Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (a movie review post)

It's been a long time since I was actively collecting and reading comics -- the 90s, in fact -- so I missed out on Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen and all of that. I keep up enough with the comics world to have a vague idea of what's going on, so I knew of their existence, but I've never read any of their comics. Spider-Ham, on the other hand... Well, I'm sure I have some Spider-Ham issues around somewhere. All of that to say that I really had no special knowledge going into this movie. All you need is the basic Spider-Man origin of a teenager being bitten by a radioactive spider (and the movie will fill you in on that much) to be able to sit down and enjoy this movie.

And there's no good reason for you not to enjoy this movie. It's full of humor and warmth and action and danger and humor. It will touch your heart. Unless your heart is full of gristle and is three sizes too small.

This includes those of you out there saying, "Not another Spider-Man movie!" because this is not just another Spider-Man movie. Sure, "Spider-Man" is in this movie, but the movie is about Mile Morales, not just another Spider-Man. Which is not to say that Miles is not a Spider-Man, because he is, but this isn't just another movie about Peter Parker, though it's that, too.

The thing I find most curious about Spider-verse is the choice of the Kingpin as the main villain. He's not a character you see much around Spider-Man anymore, despite his origin in The Amazing Spider-Man #50. Well, okay, as I already said, I don't read comics much anymore, so what do I know? Well, what I know is that Kingpin made a major shift over to Daredevil in the late 80s/early 90s and has supposedly been tormenting Murdock since then. And maybe the Punisher.

None of which is to say that Kingpin is a bad choice. He works well as the villain here, for reasons I won't say because they're a bit spoilery.

In fact, the whole movie works well, so much so that I want to see it again. And so do my kids, so that was a triple win.

There are a lot of... I suppose people would call them Easter eggs, but I think they're more like "in-jokes." Whatever you call them, I did notice that there were things that I laughed at that my kids didn't because they don't have the Spider-history that I have. Also, they didn't notice that they missed anything, so it's not impactful on the movie watching experience if you don't know anything about Spider-Man.

All of which is to say that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse is a great film and a must-see for any Spider-Man fan. And, if you're not a Spider-Man fan, you should probably see it anyway, because it really is a very good movie. Touching and heartwarming and all of that.

Ninja Mutants: An Extended Review -- Part One: The Bay Movie

The new Bay Ninja Turtle movie is one of those that I could hardly avoid seeing. For one thing, my daughter has been dying to see it ever since she first saw the trailer for it. Yes, you heard me right: my daughter. Which is not to say that my son (the younger one) didn't want to see it, but it was much more passive with him. You know, sure, he'd like to see it but, if he didn't get to, it wasn't gonna kill him. Not just did my daughter have to see it, but she had to see it ON OPENING DAY! OR ELSE!

So we went to see it on opening day. It wasn't the first showing, but I'm here writing this, so it must have been close enough to it to keep me alive. For now.

Added to all of that with my daughter, I like the Turtles. The original comic series was pretty brilliant, and the first movie (1990) was so well done it sealed my fate as a fan. That said, I never liked the original animated series. I was more than a few years too old for that when it came out, and "silly" was probably the best description I ever had for it. Needless to say, the Turtles have undergone many changes and interpretations over the years, so I'm not going to try to compare this to any previous incarnations. As much as that's possible, at any rate.

There will be spoilers:

As with any Michael Bay movie, the story is the movie's weakest link. If you've seen The Amazing Spider-Man, you might recognize the plot device of releasing a pathogen from a tower on the top of a prominent building in New York City which accompanies a rooftop battle to stop said release of said pathogen. Add to that the rather overused (at this point) plot of having a secret stash of the antidote to the pathogen on hand to charge the unsuspecting populace for and become insanely wealthy and you'll see the lack of thought that went into the story. Even the twist, that the antidote is in the blood of the Turtles and they must be drained to retrieve it, has been done more times than I can count. Or remember.

But, hey, I suppose considering their target audience... actually, I'm not sure what their target audience is since I'm sure they're trying to get the nostalgia audience along with the kids... Oh, well, for a movie more geared toward kids, I'm sure the plot is fine. Mostly, what the movie needs is good, snappy dialogue, and it has that. My daughter loved Michelangelo because he was so funny. Honestly, there were a lot of laughs in the movie, which ought to be the case for a Turtle picture.

And, as in any Bay movie, the action was spectacular.

