The Spider-Man Retrospective Series - Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Written In May 2014

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

Peter Parker struggles to balance his crime-fighting duties as Spider-Man with the demands of his normal life. Estranged from both love interest Mary Jane Watson and best friend Harry Osborn, who intends to seek revenge on Spider-Man for his father Norman’s death, Peter additionally discovers his Aunt May is facing foreclosure.

Harry, now head of Oscorp’s research division, sponsors the brilliant nuclear scientist Otto Octavius, who, dreaming of perfecting sustained fusion power, wears a harness of powerful robotic tentacle arms with artificial intelligence while conducting his research. When a power spike causes an experiment to destabilize rapidly, Octavius stubbornly refuses to shut the experiment down, leading to disastrous consequences: his wife is killed, the neural inhibitor chip which keeps the arms from influencing his mind is destroyed and the arms are fused to his spine. Spider-Man arrives and shuts down the experiment before it can do any further damage.

At a hospital, doctors prepare to surgically remove Octavius’ arms and harness, but the arms, having developed sentience from the inhibitor chip’s destruction, spring to life and attack the medical crew, killing most of them. Upon regaining consciousness and seeing the carnage, Octavius escapes and hides at a harbor. The arms convince him to retry the experiment. To fund it, Octavius — now called Doctor Octopus by the Daily Bugle — robs a bank.

After Peter misses Mary Jane’s debut play, she, in retaliation, becomes engaged to astronautJohn Jameson, son of Bugle chief J. Jonah Jameson. Peter suffers an emotional breakdown causing him to believe he’s lost his powers. He abandons his Spider-Man identity and returns to his normal life while trying to reconcile with Mary Jane.

A garbageman brings Spider-Man’s costume to J. Jonah Jameson, who takes credit for Spider-Man’s disappearance. Peter tells Aunt May that his Uncle Ben’s death some time ago was his fault. May forgives him, but when his 9-year-old neighbor learns of Spider-Man’s disappearance and the subsequent rising crime rate in New York City, Peter becomes concerned.

Octavius needs tritium to fuel his reactor and goes to Harry to demand it. Harry initially refuses because the experiment threatens to level the city, but he eventually agrees in exchange for Spider-Man and tells him that Peter, who is supposedly good friends with Spider-Man, is the key to finding him. However, Harry tells Octavius not to harm Peter. Octavius finds Peter, tells him to find Spider-Man, and abducts Mary Jane. Peter realizes his powers are restored and dons his costume again after stealing it from the Bugle.

As Spider-Man battles Octavius, they fall onto a rapid transit R train. Octavius disables the controls and jumps off. Spider-Man stops the train before the track ends. When he faints from exhaustion, the passengers carry him into one of the cars. He comes to and realizes his mask is off, but the passengers are so grateful they vow not to reveal what he looks like. Octavius returns, demanding Spider-Man, and subdues the passengers. After knocking out Spider-Man, Octavius delivers him to Harry.

After giving Octavius the tritium, Harry prepares to kill Spider-Man, only to be shocked to see it is really Peter. Peter convinces him greater things are at stake, and Harry reveals Octavius’ location. Spider-Man arrives at the doctor’s waterfront laboratory and tries to rescue Mary Jane discreetly. One of Octavius’ tentacles senses him, and they fight. Spider-Man ultimately subdues Octavius, reveals his identity, and convinces Octavius to let go of his dream for the greater good. Octavius finally commands the tentacles to obey and drowns the fusion reactor, along with himself, in the Hudson River. Mary Jane discovers Spider-Man’s true identity and feelings, as well as why they cannot be together. Spider-Man returns Mary Jane to John and leaves.

Harry is visited by a vision of his father, pleading for Harry to avenge his death. Refusing to hurt Peter, Harry shatters the mirror, revealing a secret room containing the Green Goblin’s equipment. On her wedding day, Mary Jane admit her true feelings for Peter. They kiss, hear a police chase, and she encourages him to respond as Spider-Man.

