6 Reasons Batman Rules

Batman is more popular than ever. The new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, is set to open soon and shatter box office records. He has two hit video games under his belt, and his comic book has been going strong after over 70 years.

What makes Batman so great? Why is he still so popular after all these years? Why is it that Batman is so much more popular nowadays than Superman, a superhero that's supposed to be more popular?

1) He's vulnerable.

If you shoot Batman in the face, he'll die. If you shoot Superman in the face, he'll look at you funny, then punch you.

This matters. It heightens the stakes. We know that Batman won't get killed during his adventures, but he may not walk away unscathed. By contrast, you'll notice that the most famous Superman arc of recent years was the one where he died, where he was actually vulnerable.

2) Unpredictability.

There's an inevitability in Superman stories. You know he'll somehow lose his powers or fight someone who's his equal, then he'll find a way to get his powers back or neutralize his enemy's power. Then he'll win.

In Batman stories, you're not quite sure what will happen. Sure, Batman will win most of the time. You don't know what will happen in the interim, or what the consequences of the victory will be. Speaking of which...

3) The untouchable characters are generally kept out of danger.

It goes like this: In every superhero saga, there are a few characters that are untouchable, that won't die no matter how bad things get. With Superman, those characters are Lois Lane, Perry White and Jimmy Olson. In Spider-Man's world, they're Aunt May and Mary Jane. (Villains are always untouchable, because they have to come back in another issue.)

The problem is that in those comics, those are the characters that usually end up in danger, being threatened by the villains somehow. That's boring. If Lois Lane is kidnapped, big deal? She'll be fine. If Mary Jane is threatened, who cares? No one is killing Aunt May.

In Batman's mythology, there are two untouchable characters: Alfred and Commissioner Gordon. Alfred stays out of the action. Gordon doesn't get kidnapped that often, but when he does (like in The Killing Joke) he's not threatened personally.

This is important. Since the people who are in harm's way can actually get killed, that raises the stakes. Heck, the second Robin even got killed by the Joker.

4) Ambiguity.

Superman will always do the right thing. He upholds truth, justice, and the American way, after all. He's never going to snap and beat someone half to death. He's never going to contemplate killing Lex Luthor. He's not that kind of character.

Batman is. He's considered just stone-cold dropping the Joker. He's beaten people pretty bad. He refuses to kill, but he's not above snapping some arms to get the information he needs.

5) Better villains.

Who is Lex Luthor? Depending on when you picked up Superman comics, he's either a mad scientist who leaves robots around to fight Superman, a billionaire who becomes president, or a business owner who's trying to rule the world. There's no solid definition of him, and the only two identifying traits of Luthor are "bald" and "evil."

The Joker is easily Batman's most iconic villain. He's a ruthless psychopath who loves to terrorize the city of Gotham, murders indiscriminately, and serves as the chaotic counterpoint to Batman's order.

Go down the line on Batman's villains, and they all have very sharply drawn characterizations. Two-Face? Ex-district attorney who's mind has fractured. The Riddler? A man who thinks he's the smartest man alive and wants to show that specifically to Batman. Mr. Freeze? A man who lost his wife to illness, wants to bring her back and will stop at nothing to do so.

While there are a few other villains in the comics world that are on par with some of Batman's villains, like Magneto, Batman has a far deeper stable to choose from, and all of them have rich histories and meaning.

6) He's relevant.

Superman raises lots of important questions but never answers them. Superman is a godlike figure who can hear everything and do almost anything. Yet, he sticks to Metropolis in general, protecting Lois Lane. What kind of god would do that to humanity? Bryan Singer hamfistedly tried to discuss it in Superman Returns, but had neither the willingness or the skill to do so. It's an issue that's never really talked about because it would distract from the whiz-bang golly-gee Superman spectacle.

This world doesn't want that. It wants someone who has to make hard decisions and do what he thinks is right even though sometimes he's wrong and just hope for the best.

Batman is hunted and disliked. He's Gotham's protector, but only because no one else has stood up to do it. When he's not needed, he'll stand aside, but for the time being he'll just keep on fighting what he can.

_________

There are other comic book heroes that are important and interesting, but very few that can hold a candle to Batman. All of these traits combine to make a hero that is interesting, tense, and intelligent.

So yeah, I have my tickets ready for The Dark Knight Rises. I'm sure you do too.

An Excessively Long Analysis of Spider-Man 3 (Part 4 of 4)

I'm not too happy with Mary Jane and Peter's role reversal in Spider-Man 3.

In previous movies, Mary Jane had all the power in the relationship. Sure, many times she was a damsel in distress, but she had a quality about her that made their relationship a little different. She was the unattainable beauty queen from the troubled background, and he was the forlorn, helpless nerd who couldn't bring himself to be with her.