There's nothing to complain about with the acting, either. Megan Fox was good as April O'Neil, maybe better than good. She really was the part. Will Arnett was great but, then, it's hard not to enjoy Arnett. The voice actors did a great job, especially Tony Shalhoub whom I didn't even recognize during the movie. Possibly the only issue with the acting wasn't actually an acting issue but a casting one: As soon as I saw William Fichtner, I knew he was the bad guy because, well, that's kind of what he does. It's not fun to know who the villain is because of typecasting.

Speaking of the villain, the other villain, Shredder, although he does have the huge rooftop battle with the Turtles, is hardly the bad guy in the movie. He's just this sort of background character who seems to be controlling things, but, other than the fight, he's not really there. That was disappointing. He, as a character, was hardly menacing because of that. The only thing that made him scary was the huge cybernetic armor suit that he had. I mean, really, anyone can have a suit.

The other main issue goes back to the story, and that's having the Turtles start out as April's childhood pets. It's like ever since Tim Burton did that whole "I made you" thing in Batman, everyone has to have everything circle back around and be all connected and stuff. I suppose it's supposed to make it cooler but, really, it doesn't do anything for me other than cause my eyes to roll. Seriously, it's not even voluntary.

Still, as long as you buy into the plausibility of the Turtles, there's nothing really to break the suspension of disbelief. It never goes to "Seriously!? You expect me to buy that?!" Even the big rig scene stayed within the bounds of Ninja Turtles.

Basically, it's a fun movie... if you like the Turtles. Or if you're a kid who is going to end up liking the Turtles after seeing the movie. If you're not a Turtle fan, this one's probably not for you.

Amazing Spider-Man: Shockingly Emotional (a movie review post)

Let me just state right here at the beginning that I am still not in favor of Sony's reboot of the Spider-Man franchise; however, seeing that they have, and that this movie is based off of the previous (un)Amazing movie and not Raimi's series, I have to say... okay, I'll sum it up like this: This one made me tear up.

I think I've mentioned before that I don't cry at movies.

I'll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but I am going to talk a bit about the set up. More movies need a good exposition; it sets up the emotional impact.

There's a significant difference between "starting in the middle of the action" and starting in the middle of some action. Increasingly, "starting in the middle of the action" is a bad thing to do. AS2 chooses to start in the middle of some action, the obligatory car chase. This action scene, though, serves as the setup for much of the rest of the movie: we see that Peter is haunted by the death Captain Stacy (and his admonition to safeguard Gwen by staying away from her), Spider-Man saves Max Dillon (though, in one of the few just nonsensical moments in the movie, he stops to save this one guy from getting hit by a car while doing nothing to stop the dozens of cars that are being destroyed), and we are introduced to Aleksei Sytsevich.

This scene sets up two of the three major conflicts for the movie: the romantic conflict between Peter and Gwen, and the physical conflict between Spider-Man and Electro. The third conflict revolves around Peter's continued exploration into the deaths of his parents, a story line they are developing at a nice pace and are handling better than expected. [This is spoilery, but, being someone who never knew his father, the scene between Peter and May was excellent. His assertion to her in the face of her reluctance to tell him anything that "it's not about you" is so right.]

And that's as far as I can go without giving things away but, from an emotional standpoint, this movie is way beyond the first one. Garfield really brings you along on his emotional ride as both Peter Parker and as Spider-Man, and I don't think that's a small thing. Like I said, I teared up.

Emma Stone put in a great performance as Gwen Stacy. Jamie Foxx was much better as Max Dillon than as Electro, although it's hard to tell how much of anything he did as Electro. Dane DeHaan put in a convincing enough Harry Osborn [although I'm not sure how I feel about them bringing that character in as Peter's "best friend" when they hadn't seen each other in a decade]. And Paul Giamatti was almost unrecognizable as the Russian thug Aleksei Sytsevich. Sally Field continues to not really do it for as Aunt May, but I'll give her a pass, sort of, for that one scene with Peter about his parents.

Also, kudos for introducing us to the character of Felicia, whom I have to suppose is Felicia Hardy and the future Black Cat.

The only real flub of the movie is a stupid science thing they did during a discussion about spiders and how spiders have cells that can "self repair" while humans don't. If humans' cells couldn't self repair, we'd all die the first time we got a cut or a broken bone or whatever. Sure, they're trying to talk about the rapid-style healing/regeneration of, like, Wolverine, but they do it in a piss-poor manner that makes it sound like people can't heal from, well, anything.

But that moment aside, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a much better movie than its predecessor. This one has all of the emotional impact that the first one was missing, possibly because they are no longer relying on what we ought to already know about Spider-Man and telling us what we don't know about Spider-Man. Their Spider-Man. So, again, if you like super hero movies and lots of action, this movie is for you but, unlike with most of these kinds of movies, you might want to bring a tissue for this one.