 PROS:

• Tobey, Kirsten, Rosemary, and James all do the same great work they did last movie, in fact I’d say it’s arguably that having slightly meatier roles this time around gives them a little more stretching room, although I’d still say Franco is the weakest of the bunch. That final scene with him throwing a knife at his father’s reflection screaming “No!” Just felt kind of off to me, but then again, a lot of great actors sound kind of stupid just screaming no. Take for example, this scene.
  
  
  That was fucking James Earl Jones delivering that line! Don’t feel too bad that James Franco sounded kind of stupid saying the same line here.
• Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus. This guy is right on par with Dafoe’s Goblin, I don’t like him as much as Dafoe, but I think Dafoe is a flawless human being so I think that’d be disappointing no matter what. But I really like the set up stuff for him before he actually becomes Doc Ock. You see this guy is a brilliant but arrogant man who clearly cares about the world around him. A little detail I kinda liked was when he was talking to Peter about his lady troubles he notes that the perfect way to make a woman fall in love with you is poetry. He makes no illusion to sex or make a lowbrow gag about getting into a girl’s pants, he only speaks about love. Affection, not lust. Speaking from the heart you have one, not thinking with your cock because you are one. I kinda liked that. But! When he switches into bad guy mode, he rocks at it. He plays Ock with a certain dry dark humored wit, like the scene where he’s holding Aunt May hostage and Spidey demands that he hand her to him, he replies “Of course.” Slowly handing him to her but letting go of her right before Peter can actually lay a finger on her. He then mock apologizes saying “Butter fingers.” Also cool, is the fact that a lot of the time the arms weren’t done with CG. They were done with puppets. I could go on and on about this actor’s performance as this character, but I won’t bother. It speaks for itself.
• The Ditkovichs. I don’t know what it is about these two, but there’s something I genuinely adore about this immigrant father and daughter duo. I can’t quite tell whether Ursula has a romantic crush on Peter or just has one of those friend crushes, you know where you meet someone and you just think “Oh, I really want to be this person’s friend, but they’re too cool! Oh, should I talk to them, or should I not? Oh, I don’t know what to do!” Something like that. While Mr. Ditkovich is just the funniest thing to me. He’s always busting Peter’s balls about the damn rent. I especially love the bit where Peter has to use the apartment restroom for a shower and knocks because he’s polite, and Mr. Ditkovich just walks right past him and heads on in, he then opens the door back up and goes “Rent?” And Peter doesn’t even verbally react, he just closes the freaking door on him. I laughed hard at that, I’m not even sure why.
• I think Spider-Man 3 has the best action of the series, but Spider-Man 2 is no slouch in this respect, I can assure you. Not only is the aforementioned train fight kick ass, the bank fight is pretty epic too. Also, can I just say, that bit with the umbrella to face, you go Aunt May!
• The title sequence was pretty cool in the first movie, but I love how this one recaps that last movie in a montage of artwork by none other than the great comic book artist and painter, the man himself… Alex Ross!
  