In Spider-Man 3, their positions are reversed. Spider-Man is the toast of the town, and everyone loves him. He's getting great grades and doing pretty good at the Daily Bugle too. That's not a bad place to start our hero in. After two movies of seeing him down-and-out, it's nice to see Peter Parker get ahead a little bit.

At the beginning of the movie, Mary Jane is getting bad reviews for her play, singing in a nightclub and looking like she's bottoming out. Never mind that she just starred in a play and was the face of a fashion campaign. Putting that aside, in a lot of relationships, there's some give and take. Sometimes, you're up and your significant other is down, and sometimes you're down and your partner is up. That's just how life works.

In this instance, it creates a major issue. It's a very significant change to their relationship dynamic. Now Peter Parker has everything and his girlfriend has nothing. He's in charge even before he slips on the symbiotic suit. Peter Parker no longer needs Mary Jane. That's totally wrong for Peter Parker's character. On top of that, in a real relationship, you're happy for your partner when something good happens to them. If they're doing well, it makes you happy. The only way that it wouldn't is if you were completely self-absorbed.

(sound of record scratch) Wait, you mean we've changed another character's personality irrationally? Get out of town!

There's never been any indication that Mary Jane is too self-absorbed. Sure, in Spider-Man 2 she's performing in a play and is kind of upset that Peter's not there, but she has good reason to expect that a person who supposedly loves her would be there for an important time in her life. Heretofore, she's been pretty reasonable.

Of course, now that Peter's doing well, she doesn't like it at all and finds herself upset that the success is going to his head. There's never been any indication that the success is going to his head other than one kiss from Gwen Tracy and his advice to her based on what he's done as Spider-Man. However, because of those things, she stomps out of a dinner with him.

(Side note: I wish Bruce Campbell had a little more to do in Spider-Man 3. I'm a little gay for him now.)

I respect the filmmakers for trying to change the relationship a little bit and seeing if these crazy kids can muddle through. Every relationship hits rough patches. That being said, it was the wrong choice. If you really wanted to make Peter Parker's crash more devastating, how about this: Peter's life is going great. Mary Jane's is still modeling, and her acting is getting good reviews. That way, you keep their dynamic intact.

The added benefit? When Peter's life gets destroyed by the suit, it would be even worse. Peter is cruising along great and gets blindsided. Mary Jane thought her man was good and finds out that he's seemingly awful. It makes their situation that much more difficult to deal with and puts them under even more stress.

We're in the home stretch here, but let's go back and pile on to the movie's biggest flaw: Flint Marko. First of all, we're led to believe that he's some sort of Robin Hood character who only steals because he cares for his daughter and wants to get her treatment. It's a blatantly manipulative ploy. It's like the screenwriters just said, "When in doubt, throw in a sick kid." It's really kind of cynical to think that we're so easily manipulated to think that having a sick kid excuses murder, accidental though it may be.

Plus, with all this money he's supposedly stealing, how much of it actually goes to his kid? We see that he supposedly cares about the kid, but that's really the end of it. There's no follow-up, no attempts to get the money to the mother, and no more attempts to contact his child.

As much as I hated Marko, they could have redeemed it. How about if this scene was in the movie: After a fashion, Marko sneaks into his daughter's bedroom through the window and finds his daughter sleeping. He puts some of the stolen money under her pillow and kisses her on the cheek, leaving some sand on her face. She wakes up and smiles weakly.

The police have been waiting. They burst into the room and slam the window shut behind him. They have him surrounded. The kid is scared. He turns into sand and takes down all the officers while shots echo throughout the room.

Once it's all over, Marko comes back together and the mother comes in the room with a gun in her shaking hand, ready to shoot him. The daughter is scared and scurries away from him, crying. Marko tries to reach for her, but the mother threatens him. Marko can't do anything but escape through a hole that was shot in the window.

He's a freak rejected by his family, and there's nothing he can do about it.

Now you tell me, would that work or wouldn't it? It's just something I threw together in thirty seconds, and it's still a little manipulative, but wouldn't it put a bit of a coda on Flint Marko? Wouldn't it give his arc a little bit of depth and poignancy? Instead, we have him just running around stealing crap while fighting Spider-Man and claiming that it’s for his kid.

Last thing: In the end of the movie, Spider-Man forgives Marko for murdering Ben and Marko floats away. So, we're supposed to believe Spider-Man will just let him go after all the stuff he's stolen, after endangering the life of Mary Jane, directly killing Ben and indirectly killing Harry? I mean, a few minutes ago, Marko was just pounding Peter with a giant sand-shaped hammer, and now they're totally cool?

I think this was due to Raimi really liking Sandman. He liked Sandman as a character and as a concept, and it blinded him a bit. I'll bet he wanted to use Sandman again in the next movie and make him more of a good/bad guy.

Even if that never was the plan, isn't it odd that Venom got such finality and Sandman such an ambiguous ending? Raimi left no doubt that Venom was destroyed. All that was left of Venom was a pile of ash and a tiny bit of the suit left in Curt Connors' lab. Sandman gets away scot-free. It's also a little coincidental that Raimi really liked Sandman and disliked Venom.

