cares? They don't give us enough to make her anything more than Harry's assistant.
Sony is trying way too hard to make these films one massive epic.

SPIDER-MAN IS IN THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE!!!

SPIDER-MAN IS IN THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE!!!

SPIDER-MAN IS IN THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE!!!

My balls hurt because my penis is so erect it's crowding them out.

As I said on Factbook, I'm just sad that Andrew Garfield is out as Spidey. He was easily the best thing about the new movies.
Other than that, this is pretty damn awesome.

Yeah, Garfield is a great Spidey.

Perhaps they can 'Chris Evans' him into another great role in the MCU.
Like Rick Sheridan.

Tom Foolery wrote: Perhaps they can 'Chris Evans' him into another great role in the MCU.
Like Rick Sheridan.

Nova.

Spidey reboot 3.0 coming atchya. While I'm excited to see it, I feel it's hard to 'wow' an audience with any new Spidey footage. We've seen him flipping and jumping around for 5 1/2 movies at this point. And ASM2 had the most gloriously accurate Spidey costume to date, seeing yet another "non-accurate" version is a regression. Bob Downey is a double edged crutch for the film. Yeah, it's fun to see Stark and Iron Man(and Happy!) in the film, but it turns it into Marvel Team Up. Sony is afraid of another Box Office disappointment, so RDJr is their trump card. It's sad they don't have faith Spidey can't carry his own movie.
The awkward high school stuff actually looks funner than the hero storyline, so I'm hoping there's more of that in the film.

At the end of the day, it's always cool to get live action Spider-Man. The 8 year old in me is doing karate kicks of excitement.

Minor nitpick: I thought it was a little weird in Civil War that a geeky teenager refers to "that really old movie, The Empire Strikes Back" and describes "the ice planet" and "those walker things." Funny line, but Peter Parker doesn't seem like the sort who'd not be into the details.

The fact that his buddy (Flash?) drops a Death Star Lego set draws that line into even more question.

Like I said, very funny line in the movie. But Peter's going to know "Hoth" and "AT-AT's," and doesn't seem the sort to simplify what he's saying in case his audience is clueless.

I agree. Star Wars is timeless and both the audience and the characters in the movie would've known if he'd just said AT-ATs or Walkers.