  
  And with Danny Elfman’s kick ass theme playing over it! Seriously, I forgot to put that as a pro last time, I’m not forgetting this time. Give it a listen! It’s like a fucking James Bond credits sequence! God!
• Dylan Baker’s quick appearance as Dr. Conners is a nice nod to comic fans and I really wish that we’d gotten to see him become the Lizard. You get the feeling he knows something is up with Peter but respects his personal business enough to actually ask, but still feels utterly confused why this clearly brilliant student is fucking up his classes so badly!
• JK Simmons is still awesome. In fact, he may have become even MORE awesome!
• The cameos from Willem Dafoe and Cliff Robertson as Norman and Uncle Ben respectively are fantastic and well done, I also find it interesting that both appeared in visions to their respective sons telling them to act in a direction they both refuse to take course on. I don’t know if that was intentional on the part of Sam Raimi and the writers, but it sure is an interesting rhyme, especially given the thematic rhyme it has with Norman attempting (intentionally or not) to take up Ben’s place as Peter’s father figure and Peter ultimately refusing to accept him as such.
• Speaking of Norman, I freaking loved the final scene of Harry throwing the knife at the mirror and walking through it to find his father’s old laboratory where he stored his weapons and armor as the Green Goblin. You just know that if this movie was made today this would’ve been a post credits scene like the Bucky scene at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier was, and that actually makes me glad they didn’t do that. I like that they made you want to see the next movie with the movie you’re watching now. I mean that’s kind of the real logic of the sequel isn’t it? People loved this story, let’s expand upon it and see if they like it too.
• During the very last scene of the movie, MJ tells Peter that she understands why he says that they can’t be together, but asks him why she can’t respect him enough to make her own decision. She loves this man and wants to be with him, she doesn’t give a damn if she’s going to be put in danger, she’ll face it if means they’ll be together. I like this scene because it again shows the realism of what a superhero couple would be like. If you truly love someone, are you going to genuinely care when they have to go out to risk their life? No, you’re not. Ask the spouse of any police officer or firefighter.
• I really dug the plot of Peter losing his powers because of his lack of confidence, and I really like how when he assumes he’s lost them for good, he actually tries to pursue the things he previously had little time for. But the minute he realizes that he simply can’t not be a hero, he actually takes a moment of introspection. He outright asks “Am I not supposed to have what I want? What I need? What am I supposed to do?” You can feel the frustration in it, and it’s really great subtle acting from Tobey. Here is a guy who at one point thought his entire purpose in life was being a hero, then he let himself think “Maybe, I can just be Peter Parker. Maybe, I’m not supposed to be climbing walls.” And then here he is, feeling his powers coming back, and knowing that he can’t keep kidding himself. He is a hero. He’s mad at himself, he’s mad at his life, and if you wanna go there, he’s probably even mad at God. :You’re the one who allowed these things to happen to me, You’re the one who allowed for me to lose my power, You’re the one who made me so that I must be heroic then You made me not be that now You’re making me be that again. What is Your logic!“ I love it.
• If there’s one last time I’m gonna suck Tobey Maguire’s dick, it’s the scene where he admits to Aunt May that Uncle Ben’s death was his fault. He knows he can’t outright say where he was, what he went to do, and what he did after that, but he still wants to tell her what happened. And I love Rosemary’s reaction. It’s just so cold. She gets up out of her seat, she doesn’t even look at Peter, she just gets up, turns around, and quietly goes upstairs. She’s emotionally exhausted as is, she probably didn’t need her nephew to admit he was indirectly responsible for her husband’s death.

CONS:

• It’s always annoyed me that Harry automatically assumed Spider-Man had killed his father even though his track record as a heroic figure suggests more than likely he was just bringing a dead man home to his family, because said man was a public figure, but it really annoys me that he still thinks this two years after the fact! Dude, why the fuck would a guy who risks his life to stop crimes every day want to kill your father?
• If you thought Man of Steel used to much Christ Symbolism, and that this scene was the biggest offender
  
  
  Then I kindly refer you to this scene here. 
  
  Yeah… And here’s a question, how the fuck is Spider-Man in anyway like Jesus? I get the comparison with Superman, but why Spidey? Come to think of it, what’s with the superhero comparisons to Jesus anyways? Did Peter Parker or Clark Kent ever die for our sins?
  
  Oh… Well then… Uh…

To be honest, I can’t think of why I said I like this film less than the others because just sitting here talking to you about really makes me love it! I love Spider-Man 2, I think it’s arguably one of the best superhero movies ever made! Right up there with Dark Knight and Avengers in my opinion! I’m gonna give Spider-Man 2 a 9.3 out of 10!

DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Wonder Woman (2009)

Written In January 2014

While watching this movie, for some reason my mind wandered off into a couple Transformers references. One was when the monsters are messing with the Lincoln Memorial and Steve Trevor is outraged by this, causing me to flashback to this scene in Dark of the Moon. And the other was when Ares and Persephone have to sacrifice one of their troops to open the gate to the Underworld, the flashback being this scene in Revenge of the Fallen. Or maybe more appropriately this scene from South Park.

Onto the review!

