Elsie, Steven, Hurricane Frank, Eddie and Tracey from Frozen
"Please don't hate Frozen, it's my favorite movie!" a hypothetical person once never said to me.
I don't hate Frozen. It's fine. I'm surprised Disney was able to release something that felt modern without offending all their more traditionally-inclined fans. It's a good movie to watch in the summer when you wish it was cold, or in the winter when you can relate to the characters as they shiver and freeze to death.
This review is a bit late, definitely, but I still need to talk about this film because I haven't heard any professional reviewers say what I feel about it, and that's my only condition for writing a review. I won't go over things others have covered more than enough – things like Olaf's ugly design or how layered the plot is for a children's film.
I'm not sure if I really need to say SPOILERS here, as everyone and their dog's seen Frozen. But I will.
~ S C R I P T ~
The film, for me, feels hastily written. Something about the pacing seems off and I have this overwhelming feeling that the world in the movie is a tiny, tiny place. This is called "small world syndrome". It's when a story doesn't allude to anything beyond what's happening onscreen. Yes, they mention a few kingdoms during the party scene, but do those kingdoms end up mattering in any way? Is anyone, besides the denizens of Arendelle, going to be affected by this "harsh winter", (going by the movie's logic that a harsh winter would be a bad thing to these people)? Small world syndrome can be played to a movie's advantage. Groundhog Day, for instance, uses it to make Phil seem even more entrapped by his situation. But Frozen wants me to think it's an epic. Giant snow-covered mountains, power ballads, Nordic chanting. In the end, they all seem so small to me. It's just a castle and a mountain, for the whole movie.
The characters in the movie are... fine. They aren't relatable to me, but not many are. Olaf is a tolerable comic relief sidekick character who I don't want to say anything more about. Anna is a ditz who never really stops being a ditz. Yes, she has a few revelatory moments, like when she realizes marrying someone you met two minutes ago isn't as great an idea as it might appear to be, but she isn't portrayed as being smart or strong. When Hans locks her away, does she try her hardest to escape? That room wasn't a dungeon. There were ways to get out. All of this makes her very unrelatable to me. But maybe that's the point. Maybe the movie is supposed to be all about Elsa's journey, and Anna is just another comic relief character. It's what the movie treats her like, anyway. And so, this movie's cast ends up being almost entirely comic relief characters, save for Hans and Elsa. Unsurprisingly, Hans and Elsa were my favorite characters. I wish they'd fleshed out Hans a bit more. After the big reveal, he flattened out into a straight-up villain with basically no redeeming qualities. Elsa also could've been contrasted a bit better than Anna. Someone who hadn't socially interacted for the majority of her life would've had a tougher time at that party, which also could have been a better source for her powers going haywire. Missed opportunity.
You may have noticed that I left some very important characters out of my roster. Let me now correct that error. By the way, for your personal health, you may not want to look at the image below.
Meanwhile, down at Fraggle Rock...
Yes, apparently rocks can talk, and unfortunately they can also sing. I don't know why these abominations are in the movie. They don't fit in the world at all. Moss shouldn't be able to grow in such a cold environment. Are we to understand that these rock trolls are just a natural occurrence, or were they created magically, which makes me wonder if there was some sort of Rock Witch with rock powers that came before Elsa and animated all of these rocks. As you can see, they raise more questions than they answer, and the fact that "Grand Pabbie" can only speak in the language of Cryptic Old Man doesn't help. All of that could be forgiven if they were funny, because comedy negates logic. Sadly, these characters are too stupid to be funny. Moving on.
Dialogue-wise, the movie is like someone giving a college tour. It's
sometimes funny, mostly awkward, and it doesn't add much to the experience.
"Look at that campus! Isn't it just the most amazing thing ever? I mean, I like to think so. But yeah!"
Maybe someone out there thinks it's an absolute riot, I thought it was padded and unwieldy. The best lines in the
movie are sung. I have a whole section for the songs, so I'll cover that later.
The songs in Frozen are a mixed bag, meaning both that they all sound different from each other, and that some are really good and some are really not good. I'll give little reviews for each of them because the film's soundtrack is such a big part of why people like it.
"Frozen Heart"
Though a misleading song to lead with, Frozen Heart is good at getting you excited about cutting some ice, I'll give it that. The lyrics are poetic in structure, and thoughtfully constructed to parallel elements of the plot. The melody IS a bit repetitive, but the song's short so it doesn't really matter.
"Do You Want to Build A Snowman?"
A very lonely, sad song that builds satisfyingly. To be honest it made me cry.
"For the First Time In Forever"
I don't really like this one. Though the melody is good, some of the lyrics are seriously cringe-worthy, ("I don't know if I'm elated or gassy" being a particular zenith of wince).
"Love Is an Open Door"
This song is bouncy and pretty funny lyrically, and has an ironic flavor to it because of the twist later. I'm not sure what the phrase "love is an open door" is supposed to mean. It's probably best that I don't read too much into it.