Once again: What you like and what you have to do aren’t always the same thing.

So let's tally up the sins of Spider-Man 3:

1) Retconned Uncle Ben's death in the worst way possible, negating the emotional impact of the first two movies retroactively.
2) Ruined Harry Osborn's character arc.
3) Wasted Venom as a character, concept and villain.
4) Attempted to introduce too many new characters and ended developing all of them poorly.
5) Ruined Peter Parker and Mary Jane's relationship dynamic, as well as completely misunderstanding her character.
6) Wasted far too much screen time on Flint Marko and just sort of let him go at the end.

So am I going to watch The Amazing Spider-Man? Probably not. I'm pretty angry about how they ruined Spider-Man. I have interest in re-watching his origin story. I don't care about what happened to Peter Parker's parents. I don't want to see Sally Field play Aunt May.

What I want is for the story that was started by Sam Raimi to be brought to a conclusion the right way. Spider-Man 3 was a huge, disappointing missed opportunity. I know Spider-Man can do whatever a spider can, but it's too bad spiders don't have time-travel powers so he could go back and fix this atrocity of a film.

An Excessively Long Analysis of Spider-Man 3 (Part 3 of 4)

We've already broken down what some of the mistakes of Spider-Man 3 were. They wrecked the emotional center of the first two movies, didn't keep Harry's personality consistent, and squandered all the goodwill they earned in the first two installments to the point that they had to reboot the series.

Let's keep piling on!
Venom is one of Spider-Man's most iconic villains. When Sam Raimi complained about him in pre-production and said that he didn't want to use him, it should have thrown up a red flag for us. Usually, if you're forced to do something you don't want to do, you don't give it your all. Venom certainly didn't get the big movie that he deserved.

In fact, Venom was really only like a bit character in Spider-Man 3. We spent so much time on the black suit and how it made Peter Parker all emo and mean that we didn't really get to the meat of Eddie Brock as Venom. When we finally do get a little bit of Venom, all he really does is catch Sandman, asks him to be BFFs and then they go off to fight Spider-Man.

Then, during the final fight, Venom is defeated by bells. Don't get me started on that.

Venom was wasted to such a grand degree that I'm sure the studio wanted him back for the next two installments. Raimi probably disagreed and they ended up parting ways. I wouldn't be surprised if Raimi purposely killed not only Eddie Brock but all vestiges of the suit just so that he could be rid of the character.

I'm sure that in the reboot, Venom is going to appear right at the beginning of the series. I mean, why waste our time doing character-building and slowly making Venom Spider-Man's biggest threat? Why not just jump right to the biggest villain right away? Who needs subtlety in the reboot?

That's why I get so mad at Raimi for using Venom so sparingly. He had an opportunity to take a character that he might not have had a lot of affection for and make it his own. He could have done for Venom what he did for Norman Osborn and Otto Octavious: Make them real characters. Instead, he just sniffed at Venom and tossed him aside, ticking him off like a checkbox on a form.

Next up, let's talk about how Dylan Baker as Curt Connors was used throughout the series. I know they were saving him for something, but all the waiting never produced anything. Maybe they were planning on using him in Spider-Man 4 or 5, but it still doesn't make any sense to wait that long. Curt Conners was already there and had a solid backstory. They could have almost jumped right into the action surrounding him. Instead, they spent an hour developing Flint Marko and wasted everyone's time.

That leads us to another problem. How many major characters were introduced in this movie? Eddie Brock, Gwen Tracy and Flint Marko, and Gwen Tracy's father was in the periphery as the police chief. Why? Why did we need so many new characters this late in the game?

Let's consider one of the best trilogies of the past decade and how it uses characters: The Bourne Trilogy. In the first movie, we're introduced to a lot of the major players. We have Jason Bourne, Nicky Parsons, Marie Kreutz, Ward Abbott and Alexander Conklin. (If you don't remember the character names, think of it this way: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Franka Potente, Brian Cox and Chris Cooper.)

At the end of the movie, only the first four are standing. In the second movie, they add in Joan Allen's character, Pamela Landy. By the end of the second movie, Bourne, Parsons, and Landy are the only major players left.

In the third movie they introduce Noah Vosen, played by David Strathairn. At the end of the movie, we're introduced to Dr. Hirsch, played by Albert Finney. When it's all over, Vosen and Hirsch are in prison, and everyone else is OK.

There are secondary characters who go in and out of the movie as well, but the movies don't concern themselves with filling those players out as much. They focus on the core cast and don't spend too much time worrying about the rest.

