Loud Optimism - "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" Review

One of the most exciting things about 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man" was the fun garnered from its fantastic portrayal of protagonist Peter Parker's alter-ego as a strongly confident, wise-cracking goofball. The sequel, aptly titled "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," has an important theme at its heart that it takes seriously, as well as its fair share of drama, but the movie as a whole takes that fun from the first and catapults it into a loudly joyous and optimistic experience. This is the chief reason why this movie, despite big problems with the two major villains, succeeds as a very good ride.  

After a mildly dull and shakey-cam filled (albeit compelling in the long-run) opening scene about Peter's parents, the audience is treated to an incredible action sequence filled with awe, humor, and seamless set-up. Spider-Man's web-swinging looks better than it ever has in the film medium, with lots of elegant acrobatics, first-person points of view, and cool slow-motion. The titular web-head also spits out a ton of hilarious one-liners and taunts the bad guys in his signature cocky, goofy fashion. A super powers-less bad guy played by Paul Giamatti gives an incredibly fun performance filled with exaggerated screaming and meat-headed mannerisms, aided by neat zoom-in shots of his screaming, pudgy face. It is so much unabated, pure fun; this same kind of fun finds its way to a healthy portion of this film, even just through funny dialogue when there isn't any action going on. The viewers are also treated to a quick but totally effective conversation on the street between Spidey and new character Max Dillon, who later turns into Electro. 

Dillon is a compelling character, incredibly well-acted by Foxx. Dillon is deeply troubled psychologically, with an intense inferiority complex. It's played for laughs, through his mad, bumbling social failings, but it's also effective on a higher level. Dillon develops an obsession with Spider-Man that makes him dangerous when he stumbles upon the power of control over electricity through a freak accident at Oscorp. This makes Dillon a wholly sympathetic character, which again, Foxx portrays wonderfully. The actor's skill seen in his silly comedic work as well as his more dramatic work in stuff like "Django Unchained" allows him to pull off a nuanced, lovable little train wreck.

It's a darn shame that they give up on the character towards the end of the movie. It's also a shame that time is taken away from him to develop a pretty crappy Green Goblin character. 

Dane Dehaan plays Harry Osborn, a friend to Peter and a higher-up in Oscorp after his father passes away; this character is poorly acted and feels out of place, only redeeming itself slightly whenever he is decked out in the aesthetically-pleasing Goblin get-up. Harry is characterized as intimidating throughout much of the movie and the writing is fine in that regard, but Dehaan simply doesn't pull it off. His performance is weak and doesn't grab for attention. The character is also jarringly thrusted into a close friendship with Peter, and has an overly simple development that makes the stealing of screen-time from Foxx's character criminal. Both characters are lazily brushed aside at the end to save for further use in sequels, leaving a complete absence of closure for both of them. There was thematic potential for Foxx's character as well as Dehaan's character to tie into the overall theme in a much closer way, but that is abandoned. These stumbles form a big gash at this movie's quality. 

It really is a shame, because there are so many fantastically good things to this movie. There is a large amount of character drama in this movie for Peter Parker in his romantic life, with his aunt, and in dealing with his dead parents. Andrew Garfield reprises his role as Parker and does the same quirky, slick, great performance as before. His romantic chemistry with Emma Stone's   Gwen Stacey is remarkable, no doubt helped by the actors' real-life relationship together. Their struggle is dramatic in a way that comes full-circle with the theme of the role of Spider-Man. Sally Fields has already proven herself as an incredible actress and her performance in this movie doesn't stray from that. There is one scene in particular in which she gives a powerful, teary-eyed speech about her love for Parker. The drama with Parker maddeningly worrying and obsessing over the kinds of people his parents were effectively adds to the Spider-Man mythos in an original way, and also increases the level of adversity the character has to face in a good way. 

That is what is really special about "The Amazing Spider-Man 2:" Parker has a tortured sole and has to deal with a lot of heavy drama, but the movie simply uses that to make the joyous optimism even more palpable. Sure, he has clue what he is doing with his girlfriend, but he is still able to stop criminals and have the city of New York cheer him on. Sure, there is an awfully dark and sad thing that, after lots of harrowing foreshadowing, finally happens at the film's climax, but the last scene builds it all back up. After a tear-inducing scene with a kid showing bravery inspired by Spider-Man, our hero gets right back to fighting the good fight, giving hope to regular people trying to do their best and live happily. 

"The Amazing Spider-Man 2" stumbles in big ways, but it does something very well that most superhero movies don't; its loud positivity and optimism convinces that maybe everything is going to be okay. Thanks to that, I'd say it's a very good movie. 

S456 ARCHIVES: "Guardians of the Galaxy" Trailer Releases Online

~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2013-14 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~

On Feb. 19, 2014, Marvel Studios put out the first trailer for the upcoming superhero film "Guardians of the Galaxy," which is set to release on Aug. 1, 2014. The movie stars Chris Pratt of "Parks and Recreation" fame as Peter Quill, along with others such as Vin Deisel as Groot and Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon.

The trailer has a stark focus on comedy, with a myriad of jokes, as well as on science-fiction, with its setting in space.  A simple plot is established in the trailer: Peter Quill, taking on the name Star-Lord, along with his team of misfit superheroes, steals an important object that villain Ronan wants to get his hands on.

