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Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man: Homecoming 2017
Still finding it difficult to get back into the swing of watching superhero movies and writing on this site, but this past weekend I managed to watch one of the MCU movies that I missed last year even though it took me nearly a week having it from the library before actually watching it. Which is a little odd since I’ve heard almost nothing but good things about the latest Spider-Man even though it’s been such a quick reboot since the last iteration. I did quite enjoy Tom Holland’s full-fledged entry into the MCU but there were a couple things that I noticed while watching the film. First is how often the film side-steps many of the traditional superhero movie tropes. But on the other side of things, while it isn’t an origin story, it actually still manages to hit a lot of the origin story beats that we’re used to, just with a slight adjustment to them.
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Superhero Shorts: Spiderman
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts, where I feature a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions of its creator. This time around I’m going way back, all the way back to 1969 in what is quite possibly the first live action Spiderman movie ever, predating even the 70’s Electric Company shorts. This was the last of a series of 41 amateur short films created by Don Glut starting from when he was nine years old. As usual, you can watch this short below, but there is also a documentary featuring all of these shorts called I Was a Teenage Movie Maker. If you would like to get more information about Don Glut, visit his official website or Frontline Entertainment.
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The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man 2012
So I mentioned before back when I watched the Avengers, that it had been four years since I had been to the theaters to see a movie, and this movie has been the second one so far this year to drag me out of my house even in this crazy heat to go to the theater and watch on the big screen. It was totally worth it. This was also a different experience for me because I managed to make a split and let Jena and her mother watch Brave the next theater over while I watched Spider-Man with one of my friends. I think one of the biggest questions anyone has about this movie is if it is too similar to the Raimi movies to make a difference on the audiences. I personally think it managed to take most of the best parts of Spider-Man 2, leave out some of the weaker parts of Spider-Man, and add in things from the comic that never made it into the original trilogy and come out with something at least as good as Spider-Man 2, which was my favorite of the original 3. I think it’s a worthy start to a new series and I’m all for the Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2002
I end my trip through Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy at the beginning, rewatching the first movie so I can aptly compare it to the new Amazing Spider-man movie this weekend and there have been a lot of ups and downs. It was an interesting experiment and I think it was mostly successful. Of the three, I definitely enjoyed the second one the most. There were a few misgivings I had with this movie compared to the second, and the second had very few flaws. But this was easily head and shoulders above the third movie. I’m really looking forward now to seeing the new one and am just hoping it doesn’t rehash the story too closely or else it will feel pointless.
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2 2004
If anyone else is thinking about rewatching all three of the Spider-Man movies before going out to see the new one, I would really recommend watching them in reverse order. Going from Spider-Man 3 to Spider-Man 2, it’s hard to believe that they were made by all the same people. They feel like such completely different types of movies. Where Spider-Man 3 was filled with action setpieces, fan service villains, and bland love triangles, yet feels empty and lifeless. Spider-Man 2 however still has a fan service villain, but only one of them, a love triangle, but only one of them, and still manages to come up with exciting action sequences. Overall, Spider-Man 2 has the heart that Spider-Man 3 is completely missing, even though the third movie tries to replicate it with the Sandman, but fails due to not enough screen time. Aside from a few minor moments, I enjoyed this movie from start to finish. It’s one of the superhero movies done right.
Spider-Man 3
Spider-Man 3 2007
While I wouldn’t recommend watching the Spider-Man films for the first time this way, I thought it was a perfect way to set myself up for the new Amazing Spider-Man next week. I figured I’d get the final and also the worst film out of the way first and end with the origin movie since it would be the one that would most closely compare to the new movie. This movie is one of those instances where since the first time I’ve seen it, I’ve heard so much negativity about the movie that I was prepared for the worst. And while it wasn’t all that great, there were some genuinely good moments in the movie too. But they were surrounded by bad ideas, too many characters, and too many subplots.
Will the Avengers be an origin movie?