Here's the final tally for core characters:

Bourne Identity: 5
Bourne Supremacy: 5
Bourne Ultimatum: 5

Spider-Man 1 and 2 kept the cast pretty constant. They really only introduced Doc Ock in the second movie, and kept the rest intact. In the first movie, our core was Peter, Mary Jane, Aunt May, J. Jonah Jameson, Harry and Norman. There were other people around the edges, but those were the most important players. In the second movie, it was Peter, Mary Jane, Aunt May, J. Jonah Jameson, Harry, and Doc Ock. That's it.

In the third movie, our core is now Peter, Mary Jane, Aunt May (who's largely wasted), J. Jonah Jameson, Harry, Flint Marko, Eddie Brock and arguably Gwen Tracy.

Here's the final tally for core characters:

Spider-Man 1: 6
Spider-Man 2: 6
Spider-Man 3: 8

How can you juggle that many core characters in two hours worth of screentime? Unless you're Bryan Singer directing way above your head in X-Men 2, you really can't.

You may argue that Lord of the Rings juggled at least 10 core characters in each installment. That may be true, but each movie had three hours to do it in. When you have more time, you can juggle more characters. It's as simple as that.

What we're getting to is that Spider-Man 3 reached way over its head. It attempted to do too much with too many characters and ended up not developing any of its new leads in any satisfying way.

Now, let's circle back to Dylan Baker. Let's say we take out the Sandman as the big bad and replace him with Dylan Baker playing Curt Connors. Connors is already half-developed in our minds since we know him a little bit. Now we have the ability to spend more time with Eddie Brock and even Gwen Tracy if we're so inclined.

Click here for Part 4!

An Excessively Long Analysis of Spider-Man 3 (Part 2 of 4)

So where do the problems with Spider-Man 3 start? Let's begin.

The most outrageous error is near the beginning of the movie. We find that out Flint Marko, the man who will become Sandman, was really the man who killed Uncle Ben. This retcon doesn't work for one major reason: Ben's murder was pivotal to Spider-Man's development. It is, in essence, why Peter Parker is Peter Parker. Changing that little fact not only turns the plot of Spider-Man 3 on a dime but actually negates the pathos of the previous two movies.


Let's revisit the first movie for a moment. Peter Parker lets a criminal run past him because he feels slighted by the victim. Shortly thereafter, that same criminal kills his surrogate father. Because of that, Peter realizes that he has not only the power but the responsibility to protect others.

In the second movie, Peter explains to Aunt May (who was perfectly cast, by the way) what happened the night of Ben's murder in Spider-Man 2's most powerful and best-directed scene. It's the emotional crux of the whole movie, with everything building to that point.

Let's also not forget about Peter's imagined conversation with Ben in the car, where Ben reiterates, "With great power comes great responsibility." That's the theme of both movies, and it couldn't have happened without Peter's selfishness leading directly to his uncle's death.

You may argue, "But the criminal still got away and caused Uncle Ben's death indirectly either way! What does it matter how it happened?"

That may be true to some degree, but there's a great difference in between "This man killed my uncle after I let him go selfishly, holy crap I made a mistake" to "This man accidentally bumped the arm of the man who accidentally killed my uncle because he wanted to take care of his sick daughter." They're worlds apart, as a matter of fact. It takes the defining moment in Spider-Man's development and completely ruins it.

How badly did they ruin this moment? This badly: The first two movies, which were pitch-perfect, are being thrown out and rebooted for The Amazing Spider-Man, which already looks like a trainwreck on wheels. You could say that it's because Sam Raimi left the series, but that's not really fair. Plenty of series have changed directors and kept going. Spider-Man can't. When you ruin the character that much, how can you keep going?

This is where Raimi really shot himself in the foot from the very beginning. Yes, Sandman looked really cool. The scene of him congealing in the sandpit was pretty neat. His special effects looked awesome. But did Sandman work? Even if you eliminated Venom and gave the whole movie to Sandman, he still wouldn't work. Sometimes, what you personally like and the right decision aren't the same thing.

That's to say nothing of the other characters in the film. Harry Osborn is ruined too. Lest we forget, he gets amnesia at the very beginning of the film. The whole "Peter Vs. Harry" plot line we were expecting evaporated in a pile of lazy writers cliches. I mean, seriously, amnesia? If we're going whole-hog with lazy writer cliches, why don't we just put Harry in a snowed-in cabin while we're at it?

That's not the only problem, though. His character arc goes way off the rails in the third film after it was building logically throughout the first two. Let's follow his character arc throughout the first two movies:

Spider-Man 1: Harry competes with Peter Parker, and has everything that Peter wishes he had. Meanwhile, Harry doesn't receive the love and respect that he craves from his father and envies Peter for the family he has. Harry is in love with Mary Jane, and is distressed when Peter ends up with her. Harry thinks Spider-Man killed his father and vows revenge on Spider-Man.

Here's what we're setting up: Harry is constantly in competition with Peter, and once he realizes that Peter is Spider-Man, fecal matter is going to hit the rotating bladed device.

