Spiderman 2

So tonite I headed out with a friend of mine to see the spectacular Spiderman 2 and I exposed him to some of my movie craziness. We went to a 10:20PM movie and on the walk there I realized I had dressed all stupid for movie beer smuggling. Sweatpants, t-shirt and flipflops. No room to hide. Plus my sweatpants had no drawstring so even if I wanted to go for a couple beers they'd never hold up. I'd be shuffling along with my beered up sweatpants around my ankles. Not a good look for trying not to be noticed. Oh well. Anyway we head in and I see that the movie is playing in two theaters. One biggie and an overflow theater. I said that we should go into the overflow theater first because the big one might get all packed out but there's a good chance that the second one will be empty and quieter. 

We head into the second theater which is totally empty and I'm psyched. I explain to my friend how we should immediately take the seats reserved for the handicapped (we could always move if someone needs em). They're key seats. Like two by themselves dead center. I explain how I like the handicapped seats cause there's no chance of people sitting behind us or next to us. Although the seats are a tad close to the screen I felt it was worth the trade off. After a few minutes literally nobody else came in. After a couple more minutes my friend points out that the overflow theater was smaller (including the screen) and that the risk of talkers was zero because there's no one else there. Everyone apparently went into the big theater with the big screen. The overflow wasn't needed. My special smart sneaky seating plan was reduced to dumb. It didn't make sense to be sitting up close to a smaller screen in handicapped seats. At all. So we headed into the other theater and found perfectly decent seats. Finally the lights went down and the greatness that is Spiderman 2 started.

I'll tell you what's great about Spiderman 2. Pretty much everything. First let's start with the action. It's way tight. Whatever complaints people had about the special effects in the first one (which I thought were kinda snobbishy criticisms) should be washed away. *New improved* Spiderman has a more 3d physical presence in the special effects. It still looks sorta cartoony still but somehow it's now in better balance with the city and the world around him. As he zooms through the air I can feel him being there. In real life. More so than the first film. And Doc Ock was friggin fantastic! He was glorious with his power. The movement of octoarms were beautifully thought-controlled. Little touches like his octoarm lighting a cigar made the sense of control over the arms crystal clear. Graceful. Albert Molina played Doc Ock. He was extra cool because he wasn't all built and in shape and good looking. He was an overweight puffy scientist dude with weird eyes.

Although most of the non-action scenes were perfectly fine and alot of em funny (including one particular friggin excellent scene with Spiderman in an elevator), the action was so big, it squished down the down time. I just wanted to get to the next fight. C'mon! More smashy please! Because this movie has some of the best fight scenes I've even seen. Smash! Crash out the window! Spill out into the street! Mash in the side of a cab! It just was a great demonstration of freedom fighting. (It reminded me how me and my brother would fight all over our neighborhood when our fights would spill outside the house). Spidey and Ock fought all over the city and I seriously ate up every friggin second of every tangle. These scenes were so awesome my mouth was hanging down to mid-chest then I'd hoot at the screen afterwards literally involuntarily. And it wasn't that crap 'superfast-fancy-edit-can't- see-what-the-frick-is-going-on-but-it's supposed-to-look-cool' garbage. This had real choreography. Real logic. Doc Ock taking a swing. Spidey ducking and flipping. Their fights made sense and were fun. Straight out of the comic books. Both of em were so bug-like too. Spidey sticking his landings with speed and force. 10 10 9.9 10. And Doc Ock awkwardly climbing buildings all overhanded and freaky weird. I loved it.

Yeah yeah the rest of the movie is good too. Spidey and Mary Jane. Blah blah. Kristen Dunced looked hot with her fangy teeth and boobs. They wet her down for one scene too.  Nice. The story was solid. I didn't get annoyed by loopholes or whatevver which is huge for me. Everyone got a piece that fit. And J. Jonah is probably the best comicbook-to-screen casting ever. JK Simmons (aka Schillinger (hard g) is exactly how I saw and heard J. Jonah in my head when I burned through Spidey comics as a kid. This movie is everything it should be. Ok I'm writing too much so I'll get to this part.

Three Good Things About This Movie

- Sam Raimi has proved himself to be the greatest superhero movie director ever. Raimi is King.
- They didn't forget the funny. The opening scene is friggin Peter Parker delivering a pizza on a moped under a serious deadline and then getting in a fight with mops. 
- The characters evolved. None of this frozen in time stuff. The timeline and their lives move. It grew.

Three Bad Things About This Movie

- I did notice a downtime dip about half-way thru where I got a little bored.
- I realized that there's an emotional limit for me and superhero films. I know Spidey is gonna win. Nobody close to him is gonna die at this point. And Doc Ock is gonna buy it or end up in jail or whatever. Guaranteed. Knowing that, by no fault of its own, is limiting on my nerves.
- It seems the villain for Spidey 3 is set and it's not Venom... Oh well.

Just go see it. You probably already have. It's the best summer flick since Spiderman. (All of a sudden iRobot looks like an even bigger robotic turd). Even if you have no interest in superhero movies or Spidey- I still say see this movie. I think it's that frickin good. It's like a delicious candy bar. Sweet. Little bit crunchy. Nutty. Creamy center. And as soon as you start chewing, something punches you square in the face! SMASH! And you love it!

<<<chyatt?