This film, directed by James Gunn, is another movie in the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" Marvel has been crafting since 2008, starting with "Iron Man." Each movie in this line takes place in the same fictional universe; all of the movies interconnect with each other.

The Guardians of the Galaxy has existed as a team in Marvel's line of comic books since 1969, first appearing in "Marvel Super-Heroes" #18. The team got its own comic book series in 1990 called "Guardians of the Galaxy," which lasted 62 issues. This series was relaunched in 2008, and then ended again after 25 issues. A second relaunch occurred in 2013, and as of right now, the series is still going with over 10 issues already released.

"Guardians of the Galaxy" is not a well-known property, but Marvel Studios' track record is financially successful. "Avengers" made $200.3 million in just its first weekend and is the third-highest grossing film of all-time, and "Iron Man 3" was the highest-grossest movie of 2013 as well as the fifth-highest grossing movie of all-time.

Man of Steel (Film) - Review

For the last five, maybe ten years, Batman has been the king of superheroes in the mainstream, as well as in the not-so-mainstream realm of actual comic books. Because of this, the hype for Man of Steel, a Superman movie directed by Zach Snyder and produced by Christopher Nolan, has been big. The movie is out today, and it's great. Snyder and co. have crafted a fantastic story that nails what makes Superman so special, and sets a pretty much perfect foundation for future movies, but some shoddy film-making takes away from the high quality of the story. 

This movie starts from the beginning of the Superman mythos, with Kal-El being born into a dying Krypton and put into a spaceship to Earth, where a pleasant country family finds and adopts him as their own. Krypton is filled with future-technology and dragon-like creatures and it's all quite cool. The premise is established clearly in this scene - Kal-El is being sent to Earth, and once he's there, he would be like a god to humans. His loving parents reluctantly say goodbye to their son, finding comfort in the possibility that he'll serve as a source of hope for humanity. 

Man of Steel nails the most important thing for it to nail - Superman's supreme moral goodness. Superman is much more powerful than anyone on Earth, but chooses to do good. Having these powers gives him a heightened sense of moral responsibility. Life is sacred to him, regardless of whether it be humans, or Kryptons, and he feels as though he has to help because he can. We see Kal-El, or as his Earth parents come to name him,  Clark Kent, struggling with his place in the world from a young age, to a teenaged age, to an adult age. Henry Cavill does the role flawlessly as well: There isn't much more one could ask from him. The various child and teen actors Snyder casts as Clark at earlier stages in his life do an equally impressive job for their respective roles. 

Not only does Clark have to figure himself out, but he needs to be accepted amongst the people of Earth, as he's potentially very dangerous from an outsider's perspective. Because of this, General Zod is the perfect villain to use first, because his philosophy towards Earth is the exact opposite. The movie smartly compares his mentality to cold, evolutionary biology - the dominant species will get rid of the inferior ones, and claim their land and recourses as their own. Michael Shannon's performance is nothing special but he does his job, and Zod's an intimidating villain, threatening the entire planet. It's through this character that humanity understands that Superman is not a threat. He's the perfect character foil, exemplifying Superman's supreme moral goodness.

The problem with the movie is that it doesn't have the punch that it needs. The movie has an excellent story and sets up an excellent world with an excellent hero-villain dichotomy, but it doesn't deliver the powerful cinema that it needed to. There are essentially two action scenes, both of which are quite long, and they're not that great at all. The first action scene is cleverly brutal, showing truly the first challenge that Clark faces, having been amongst mere humans his whole life, but it's really just a bunch of punching. A bunch of punching for a long period of time with buildings blowing up all over the place gets boring. The second fight scene, at the end, is mostly more of the same from the first, albeit with some cool things thrown in here and there - like Zod attempting to hit Superman with a girder only to have Kal's laser beams cut it in half - but it's not enough. Aside from just better action, more could have been done, like cheers or teary-eyed thank-you's from the people of Metropolis, but none of that is here. The only fist-pumpingly exciting scene in the movie is a small moment that a member of the supporting cast has. 

And then there are smaller things that I didn't like. This is a nitpick, but Snyder has Cavill doing a good bit of screaming in the movie, and it's a little annoying. Less of a nitpick, Amy Adams plays a very well-written Lois Lane, but she doesn't have the fierceness that I want a badass reporter like Lois to have. She has a soft voice and a welcoming gaze, and that's not what I want. And the comedy here is good but I could have used maybe a bit more to help cleanse my palette from all of the sternness. It is a movie about a dude that wears a big, red cape, after all.

But overall it really is great. Not only are Superman and General Zod brilliantly built up, but the supporting cast is excellent. Russell Crowe is a perfect Jor-El (Superman's actual father); assertive yet calm and collected. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Clark's adoptive parents are sweethearts. Laurence Fishburne as the editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet and Christopher Meloni (Stabler!) also stick out, especially the latter, whom steals the show with that fist-pumpingly good scene I mentioned earlier. Despite the action being nothing special, the special effects and the hammering score in the background are impressive. And the ending is cute. 

Like The Amazing Spider-Man from last year, Man of Steel is a great, but not excellent or fantastic movie, that lays a pretty much perfect foundation for sequels. This movie gives us an amazing Superman made even better by a brilliant character foil in General Zod. It just simply isn't as enjoyable of a movie as this story could have easily been, due mostly in part to action that is just okay. But it's the first movie in a series, and with that in mind, what Zach Snyder and Christopher Nolan delivered is admirable.