Spider-Man 2: Harry takes over Oscorp and is mad at Peter for "defending" Spider-Man. He makes a deal with Doc Ock so Harry can unmask and kill Spider-Man and finds that Peter is Spider-Man. While contemplating this, he starts hallucinating and finds that his father was really the Green Goblin.

Harry now has the tools to defeat Spider-Man and knows who he is, yet he also knows that his father wasn't a good guy. He still thinks Peter killed his father, true, but now he finds that he had a reason of sorts.

All of these character arcs are logical to some degree. It's logical to assume that Harry would be mad at the person who killed his father, and it's logical to assume that if his father had mental health issues (as it appeared he did), he would have similar issues and start hallucinating.

And now, let's take a wild trip off the rails:

Spider-Man 3: We start off with Harry trying to kill Spider-Man. Harry gets amnesia and starts falling for Mary Jane. His amnesia goes away, and he tries to destroy Peter by forcing Mary Jane to break up with Peter. Peter attacks Harry, disfiguring him. Then Harry, who by this point should be extra mad that Peter disfigured him, forgives Peter after the butler insists that Norman was killed with his own glider. Harry decides to help Spider-Man without reservations and accidentally gets killed.

Where do we begin? We've already touched on the ridiculousness of amnesia, but let's reiterate: Amnesia is a lazy crutch for writers who don't know what to do with a character. It appears that they thought Harry's character arc throughout Spider-Man 3 was going to move too fast and they wanted to slow it down some. That would seem to tell me that the problem is that Harry's arc was moving too fast, wouldn't it? Maybe the whole character arc in Spider-Man 3 was illogical and that's why it needed to be slowed down. I mean, in the end, the amnesia doesn't affect anything. It doesn't factor in to the second half of the movie, so it just appears that it was there as a stopgap.

In fact, the more you examine it, the more it sounds like a screenplay's first draft. The first screenplay I ever wrote had amnesia in it in the first two drafts before I realized that it was stupid. Maybe they just didn't get to the part of the rewrite process where they were able to excise that crutch safely.

Next, Spider-Man is getting a lot of notoriety, and Harry is the head of a major corporation. It certainly wouldn't be difficult to approach a newspaper and say, "Hey, I know who Spider-Man is. I've known the guy since he was a kid." Ta-da! You've just ruined Spider-Man!

Sure, Harry may have wanted to kill Spider-Man instead of just ruining him. However, if Harry wanted to kill Spider-Man, why did he force Peter and Mary Jane to break up? Does that make any sense to anyone? Sure, it hurt Peter, but Harry didn't really have an endgame for that. It seems that his focus shifted from killing Spider-Man to ruining Peter Parker anyway.

Next up, Peter disfigures Harry and the butler tells Harry, "Hey, chill, the guy didn't really kill your father." The proper reaction should have been, "Why didn't you tell me that much sooner?" Instead, Harry immediately starts being super-nice to Peter.

The dude just blew off half your face, Harry. You're telling me that you're going to be buddy-buddy with him all of a sudden? It doesn't matter whether or not he killed your father at this point.

Besides, wouldn't it be apparent from the very beginning that Spider-Man didn't kill Norman Osborn with his bare hands? Spider-Man never used knives or weapons, and it had to have been obvious to everyone that Norman had been stabbed in the chest. If the only evidence that the butler was going on was, "Norman was killed by his own glider," that still doesn't prove anything. Obviously he was stabbed. Spider-Man still could have caused Norman to be stabbed by his own glider, and in fact, he did.

In other words, Harry's reaction is overly simplistic. He veers from balls-out hatred to sneering manipulation to over-compensatingly nice. There's no grey area anywhere in his reactions, and in the first two movies he at least has some modulation.

You could also argue that his extreme mood swings were caused by the serum that his father gave him, but when was Norman Osborn ever especially nice because of the serum? It only ever made him angry, even staring down Aunt May over Thanksgiving dinner. It never made him especially happy.

"You're overanalyzing things," may be your reaction. However, I don't think I am. The previous movies stand up to this type of character study. When you start having to go down the rabbit hole in order to explain a character's motivations and reasoning in order to explain why they did what they did, that's the sign of poor characterization.

While there may be some plot holes based on lousy movie physics in the first two movies, the characters and their reactions are pretty consistent. When characters behave the way they should, you can get away with a lot more in the way of action-movie plot holes. When characters start doing wacky things that make no sense, you simply can't forgive the other missteps in a movie.

Circling back to the beginning of this analysis, that's why the musical sequence in Spider-Man 3 bothers us so much. It's not that it was lame. No one complained that Spider-Man 2 stopped while "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" played. In a worse movie, that could have been the Jar-Jar Moment. However, since Spider-Man 2 was good everywhere else, we had no problem sitting for a bit for some character development married to some 70's pop.

