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  • Canister X Movie Review #71: Spider-Man 3 (2007)

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    Spider-Man 3 (2007)

    Spider-Man 3
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    Spider-Man 3 (2007)
    Written by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent
    Directed by Sam Raimi
    Runtime 139 min.
    4 out of 5

    It’s triple trouble for Spider-Man in this third installment in the mega franchise.

    Life is good for Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire). He’s got the girl, about to propose, making bucks, the good people of New York love their Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man like it’s their job—yeah, everything is smooth sailing.

    As if.

    Suddenly, a mysterious new villain shows up out of nowhere: the New Goblin (though he doesn’t refer to himself as such in the film). Quickly, we find out it’s Harry Osborne (James Franco), Peter’s once-best friend out for revenge because he thinks Peter murdered his dad.

    One villain Peter can handle, especially since his first altercation with the suped-up Harry Osborne ends rather quickly. But no, things quickly get worse for our favorite wallcrawler when fugitive Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) gets himself trapped in a molecular blaster thingy and becomes the shape-shifting Sandman. Also adding to Peter’s troubles is ultra-hungry photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), who wants nothing more than to make a name for himself in the newspaper business.

    Unbeknownst to Peter, while he and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) are on a date in a NY park, a mysterious meteor lands from the heavens, leaking a strange black goop that follows Peter home and eventually latches onto him, transforming him into someone darker, meaner and more spider-powered than ever before. When Peter finally realizes his new black suit is slowly destroying his life and he’s alienating everyone he’s ever cared about, he manages to ditch the suit in a cool church bell tower scene that screams Peter’s search for redemption, but also Eddie Brock’s search for revenge. The black goop lands on Brock, carrying a copy of Peter’s spider-powers with it, transforming Eddie into the menacing Venom.

    It’s Black Spider-Man versus three villains in this web-slinging rollercoaster ride that scratches Spider-Man fans right where they itch!

    The good:

    The spider effects keep getting better with each installment, especially in the area of you feeling like you’re right there with Spider-Man zipping through the air. That scene where Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) falls off that building and Spidey has to cut through the air in between falling debris to save her? Pure good.

    The story had some good twists, especially building up the suspense while we waited for the black symbiote to latch itself onto Peter. Same with Peter proposing to MJ. The whole “it not working out” thing was well done.

    James Franco played the villain wonderfully. I genuinely hated him after a while, the big tip of the hat being to when he fooled Peter into thinking he was his buddy again only to screw him over big time later on.

    Topher Grace was easily the best actor in the film. He was funny, cocky, yet at times you sincerely felt bad for him.

    The fight scenes were great. The symbiote effects for the living suit were fantastic, too.

    The ending with Harry Osborne—even after all he did during the film—made tears prick the corners of my eyes.

    The not-as-good:

    One would think a major lesson had been learned from Batman & Robin: too many characters is just plain stupid. Unfortunately, Spider-Man 3 didn’t take that warning to heart. The film had way too much going on. I know they had to wrap up some story threads as established in the first two movies, but when all was said and done, things just felt way too rushed and I know I’m not the only fan to think so. If it were me, I would have left it at two villains: the New Goblin and Sandman. Or just do Venom and leave it alone. (And if anyone knows the Venom story, from the comics or the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon, you know that Venom’s mythology is more than enough for a feature film.) I really felt short-changed regarding Venom. So much time was spent building up to him—the origin, Peter going dark, Eddie Brock’s character, both before and after he inherits the suit—that by the time Venom showed up, there wasn’t much time left in the movie for him to really be the bad guy fans know him to be.

    There’s really not much to complain about with this movie other than it feeling very rushed and cluttered. Over all, it still was a solid flick, but my least favorite of the three.

    Rumor has it that Spider-Man 4 is getting back to basics so I’m eagerly anticipating that one.

    Also stars: J.K. Simmons, Bruce Campbell, Rosemary Harris, James Cromwell, Ted Raimi, Bill Nunn, Willem Dafoe, Dylan Baker, Stan Lee and others.


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  • Canister X Movie Review #70: Spider-Man 2 (2004)

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    Spider-Man 2 (2004)

    Spider-Man 2
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    Spider-Man 2 (2004)
    Written by Alvin Sargent
    Directed by Sam Raimi
    Runtime 127 min.
    5 out of 5

    Who ever said being a superhero would be easy?

    In this second installment in the Spider-Man franchise, Peter Parker has his back against the wall as he tries to juggle life as a student, being best friends with Mary Jane Watson, carrying the guilt of his uncle’s death, freelancing for the Daily Bugle, delivering pizza, and, of course, being ever on-call as your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man.

    No matter how hard he tries, Peter just can’t seem to balance everything at once and the constant sacrifices he makes in his personal life so he can help others wears him down . . . down . . . down . . . until he can’t take it anymore and his spider-powers begin to change.

    Then vanish.

    The timing couldn’t have been worse, either, because Dr. Otto Octavius’s energy device backfired and has fused four robotic arms to his body, their AI worming its way into his brain, controlling him. All they care about is fulfilling their purpose and they don’t care who they have to hurt to recreate the device they were made for.

    Dr. Octopus’s (Doc Ock’s) rampage through New York is met with little resistance until our favorite web-slinger attempts to take him on.

