Category: Spider-Man movies
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Spider-Man: No Way Home’s got a very appropriate title. There’s just no way to bring this one home, not for any of the things it tries to do. Though “tries” might be stretching it, No Way Home’s script feels like it’s four different ideas strung together with plot points dependent on the latest Academy Award-nominated…
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“All-new short film” is actually an uncut montage sequence from SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME. A perfectly entertaining three minutes thanks to Tom Holland and company, but so lazy it doesn’t even have opening or closing credits. DVD, Blu-ray.Continue reading →
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Fun, funny sequel has Spider-Man Tom Holland touring Europe on a class trip (leaving his Spidey suit at home) and trying to recover from AVENGERS: ENDGAME. He’s also wooing crush Zendaya and avoiding Sam Jackson’s pleas for help in battling giant monsters. Great anchoring performance from Holland. Loads of other good stuff… just not the…
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Excellent solo outing for Spider-Man Tom Holland (after first appearing in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR). He’s just a modern high schooler trying to survive debate club and homecoming date woes while playing superhero after school superhero. He wants to do more, of course, much to guest star Robert Downey Jr.’s dismay. Watts’s direction has a…
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Some of The Dragon’s Challenge’s problems are because it’s a TV two-parter stuck together then packaged as a theatrical. An overseas theatrical, but still a theatrical feature. The action in the first half takes place in New York, with some cuts to villain Richard Erdman making plans. He needs to get a Chinese official out…
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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is bereft of good ideas. It’s also bereft of good music–Hans Zimmmer’s bland “superhero” score rattles the brain, bowdlerizing what might be better scenes and effect sequences. It’s impossible to know, because there’s never a single moment of music without ludicrous bombast. Who knows how it’d have played if the superhero…
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Spider-Man Strikes Back is the international theatrical release of a two-part “Amazing Spider-Man” episode. It’s unclear if any significant changes were made (or insignificant ones). Though I really hope the frequent sequences without much sound are the result of editing and not composer Stu Phillips dropping the ball. Phillips does a Morricone-lite version of his…
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The Amazing Spider-Man is melodramatic trifle, but not in any sort of bad way. I mean, it doesn’t succeed but it does try a lot. Director Webb really goes for a high school romance, with such saccharine effectiveness it probably ought to be an ominous foreshadowing for leads Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s burgeoning romance.…
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Someone is mind-controlling upstanding citizens and making them commit daredevil bank robberies in broad daylight. While New York’s finest detectives–cigar-chewing Michael Pataki and his nitwit sidekick Robert Hastings–are on the case, they soon get some valuable assistance from Spider-Man! This television movie–a pilot for a series–introduces Nicholas Hammond as the hero. He’s a vaguely annoying,…
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After having two decent Danny Elfman scores similar to his two Batman scores, Raimi brought in composer Christopher Young, who does a terrible job, sure, but also mimics the (non-Elfman) score to Batman Forever. The music in this film makes the ears bleed. In theory, following the great financial and critical success of Spider-Man 2,…
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Ah, so the only other film Raimi directed Panavision was the unwatchable For Love of the Game. His Panavision composition here–with Bill Pope shooting it–is exquisite. Raimi and Pope correct, from the first scene in the film, the problem Raimi had with the original–Spider-Man 2 takes place in New York City. When a bunch of…
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I wonder what kind of movie Spider-Man would have been if the filmmakers hadn’t been so concerned with a “proper” film post-9/11. I know they added the New Yorkers attacking the Goblin to defend Spider-man and I’m wondering if that American flag ending was another addition… this kind of inane jingoistic nonsense ruins movies, but…
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