Since the character development in Spider-Man 3 was so very, very awful, we had no desire to sit through a dance sequence and a musical number. Instead of focusing on the nebulous things that didn't sit well with us throughout the movie, we instead focus on the one thing that above all others bothered us, or the Jar-Jar Moment.

Click here for Part 3!

An Excessively Long Analysis of Spider-Man 3 (Part 1 of 4)

Spider-Man made superhero movies mainstream.

Before Spider-Man, there had been exactly two successful superhero franchises: Superman and Batman. It's no surprise that these were also the two most famous superheroes with some of the most iconic imagery in comic book history.

After the rousing success of Spider-Man, X-Men 2 and then Spider-Man 2, studios started mining superhero franchises for all they were worth. That's why every single superhero that ever existed is getting its own franchise. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Bat-Mite movie.

The plus side of this? We're getting movies like Iron Man, where you have a great director tackling a complex and not entirely well-known character with an actor who's completely game and understands the point of the character. The downside? Movies like DareDevil, Elektra, and Ghost Rider, where the studio looks up from their pile of cocaine just long enough to greenlight a very misguided franchise.

However, by the time Spider-Man 3 hit, we were in the middle of a superhero renaissance. Sam Raimi showed that he "got" Peter Parker and understood how villains should work. In Spider-Man 2, Raimi gave Dr. Octopus real reasons for being the bad guy, deepened the relationship between Mary Jane and Peter Parker and had a bunch of cool action sequences to boot. He made these characters that were in impossible situations behave in real ways.

Keeping all that in mind, we were understandably psyched about Spider-Man 3. Here was a superhero movie that actually had the potential to be a bona-fide good superhero trilogy and tell a self-contained story from a director who just plain "got it"! Plus, Venom! How could they screw up Venom?

I always viewed the Spiderman movies as this: In the first movie, Spider-Man faced off against his equal in strength. Sure, Norman Osbourne was a scientist, but he was also as strong as Spidey. In the second movie, Spider-Man faced off against his equal in brains. Sure, Otto Octavious fought with Spider-Man too, but the main danger was in his research killing everyone.

In the third movie, I expected Venom to provide Spider-Man with his ultimate test: Himself. The symbiote would attach itself to Peter Parker and then carry what it learned to Eddie Brock or whomever would handle it.

What did we get instead?



The dancing sequence is frequently cited as the worst part of Spider-Man 3, but it really wasn't the biggest problem. It's more of a symptom than the actual disease. If the rest of the movie would have been good, it merely would have been a goofy diversion.

I read an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto where he talked about ideas. He said that when a project is going bad and you have an idea that's half good and half bad, you need to throw that idea out. If a project is going well and there's an idea that's about the same, you can use it.

Why is that the case? Because in a good project, the flaws are minimized. If everything else is clicking, you can hum right over some of the flaws without even noticing that they're there.

For instance, take 2009’s great movie The Dark Knight. It’s a fantastic movie, but if you scrutinize it, flaws bubble to the surface. For example, how did the Joker get tons of explosives into Gotham General Hospital, not to mention on to two heavily-guarded ships during a riot, and not get noticed? Someone would have certainly noticed the barrels of explosive sitting around, wouldn't they?

For that matter, after the Joker blows up Gotham General, he walks out of the hospital in full Joker makeup and gets on a bus without anyone even caring who he is. As they state later on, that bus is full of patients. Someone would have noticed and freaked out.

I’m not picking on The Dark Knight, and sorry if I ruined it for you. The point stands, though: Since the rest of the movie is so good, we gloss over those plot holes and goofy parts. They don't matter to us. We accept them and move on.

In Spider-Man 3, the dancing sequence bothers us because of the movie that surrounds it. Let's call this phenomenon the Jar-Jar Moment. It means that instead of being mad at the numerous faults of the movie that added up to make the whole thing bad, we focus on the one thing that is readily apparent. In Star Wars: Episode 1, that was Jar-Jar Binks. In Spider-Man 3, it was dancing. In a better movie those flaws may not have bothered us as much, but in a stinker it becomes a lightning rod of anger.

Instead of focusing my ire on that one scene, I argue that Spider-Man 3 went off the rails near the very beginning. Where did it all go wrong? We'll start from the very beginning and work our way through.

Click here for Part 2!

Star Trek Mini-Review

Just came back from it.

First, I hate "alternate timeline" stuff with a passion. If you hate it as much as I do, you might have some difficulty suspending belief.

That being said, this is about the best Star Trek movie I've seen. Not as good as Khan, but very, very impressive. There were a ton of little callbacks for fans, there were new relationships brought up, and a green space lady. It was quintessential Star Trek without...quite being Star Trek.

My only problem is now this: Since we're in an alternate timeline now, does that now invalidate The Next Generation? Deep Space Nine? Voyager? (Maybe we should invalidate Voyager.) I'm not sure I'm crazy about the implications of this new series, but as long as they don't harp on that, I'll be fine.