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

Centuries ago, the Amazons, a proud and fierce race of warrior women, led by their Queen, Hippolyta (voiced by Virginia Madsen), battled Ares(voiced by Alfred Molina), the god of war, and his army. During the battle, Hippolyta beheaded her son, Thrax (voiced by Jason Miller), whom Aresforcibly conceived with her, who is fighting for his father. Hippolyta then defeated Ares, but Zeus (voiced by David McCallum) stopped her from delivering the death strike. Instead, Hera (voiced by Marg Helgenberger) bound his powers with magic bracers so that he was deprived of his ability to draw power from the aura of violence and death he could instigate, effectively rendering him mortal, and only another god could release him. In compensation, the Amazons were granted the island of Themyscira, where they would remain eternally youthful and isolated from Man in the course of their duty of holding Ares prisoner for all eternity. Later, Hippolyta was granted a daughter, Princess Diana (voiced by Keri Russell), whom she shaped from the sand of the Themyscirian sea shore and gave life with her own blood.

Over a millennium later, an American fighter pilot, USAF Colonel Steve Trevor (voiced by Nathan Fillion), is shot down in a dogfight and crash-lands on the island, where he soon runs afoul of the Amazon population, including the warlike, aggressive Artemis (voiced by Rosario Dawson). Steve and Diana meet and fight, and she defeats him, taking him to the Amazons. After interrogating him with the use of the Amazons’ golden lasso, Hippolyta decides he is not an enemy of the Amazons and as such, tradition dictates that an emissary be tasked to ensure his safe return to his own country. Diana volunteers, but is assigned to guard Ares’s cell instead since her mother argues that she has not enough experience in dealing with the dangers of the outside world. Diana defies her mother and, her face hidden by a helmet and her guard duty covered by her bookish but kind-hearted Amazon sister Alexa (voiced by Tara Strong), participates in contests of strength and wins the right to take Trevor back to his home.

In the meantime, the Amazon Persephone (voiced by Vicki Lewis), who has been gradually seduced by Ares, kills Alexa and releases him. With the additional task of capturing Ares, Diana brings Trevor to New York City, where he volunteers to help Diana on her quest. An investigation uncovers a pattern of violence created by Ares presence that will lead to him given time, and the pair go out to a bar while they wait. After some heavy drinking, Trevor makes a pass at Diana. They argue outside, but are attacked first by thugs and then the demigod Deimos (voiced by John DiMaggio). Deimos kills himself to prevent being interrogated, but Diana and Steve find a clue on his body that leads them to a concealed gateway to the underworld guarded by members of a still-extant ancient cult of Ares.

Once there, Diana attempts to subdue Ares, but he summons harpies that knock her unconscious, prompting Trevor to save her instead of stopping Ares. Meanwhile, Ares performs a sacrifice to open a gate to the Underworld where he persuades his uncle Hades (voiced by Oliver Platt) to remove the bracers, though Hades does not tell Ares that the ultimate cost of removing the bracers would be Ares’ own death in combat. Later, Diana regains consciousness in a hospital and is furious that Trevor saved her rather than stop Ares. Trevor argues against her abuse with his own criticism of the Amazons’ self-imposed isolation and their generalizations about men, and reveals how much he cares about her.

Ares and his army attack Washington, DC. Trevor and Diana arrive to battle Ares and are soon joined by the Amazons. While Ares manages even to summon the Amazons long dead from the Underworld to fight their own sisters, his scheme is stopped by Alexa, a member of the undead host, who reveals to Artemis a chant which nullifies Ares’s control over them. The undead then turn on Ares but are destroyed by his powers. Hippolyta faces Persephone in combat and kills her, but in her dying breath, Persephone makes the queen realize that in shutting the Amazons away from the world of men, she has denied them the chance to live their lives as women.

Meanwhile, the President (voiced by Rick Overton) is influenced by Ares’s power and orders a nuclear missile against Themyscira, presuming the island nation to be the source of the attack on Washington. This act of supreme aggression increases Ares’s power, but Trevor takes the invisible jet and shoots down the missile just before it hits the island. Finally, after a brutal beating at Ares’s hands, Diana finally outwits and kills him. Subsequently, Ares is condemned to the underworld to attend Hades as a slave alongside his son.