    This movie thrills the inner fanboy much more than its predecessor and officially is my favorite—so far—in the Spider-Man series. This flick carries near start-to-finish classic superhero goodness: stellar aerial battles, eye-popping web-slinging, dual identity troubles, nerd-can’t/won’t-get-the-girl issues, a hardcore villain bent on his mark, trials, sacrifice—all crammed into a-little-over-two-hour movie. But the pacing works and doesn’t feel over cluttered at all.

    You feel for Peter Parker every minute of this film, both when he’s at the top of his game and when he’s at the bottom, and when he loses his spider-powers, your heart sinks and you cry out, “No! Not Peter! His powers are part of who he is. How can you take them away?”

    Tobey Maguire was extremely believable in this film and brought a real depth to Parker that—though was present in the first one—really shone through in this. And Alfred Molina as Doc Ock? Such duality. When you first meet Otto Octavius, he genuinely seems like a nice guy, an almost fatherly figure in a way, but when he loses his project and those he cares about, things switch and he barely resembles the man he once was. Yet deep within, you see him struggling against the mechanical arms that have taken over his body and mind.

    J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson was hilarious as always, and Kirsten Dunst as MJ—there was more maturity in the character this time around and though she still acted kind of “high school-ish,” you also saw someone struggling with who they were—more specifically, trying desperately to reach out to the man she’s fallen for but who is pushing her away.

    Spider-Man 2 thrilled me to pieces. I was there on opening night and I left the theatre all smiles and in a state of disbelief at how downright cool it was. I wasn’t sure if it would top the first one because most sequels—’til that point because the Superman movies and the previous set of Batman films were pretty much what we had to go on except for X2—usually don’t nail it like the first one.

    I was proven wrong.

    This movie rocked so hard I went back a couple more times and bought it on DVD as soon as I could.

    Check this flick out. You’re in for an amazingly cool, web-slinging good time.

    Recommended.


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  • Canister X Movie Review #2: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    The Amazing Spider-Man

    The Amazing Spider-Man
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    The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
    Written by James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves
    Directed by Marc Webb
    Runtime 136 min.
    4 out of 5

    After getting bitten by a genetically-modified spider, teenager Peter Parker discovers he has spider-like abilities. However, after looking into his past, he meets Dr. Conors and becomes the scientist’s pupil. When Peter’s uncle is murdered in cold blood, he uses his new spider abilities to try and track down the killer and ends up creating an alternate identity in the process. Meanwhile, Dr. Conors’s own limb-regeneration experiments goes haywire and the good doctor is transformed into a giant lizard. Peter, now under the identity of Spider-Man, takes it upon himself to stop the Lizard at all costs before others get hurt.

    When I first heard they were rebooting Spider-Man, I was like, “Come on, really? You just did that in the movies, the cartoons, in the comics . . .” It seems Spider-Man has only one story to tell: his origin. They keep doing it, after all.

    But I got something more than that in The Amazing Spider-Man and I was won over. While I enjoyed the Raimi films on the whole, this one seemed more comic book Spider-Man to me as they dialed back the clock all the way to his childhood and got a bit more into Peter Parker’s (Andrew Garfield’s) parents’ history, introduced Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), and went with a villain that fans have been itching to see ever since his civilian identity was mentioned back in the 2002 Spider-Man movie: Dr. Conors aka the Lizard (Rhys Ifans). While Spidey’s origin stayed true to its main components—getting bitten by a spider, Peter Parker as a student, the tragic death of Uncle Ben—they modernized it a bit and seemed to suggest that, kind of like in the 2003 Hulk movie, our hero’s destiny was mapped out for him many years before. This part I wasn’t too keen on, to be honest, nor was I big on how the Peter Parker side of things was done: pretty cool dude, likeable, good looking, hot girlfriend, etc. Pretty much the opposite of nerdy Parker becoming a superhero.

    However, on the Spider-Man side of things, we got one wicked webcrawler on our hands. We’ve got three movies prior to this one to learn how to make him move, swing around, climb walls, spin webs—everything that was showcased in this flick was like a comic book come to life. What made it work, too, was that it was believable and didn’t look like a 3D cartoon unlike some sequences in 2002’s Spider-Man. What made it even more special was that this Spider-Man actually cracked a lot of jokes, something that was missing for the most part from the other outings. And the Spider-Man-point-of-view wall crawling and swinging around scenes? Yes, please! Totally made you feel like you were there and reminded me a lot of the Spider-Man ride at Universal Studios in Florida. Bring back the mechanical webshooters instead of the organic variety (I didn’t mind those, actually, as it makes more sense), and Spider-Man is back in business, baby!

    The stakes were high in this movie, too, with the Lizard being a serious bad guy to contend with. He was strong, powerful, showed no mercy, and that sewer scene was spooky.

    This movie was a lay-the-groundwork movie, setting things up for what is currently rumored to be three sequels and, according to director Marc Webb, aiming for the Sinister Six storyline, which was being mapped out even while they were making this Spider-Man movie. I can’t wait. A giant Spider-Man story is going to be awesome and I’m glad they started from scratch to make it happen as they can then link everything together, starting from scene one.

    So what can I say? I’ve been pulled to the other side and am glad they rebooted Spider-Man. A part of me can’t help but wonder what might’ve been had Spider-Man 4 happened, but this new journey we’re on with our favorite webhead is off to a good start.


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