X-Men Origins Wolverine Review

I love Wolverine.  Anyone who loves comic book characters does or they're a godless communist.

That being said, I enjoyed the Wolverine for a couple of reasons.  One, I wanted a movie with lots of explosions and Wolverine walking away from them menacingly.  That's what I got.  I wanted a movie with Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber being awesome.  That's what I got.  Did I want the next Dark Knight?  That would have been nice, but not every movie can be great.  Sometimes we have to settle for "doesn't do any more than it needs to," and that's what Wolverine was.

Now, can the next movie be Deadpool's?  Thanks!

Weekend Update

Over the weekend we saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine and watched our first episode of Breaking Bad.  I'll have my thoughts on Wolverine tomorrow, but Breaking Bad was really good.

My wife really didn't want to like it.  She was saying that it made her uncomfortable, but then I pointed out that you weren't necessarily supposed to like these people and she got over it.  Plus, Bryan Cranston is absolutely amazing.  I always liked him going back to Malcolm in the Middle.  I thought he was the best thing about Malcolm, and that's saying a lot because I loved that show.  I'm going to go back and catch up on all the old episodes soon just so I can follow the plot a little better now.

So I'm Showing My Wife "The Wrath Of Khan"

I'm showing her The Wrath of Khan for the first time. She's thinking it's ok, but not really liking it. I finally get her full attention at the end for Spock's big scene and Kirk's funeral speech. This is the big moment where it all pays off, right?

So, Kirk says, "Of all the souls I've met, his was the most..." BRRRRING Her phone rings! Worst possible timing! I was so mad I turned it off. Ruined the movie.

We Watched "Doubt" The Other Night

It was really, really good. This is going to be SPOILER-HEAVY, so if you haven't seen the movie, look away like this is the Ark of the Covenant.

SPOILERS BELOW

I loved how the movie plays with your expectations. At first, you are totally on Father Flynn's side, played by one of my personal favorite actors, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Flynn is nice and fun-loving, gives good sermons, and stands in stark contrast to Meryl Streep's Sister Aloysius. I love how Doubt gets you on the side of the priest, then pulls the rug out from underneath you at the end.

There's a lot of subtext in the movie about the larger issues with the Catholic Church and its well-publicized issues with sexual misconduct among the clergy. When Sister Aloysius reveals her doubts at the end, she's speaking for a lot of people who love the church but aren't sure if it's the right way to go after seeing what they've seen.

However, I do wish that director John Patrick Shanley would have not played with the camera so much. There are some scenes where he tilts the camera needlessly, or frames something in a strange way just because he can. When you have Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep giving knockout performances, you don't need to draw attention away from them. That being said, I'm an admirer of Shanley, and he does fine work here as usual.

SPOILERS END

If you haven't seen Doubt, go see it. It's a quick movie, it's smart, it has great acting, and it'll make you think.

New Format, and a Mini Superman Review

I have a new updating schedule!

In hopes that having a regular schedule will convince people to look at this blog sometimes (Ha! Ha ha!), I am now making a shorter entry on Tuesday/Wednesday and a more in-depth entry on Fridays. This will force me to keep a deadline (something which I am sorely lacking), and also will give you, the reader, a specific time to check in with me.

So, what’s on tap for this week? Well, I saw Superman Returns this Saturday. Now, I know the rest of the world has moved on to Pirates of the Caribbean, but I’m not a big PotC fan. In my world, here is the hierarchy:

Superheroes > Pirates > Ninjas > Julia Roberts

I hope that clears things up.

I loved Superman Returns. The people we went with took issue with the ending, claiming it ruined the entire movie. I didn’t think so. Sure, it was a stereotypical ending, but it wasn’t as bad as they said it was. It’s a first-day DVD purchase for me.

So, there it is. That’s the new format I’m shooting for. Shorter early in the week, and then something big on Friday.

By the way, if you do read this blog, let me know with a comment or two. It would really help. I don’t ask for much.

Cars Review (The Movie, Not The Vehicles)

I don't know why I doubted Pixar.

You doubted too, I'm sure, when you saw the teaser trailer for "Cars." You saw the rusty tow truck saying "Dadgum!" just like I did. You thought that Pixar finally made a mistake. I did too. I don't blame you. It was the worst teaser trailer ever, possibly.

How does Cars stack up? It is very, very good. It ranks right up there with the other movies they've done, toe to toe.

Does it recycle the plot of other movies? Yes.

Does it feature racing, which for many people (like me) is not interesting? Yes.

Is it the best family film so far this year? Yes.

What makes it such a good film? The characters. Pixar always has great characters. It's such a basic thing, but they never seem to make a bad move. The rusty tow truck (His name is Mater, by the way) is actually funny. Paul Newman's crusty old Doc Hudson is well acted and very fleshed-out character. All this stuff that you don't think would work actually DOES work, and works well.