Later on Themyscira, in memory of Alexa, Artemis takes up the hobby of reading (with severe difficulty). Hippolyta realizes that Diana misses both the outside world and Trevor, and to make her happy again, she gives her daughter the task of being a channel for ‘communication between men and women’. Diana accepts and returns to New York, where she enjoys the company of Trevor. Their relationship comes with the understanding of her larger duties, such as when Diana sees Cheetah robbing a museum and she excuses herself to stop the supervillainess as the newly christened Wonder Woman.

Before I get into my lists of pros and cons, let’s talk about something real quick. Why does Wonder Woman not have a live action theatrical film yet? It’s not because she’s a comic book character, those movies have been making bookoo bucks since ‘78 when they released Superman: The Movie with Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder and Marlon Brando. It can’t be because studios aren’t sure if female led action films are profitable, the Resident Evil series has had 6 installments and made just under a billion dollars total against a total of 280 million for budget. The Underworld series consists of four films and has made just under 500 million on a budget of 177 million. And I doubt it’s because she’s based on Ancient Greek Swords and Sandals style films, because the studios and audiences eat that shit up. Look no further than the fact that we have TWO, count ‘em, TWO, Hercules movies.

I suppose you can make the argument that movies like Catwoman and Elektra tanking at the box office and just generally not being very good movies is to blame. But those movies were made long after the wake of Superman and Batman movies we had. The popular consciousness seems to say that each half the world’s finest had one great movie, one good movie, one not-so-good movie, and one shitty movie. The first movie to hit theaters for either party that was not considered a serial, was the George Reeves pilot back in 1951, titled Superman and the Mole Men. 15 years later, we were all amazed with the campy glory that was Bill Dozier’s Batman starring Adam West and Burt Ward as the icons that are the Dynamic Duo. Then 12 years later we started to believe a man could in fact fly thanks to Richard Donner and Alexander & Ilya Salkind. That soon enough went to shit by the time 1986 came around, but luckily, Michael Keaton, Tim Burton and Jack Nicholson quickly came around three years later to resurrect the once proud and grim series that was Batman. Which also went to shit thanks in no small part Warner Bro’s interference but also thanks to Joel Schumacher, Val Kilmer and George Clooney. That series finally went and died in 1997 until Christopher Nolan, God bless his soul, came in and breathed new life into it.

Where was Wonder Woman in all of this? Stuck on the small screen in the form of the Linda Carter series on CBS, where she was accompanied by a collection of Marvel characters, including most famously Lou Ferrigno’s Incredible Hulk and Bill Bixby’s David Bruce Banner, and much less famously Nicholas Hammond’s Spider-Man/Peter Parker, and even less famously Reb Brown’s Captain America/Steve Rogers. What’s my point, you ask? WHY THE HELL ISN’T SHE ON THE BIG SCREEN ALREADY?!?!?!? How come we don’t have a beloved actress who came from being an absolute unknown to the biggest star on the planet, who got that way for playing Wonder Woman? How come we don’t have an already well liked and respected actress that everyone gained a new found appreciation for after seeing their incredible range as a performer after being cast against type as Wonder Woman? How come we don’t have a respected method actress who had a cult following before being cast as Wonder Woman, who is now one of the most famous, beloved and respected actresses in Hollywood?

Why has Wonder Woman not enjoyed the same amount of love and respect as Superman and Batman? I am of course aware that Israeli actress-model, Gal Gadot, has been cast as the Amazonian Warrior Princess, but let’s consider something. Wonder Woman was created in 1941 and brought to television in 1975. And she’s finally going to make her big screen debut in February of 2014, in the form of an animated lego mini-figure voiced by How I Met Your Mother’s Cobie Smulders in Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s The Lego Movie, a movie where she’s likely going to be the equivalent, to a small celebrity cameo. And only two years later, she’ll make her first appropriateappearance in the currently untitled sequel to 2013’s Man of Steel. A movie also not about her, where she’ll be a relatively smaller role, that may or may not be entirely plot relevant.

This movie was made in 2009. It took Wonder Woman 68 years to have her own feature length film, and it’s only a direct to video animated movie written by an admittedly brilliant comic book writer, but still not someone who get a ton of respect in mainstream Hollywood. I don’t feel like saying, I’ll have John Goodman say it for me.