It’s the middle of April and I want to take a quick moment here at the beginning of this post to say thanks. Thank you to everyone that’s been visiting and commenting on my site. I’ve tried to put a lot of work into this and seeing the site grow makes me very happy. I’d love to hear feedback on what you like, what you don’t like, and any ideas of what you’d like to see more of. I’m looking forward to getting ready for the Avengers next month and re-watching all the lead up movies including the only one I haven’t seen before, Iron Man 2. I could also use some help coming up with names, should this Tuesday blog post have a name? I’m also not sold on “Superhero Shorts” mainly because I most enjoy the interview part of the article, and “Superhero Shorts” does not convey the idea of an interview. I also love hearing suggestions on what I should watch next, got any ideas? Leave a comment, let me know what I should watch after the Avengers and before I start prepping for the new Spiderman. Speaking of which, that brings me to today’s blog topic, do we need more origin stories?
Why are there so many bad superhero movies?
I’ve gone back and forth so many times trying to figure out what to write this week. I’ve thought about writing on The Avengers, origins, sequels, and probably a half dozen topics that I’ve since forgotten about. I finally settled on this topic, why are there so many bad superhero movies? There are lots of great superhero comic books, and comic books are a visual medium, so you would think that moving from one visual medium to another would be easier than say adapting a novel, right? And yet it was so easy to come up with a list of the 33 worst superhero movies, and I can probably think of a dozen high profile movies that didn’t even make that list. The number of really great superhero movies, there are probably only a couple dozen or so, and many of those have only been made in the past few years.
Black Superhero Month
I knew it would be easy to guess my theme for this month, but when I needed to decide what movies I should watch for this month, I realized that it was Black History Month and I thought I would see how many black superhero movies there were. I managed to find 9 of them: Catwoman, Spawn, Hancock, Blankman, The Meteor Man, Steel, Blade, Blade II, and Blade Trinity. Some of them are pretty good, a lot of them are really bad. And I’m actually over halfway through watching them. I only have Steel and the Blade Trilogy left to watch. One other thing that snuck up on me was the fact that Ghost Rider and Chronicle came out this month. I managed to watch and review Chronicle already and plan to watch the new Ghost Rider and the old one for good measure. So I’m in for a busy month. In fact I was so busy writing the review for The Meteor Man that I almost forgot to write this blog post for today which is why I’m posting it just before midnight.
It’s really a sad state of affairs that when someone mentions a black superhero movie, they either think of Blade, or they think of a really bad movie like Steel or Catwoman. And honestly a lot of movie fans aren’t that fond of the Blade movies, especially when you get around to the third one with Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds. And a couple things that come up when talking about black superheroes is why has no one made a Black Panther movie yet? And of course there’s also talk I’ve heard going around of Michael Jai White wanting to make a superhero movie that I can’t think of at the moment and when I tried to search for it it seems to have been overtaken by talks from July about rebooting the Spawn franchise as a hard “R” rated movie. Which I think would be great. Spawn had a lot of potential but it was hurt by the PG-13, script issues, CGI issues, and acting issues. Michael Jai White has grown a lot as an actor and CGI has improved and gotten less expensive, I think it would be great to see a Spawn reboot. Forget that, I’d rather see a Spawn sequel, forget the reboots, there’s enough Superhero origin stories, just make it a sequel, skip retelling the origin, and get straight to the action. And if anyone wants to remind me of that other Superhero White was trying to get made into a movie, leave a comment.
I also wanted to mention that while I didn’t watch the Superbowl, I did manage to catch the new trailers for both the Avengers and The Amazing Spiderman. I’m really excited to see both of them. I didn’t realize that Denis Leary was going to be in the new Spiderman movie and I’m really interested to see what he brings to the movie. I also like the actor, Garfield or whatever his name is. I’m kind of torn over the mechanical webslingers for some reason though. I actually liked the decision that the first series of movies made to make the webbing be a part of his transformation rather than something he made on his own. I understand that a lot of fans thought that the chemical webbing showed a part of Peter Parker’s scientific side, my thoughts are “what’s the first thing you think of when asked what abilities does a spider have?” I’m pretty sure it’s not amazing strength or precognitive ability. It’s the ability to create webs. But whatever, it’s really a minor thing but what I’m most annoyed about that I’m sure will happen at least once during the movie is there will be a critical moment where Spiderman’s web fluid will run out at the worst possible time. On another more random note, I realized that when the movie comes out I will be watching the Tobey Maguire Spiderman movies, but I will be watching them in reverse order. Starting with the worst of them all, Spiderman 3, moving to what some consider the best of them all Spiderman 2, and finishing off with Tobey’s origin story before watching… this guy’s origin story. Anyway check out my review of Hancock coming up on Thursday, until next time this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.