Now for the flaws. Is this a ground-breaking film? No. Have you seen a lot of this stuff before? Yeah. You have.

Will you enjoy this film? Undoubtedly. Go see it.

My review: 9.4/10

X-Men 3 Review

My lovely wife and I went to see X-Men 3 on Monday. My wife is a fan of the movies, and she used to watch the cartoons as a child in Mexico. (As a side note, you have not lived until you have seen Darkwing Duck in Spanish.) As for myself, I liked the cartoons as well, and never really got into the comic books, even though I wanted to. So, while we’re familiar with the X-Men, we’re not beholden to the comic storylines.

That being said, we loved the new X-Men movie. I was prepared for the worst, and was extremely surprised. The pacing is a little slow, and the new mutants are little more than window dressing, but the story is fantastic.

Here’s the story, in case you haven’t heard, revolves around a “cure” for mutants, derived from a mutant boy named Leech. While some mutants welcome this cure, others, such as Magneto, view the cure as a way to stamp out mutantkind, and draw the line thusly. Along the way, Jean Grey returns as the Phoenix, an uber-powerful mutant who can do, well, basically anything. She’s highly unstable, though, and is a danger to herself and others.

Brett Ratner, the director, has a reputation for making bad films. X-Men 3 is by no means a bad film, though, and it’s easy to see why. Ratner spends the film trying to ape Bryan Singer’s style for the previous movies, and, for the most part, it works. In some ways, it’s kind of cute, like the little flourishes that he hamfistedly tries to put in the make himself seem like a better director. He’s not Singer, that’s for sure, but in Singer’s absence, he fits the bill.

The effects are mostly pretty great, aside from a few fakey-looking things, as in most heavily CGI-ed movies. The Beast is very well played by Kelsey Grammer, and he looks great too. Angel’s wings look good, even though all he gets to do is fly around and looking broodingly handsome. A bunch more mutants get thrown into the mix, mostly on the side of Magneto, but they’re not really well developed.

So what makes this movie as good as I say it is? The story is fantastic, Jean Grey is amazing, and Wolverine, as always, is a fascinating character. Speaking of Wolverine, he’s much less tormented this time around, more definite in his pursuit of evil, which actually is a good thing. It completes the circle, from tormented soul to recovering warrior to bold knight. Is it what happens in the comics? I don’t know. Who cares? It works.

All in all, I found this movie extremely enjoyable. Sure, there’s some things that are a little off, but as a trilogy-ending movie, it really doesn’t miss.

One last thing: Don’t leave the theater until after the credits are done.

My score:

8.8/10

Mission: Impossible 3 Impressions

My lovely wife Ruth and I went to see Mission: Impossible 3, the new Tom Cruise vehicle. First of all, before I get into impressions, let me tell you a little bit about my M:I experience.

The first movie I saw when it came out, and didn't understand a word of it. I mean, I liked the action sequences, but the whole thing scrambled my brain. I saw the second one and loved it. Now, this was when I was a dumb kid. I mean, I loved Batman Forever. That should tell you about my movie tastes back then. Now, when I watch the movie, I can't believe how dumb it is, but I did like it way back when.

So.

I liked Mission: Impossible 3. It has its flaws, no doubt. Let's get the dumb stuff out of the way first. First, they have a machine that can analyze your brain and give you a real-time X-ray image, then detect and analyze a foreign object through bone and tissue, but they still have a defibrillator that takes 30 seconds to charge.

Second, because Tom Cruise is basically indestructible in these movies, there really isn't any suspense as far as his character goes. Wisely, they choose to put other characters in danger instead of Cruise, making it more suspenseful.

Third, the twist at the end is kind of predictable.

Those negatives out of the way, there was a lot to like about this movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman is very menacing. He's an interesting actor, and this gives him a chance to play around. Someone was telling me that they're mad that he sold out, but you can't make Important Movies all the time. Every once in a while you have to cut loose and have fun, and Hoffman does.

Tom Cruise is many times maligned for his acting. In this movie, though, he does a superb job stepping into Ethan Hunt's shoes once again, making you feel that he's actually concerned about these events. Hunt and his fiancee, played by Michelle Monaghan, never really generate a whole lot of heat, but that's okay. They're not supposed to. She's there to give him something to protect, and as a plot device, it works well.

Finally, the direction, handled by J.J. Abrams in his feature debut, is fantastic. If you've watched Alias in its first few seasons, you know what to expect. If you haven't, you're in for a treat, as Abrams enjoys taking the movie everywhere he can. Literally. He goes to the Vatican, Shanghai, everywhere. It's a fantastic ride, and he knows when to slow it down to give the movie weight.

All in all, this was a very well-made movie. It should get a lot more love than it's getting in the theatres, and it's my mission to make sure it does. My final score:

8.5/10

I Have Found The Man To Play The Joker In The New Batman Movie