Thank you John. Sorry for the ranting people, I didn’t mean to talk up that for so long, I just needed to get something off of my chest.

Anywho, onto the actual review.

PROS:

• I don’t really know much of Kerri Russel’s work, but she really did a great job as Wondy in this movie.
• Malcolm Reynolds as Steve Trevor! Oh wait no, that’s Nathan Fillion! My mistake!
• Ares is a delightful villain and an intimidating presence, especially with Alfred Molina’s wonderfully slimy delivery. I’m surprised Bruce and Andrea could get a hold of him.
• Hades makes a couple quick appearances in this movie and he is the perfect asshole. He brings in Ares’s dead son in and treats him like garbage, just to humiliate Ares. And to top it all of, he’s voiced by Oliver Plat, who I am again, very surprised to see here.
• The animation and character designs in this movie are all really great, with some wonderfully directed action scenes handled by Lauren Montgomery, who handled the second act of Superman: Doomsday.
• The screenplay written by Gail Simone is fantastic! It’s got a lot of Tumblr Feminist style punches in it, with a few fedora wearing dudebro esque quips, but with just enough intelligence to cut strait through that bullshit and say, both parties are morons and need to work together like smart people.
• Christopher Drake’s score is delightful, although he noted in his Fat Man on Batman interview with Kevin Smith, that they were initially going to go for something in the vein of Queen’s Flash Gordon theme, which I would’ve loved as well.
• I didn’t buy Persephone’s reasoning for betraying her fellow Amazons at first, but then I realized, Diana is the ONLY woman on the island who has never met and/or seen a man. All of these women at one point had fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, cousins, maybe husbands or even sons! Persephone longs to be a wife and mother, in fact I get the impression she once was that, but lost it.
• Tara Strong voices a bookworm Amazon named Alexa, who seems to be the only woman int his movie who doesn’t want to kill something. I kinda like her.
• While Artemis is a frequently a bitch throughout this movie, she’s also quite awesome!

CONS:

• The way Ares is killed is rather Deus Ex Machina like, and I really don’t care for that.
• I don’t get why everyone seems to hate Alexa because she’s a bookworm who can’t really fight. Especially not when Athena, one of the goddesses they likely idolize is known to be a philosopher and quite the reader in general.
• I also hate that Artemis, Alexa’s sister, expresses such animosity toward her. Even in death! I’m not terribly fond of my sister and I’ve cursed at her more times than I’d care to admit, but if something happened to her I’d horrified and heartbroken. Artemis, on the other hand, upon discovering her sister is dead, assumed she just fucked up. And when she meets her on the battlefield as a zombie, she says that she’s continuing disgrace their family name (which we never actually learned).
• Diana’s mother Hippolyta feels too cold. I really question how much she cares about people, she had to kill her own son on the battlefield but she never really shows any concern about it. I get that Amazons are supposed to be really hardcore and stuff, but even the biggest of badasses have their moments where they let their emotions go. In Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks, who in the movie is supposed to be the perfect commander, goes off on his own for a minute and outright CRIES for his fallen soldiers. In the first Die Hard movie, when Bruce Willis starts to think he’s not coming back from his current predicament with Alan Rickman, he talks to Reginald VelJohnson and admits that he regrets never actually trying to apologize to his wife, who he is currently in the process of being divorced from. OPTIMUS FUCKING PRIME, apologized to a dead Megatron for it having to be the way it is now in the first Transformers movie. A CHARACTER GRIEVED HIS ENEMY! IN A MICHAEL BAY MOVIE! And not just any character in a Michael Bay movie, a MACHINE! A MACHINE GRIEVED ANOTHER MACHINE! Why do I keep going back to Transformers?

Okay, all that being said, this is a great movie. I don’t think it’s quite as good as a lot of folks say, but it is still a very good movie, that I think could’ve worked as a template for a live action movie, but we’ll see what David Goyer, Zack Snyder, Chris Terrio and Gal Gadot will being giving us in 2016. Until then, I’ll be providing Wonder Woman a 7.9 out of 10.