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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Is A Mess!

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The first Amazing Spider-Man was surprisingly good since people had such low expectations for such a quick reboot to the franchise.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 unfortunately takes a few steps back from its predecessor.  It is an unfocused mess, and it is a shame because there is a good movie in middle of all that mire.

The movie picks up directly after the first Amazing Spider-Man, with Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) still madly in love with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), but Gwen’s father’s death is weighing on Peter and complicating their relationship.  To complicate matters further Peter is also trying to figure out what happened to his parents.  Meanwhile OsCorp is taking over New York’s power grid, and it is being worked on by the mild-mannered electrical engineer Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx).  Plus Harry Osborn(Dane DeHaan) returns to be with is ailing father.

The problem with this movie is that there are too many things going on at one time.  You got Peter and Gwen’s relationship, Peter looking in to his parents’ deaths, Max’s transition in to Electro, Harry dealing with his father’s death, and Harry becoming the Green Goblin.  There are five story lines right there, and I may have left some out.  This movie is two hours and twenty minutes long, and there still isn’t enough time to deal with all this stuff.

The actors do what they can, and Garfield and Stone really shine in this movie with great chemistry.  They bring life to Parker and Stacy, but they also get the most air time, so their story develops naturally.  Foxx and DeHaan are not given that luxury, so they have to play their parts way over the top giving the villains in this movie a very Batman Forever feel.  Which would be fine if the rest of the movie wasn’t so serious.  It is quite jarring.

They just should have left a few things out.  Parker doesn’t need to investigate his parents’ deaths.  He already has daddy issues thanks to Uncle Ben’s death, he doesn’t need more, and it doesn’t amount to anything.  We didn’t need the Green Goblin in this movie.  They could have saved that for the third one, and given DeHaan the time his character needed.  That extra screen time would have helped Foxx’s Electro out quite a bit.  Maybe at least he wouldn’t have come off so zany.

The special effects in this movie range from excellent to crappy.  Spider-Man zipping around New York is awe inspiring.  The finally battle between him and Electro looks like a bad video game.  With a budget as big as this movie had, it seems like they could have fixed it up quite a bit.

The Amazing Spider-Man set this series up for success.  Sadly the Amazing Spider-Man 2 wastes most of that potential.  There are parts of this movie that work and are really fun, but there is so much bloat that this movie just can’t keep its momentum.  This is not the worst Spider-Man movie (That is all you Spider-Man 3!), but it is close, and I hope that for Sony’s sake they can turn this franchise around.

 

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The End Has Come For Parks And Recreation Season 6!

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It has taken me awhile to get around to Parks and Rec Season Six, but too much stuff has happened this week for me to get to it in a timely manner.  Overall I found the whole of season six to be more of the same, but the finale was wonderful.  It packed in tons of guest stars while setting up season seven to be something special.

This season was all about change for the crew of Pawnee Parks and Rec.  Leslie is recalled from City Council, Chris and Ann become parents, Ron becomes a family man himself, Tom continues his entrepreneurial dreams, and Ben becomes the City Manager.  If the season was about change, the finale was about the characters getting everything they wanted, so I am guessing next season will be about whether they got what it takes to handle their success.

The finale changed everything for the show, so just as the show was getting a little repetitive for me, they found a way to get me excited for next season.  You know that Leslie will be able to make it all work, and that she will have her trademark excited smile on her face when she does.

 

 

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Farewell Mr. Smee, I Will Miss You!

bob-hoskinsFamed actor Bob Hoskins died two days ago (4/29/14) from pneumonia at the age of 71.  He had a long career with a variety of great roles, but for me he will always be Mr. Smee from Hook.  I loved that movie as a kid, and while it hasn’t held up as well as some of Spielberg’s other movies, it holds a special place in my heart.

My favorite character from that movie was Bob Hoskins’ Smee.  The way he was able to be a bumbling idiot, but at times still be the smartest guy in the room.  It was kind of the way I saw myself sometimes.  Most of my friends liked Rufio or Pan, but it was Mr. Smee for me, and that wouldn’t have been the case without Hoskins’ brilliant portrayal.

I liked the character so much that when it was time for me to venture online, years ago, I tried to take Smee’s name as my own.  Sadly I am a horrible speller and it came out Shmee, and by the time I had figured it out, the name had stuck.  Still without Smee there wouldn’t have been Shmee.

Hoskins was a great actor who was very important to my childhood.  While the films he was in weren’t always great, he was always great in them.  My prayers and best wishes are with his family.  I will have to dig out Hook and watch it again to say a proper farewell to Mr. Smee.

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Star Wars: Episode VII Has A Cast!

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Just is case you were somewhere that didn’t have the internet yesterday, Disney and Lucas Film announced the principle cast for Star Wars: Episode VII.  Pretty much it is the cast from the original trilogy: Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), and Kenny Baker (R2-D2).  Then a bunch of new young kids, plus Andy Serkis, and Max von Sydow.

So the new kids are probably playing the children of Han and Leia, their friends, and the guy from Girls is probably an evil apprentice of some sort.  Max von Sydow is no doubt the bad guy because if he isn’t they have the world’s worst casting director.  This kind of leaves the amazing Andy Serkis as the wild card.  I am sure he will be an animated alien of some sort, but whether his is good or bad is anyone’s guess.  I am just happy he is in it because he makes everything better!  The only real surprise is that Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian) wasn’t in the line up.  How can you have a Han without a Lando?  I am hoping that he shows up at some point to cheat Han out of the Falcon one more time.

Now that they have a cast the movie feels much more real.  It actually feels like it is moving forward.  J.J. Abrams has proven he can direct fun and exciting films, so I just hope the script is well written.  We only need to wait a year and a half for a new Star Wars movie!  I know the last three should have made me more cautious, but I can’t help it.  It makes me giddy just to think about sitting in a theater, watching the intro text scroll, and listening to an amazing John Williams score!

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Disney Killed The Star Wars Expanded Universe, And It Is OK!

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When I first head that Disney was going to kill off the current Star Wars Expanded Universe, I was dumb struck.  “How dare they just toss out the stories that I love!”, I thought, but the more I think about it, the more I am okay with it.  Disney wants to make a Star Wars Universe that is cohesive and make sense, and that is a good thing.

Most of the stuff in the Expanded Universe was pretty awful anyway, and honestly a lot of it didn’t fit together, so it was broken.  Disney starting over allows them to pick and choose the good ideas out of the EU, and ignore all the garbage.  We don’t know what they are going to keep at this point, but they did give us a few examples: The Inquisitor, the Imperial Security Bureau, and Sienar Fleet Systems from the table top RPG are in the new cartoon, so you never know your favorite EU Star Wars character may still make it in.

Even if something we like doesn’t make the cut it isn’t like it is going to cease to exist.  They didn’t make EA take down Star Wars: The Old Republic, Wookieepedia is still going strong, and the books on your shelf didn’t disappear.  It just isn’t necessarily going to be treated as canon going forward.  If this was a comic book universe the fans would care less because they toss stuff out of the canon all the time.  It is just a big deal to Star Wars geeks because it has held together for as long as it has.

If the new stuff from Disney is awesome nobody will even remember that they tossed out the current Expanded Universe and started over.  They will just be enjoying the cool new stories.  As long as Disney has Chewbacca getting crushed by a Moon (best death ever) the world will keep on spinning fellow Meatbags!