Hello again, my fellow geeks!
This is getting to be a normal thing: Me apologizing for missing an article. I know, I know. This column is supposed to be up every week and you all wait at home, with bated breath (not sure what that means, really) for Theater Thursday to appear on the front page. When Thursday comes and it isn’t there, you are crushed. So crushed that you can’t face work, call in sick, change back into those comfy pajamas, make a bowl of fruit loops and climb back into bed. A total day lost.
I might be overstating it. But regardless, I am sorry for missing last week. I know you don’t care but I still feel I should explain. I have family in town. My beautiful cousin just returned from overseas where she was working and I haven’t seen her in 8 years. Her and my favorite aunt as well as my wonderful sister are all in town and I have been spending time with them. I am also involved in an online management course that is very important for work and that has been draining any remaining time not taken by family, work and sleep. It will all end in the near future though, I promise and then the normal weekly columns will return.
For now though, lets talk about the web slinger!
Last week, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (PG-13 143 Minutes) opened in 2D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D and made over 90 Million Dollars over the first weekend. I won’t do a complete review here but I will touch on, what I think, are serious problems. I saw the film and I have to be honest, there are parts of it that are very enjoyable. All the stuff with Spidey are great. The web slinging, the flying through the city streets, the wise cracks during action and one sequence where Spidey is in the back of a truck careening through the streets and trying to catch and hold on to several canisters of plutonium that is crazy and hysterical in all the right ways.
All the stuff with Peter and Gwen is great as well. It is sweet and heartbreaking in just the right way and although is does veer a little close to emo, I think it worked fine, but your mileage may vary.
For me, where the film runs into trouble is with the villains. I don’t think Electro works at all. His power is kind of interesting and some of those sequences are pretty to look at, but on close inspection, they don’t really make any sense. His motivation for wanting to kill Spider-Man doesn’t make any sense at all either. His character makes a very hard turn almost on a dime and I am still not completely sure why. For a massive film with seven writers, that is not a good sign.
Harry Osborn and that whole arc comes out of left field and seems forced. I’m still not sure why, if Peter and Harry were best friends all those years ago, why Peter didn’t mention that to Curt Connors, even in passing, in the last film. There are a lot of things like that. Stuff that just comes out of nowhere and you’re not sure why it’s happening.
Now, while you’re watching the film, it’s fine. You don’t even notice most of it. It’s only on later reflection that it starts to bother you. Like, why is it that whenever Spider-Man and a villain start to fight in the middle of the city, there are always barriers that appear and there are always thousands of people behind them cheering on the hero. And why is it that the villain helpfully doesn’t, you know, attack them?
Anyway….
This week we have NEIGHBORS (R 95 Minutes) the new Seth Rogan flick that has been getting pretty good reviews. Word from advance screenings has been that it is fall down, laugh out loud funny. It is also a very hard R rated film and it earns that rating, so keep the kiddies at home for this one.
That about does it for this week, but next week is the BIG one. That’s right. Walter White vs. GODZILLA!!!
Until then, Keep the Projector Threaded.