"Let It Go"
Brought a smile to my face the first time I heard it. It does bring to mind Defying Gravity from Wicked, though, which is similarly empowering. The melodies could be more interesting, but that's stretching for a nitpick.
"Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People"
Could've also been called "This Song is Funny, But Filler". I heard that they were going to make it the final song in the movie. That would've been awesome. As it is, it's one to skip.
"In Summer"
A vaudevillian number, brought to you by Olaf. It has a few funny lines, but again, it's basically filler because it doesn't reveal much beyond "Olaf wishes it were summer", and doesn't further the plot.
"Fixer Upper"
Atrocious. This is the worst song I've ever heard in a movie. Here's why: The joke is that the trolls are trying to pair up Anna and Kristoff, even though they keep protesting. That's already really awkward, but what makes it worse is that the joke gets dragged out to the point of being extremely uncomfortable. The trolls almost go through an entire wedding ceremony without realizing their mistake! Not to mention all the embarrassing things the trolls were saying about Kristoff. It felt invasive and wrong in general. It might've been saved by an interesting melody or a few clever lyrics, but there are none to be found here.
~ M I X E D M E S S A G E S ~
True love, everybody.
"Whaaaaaaaatt?"
There are a number of problems relating to the true love twist in this movie. I thought I'd go into more detail about it than I normally would because I'm writing this on Valentine's Day.
Frozen sets up a simple plot mechanic: people who get their hearts frozen need an act of true love to break the curse. I don't have a problem with that, despite Frozen's failure to explain anything about how magic works in its world or why these conditions would apply to the magic.
Here's a rule of thumb for the future: If your movie's magic behaves unconditionally, than you don't need to explain it. Take the Force, for instance. You don't need an explanation for it because there are no rules. You can push things both literally and figuratively, by moving objects and manipulating minds. If, say, a condition was placed where Jedi couldn't use the Force if there was no light present, then you would have to explain why.
Frozen sets up conditions, but doesn't explain them. It doesn't tell us why Elsa has powers or what the source of the magic is or why it can give life to a pile of snow or why it only controls ice and not water or why her ice dress looks like cloth, just to name a few.
But, as I said, I'll let it slide, for now, because it's based on a fairy tale that I'm sure explained about as much. Besides, poor magic system aside, I think they took a real risk on this one by not making Anna kiss Kristoff at the end of the story, like it would've played out in every other fairy tale. Oh, wait.
Chu!
I thought this movie was supposed to surprise us, to usher in a new era of modern Disney films that break free of the traditions of the past. I was almost willing to overlook the technicalities of breaking the curse with sisterly love instead of platonic love, because it's important to me that modern children's movies don't always tie knots around everyone's fingers. This movie made so many interesting decisions – Elsa as a good guy, Hans betraying Anna, tying Olaf into the back story – that having it all wind up with one of my least favorite tropes was like knocking the nose off the Sphinx.
And speaking of those technicalities, why DID sisterly love work? How does the magic measure love? For all they knew, they could've broken the curse by patting Anna's shoulder. And why use the modifier "true"? If they'd said "an act of love", Hans still wouldn't have been able to break the curse, and I could stop thinking about this and put the matter to rest. But they said "true" love, and sisterly love is basically like friendship love, just with the fact that you're related in the mix. It doesn't have anything on "true" love. So does Anna "truly" love Elsa? Fine, but I don't see a reason why she should. Elsa went out of her way to avoid Anna throughout most of Anna's life. It probably wasn't easy to feed herself or go to the bathroom without emerging from her room. I know Anna's an optimist, but it's kind of pushing it to assume she'd be okay with being ignored by her sister for that long. Maybe love I'd buy, since Anna's pretty forgiving, but seeing how Elsa kept pushing her away even after she was out of her room, "true" love just doesn't make sense.
In the end, it all boils down to how much this sort of thing bothers you, and for me, it brought the movie down to a "eh..." level.
~ F I N A L T H O U G H T S ~
I'm not sure why this movie was such a big success. I think that if somebody made an animated version of Wicked with attractively designed characters that teenagers would want to ornament their notebooks with, it would be met with a similar response.
A small side note: since the Academy Awards is upon us I want to mention something else. This film won the Best Animated Feature Award in 2013. For the reasons stated above in my review, I don't think it should've won. Most of the strength lies in the songs, and not in the movie sections, which is what the Academy is supposed to be about. It was a pretty lame decision, especially since The Wind Rises came out that year. I'll admit that I didn't find The Wind Rises particularly interesting, but that's because I'm young and I can't relate to older characters and perspectives. That doesn't mean it was a bad film, and it definitely earned an Oscar, unlike Frozen, which, like the Academy, chose safer choices.
As usual, I won't give a rating, because assigning a number to an experience is utterly pointless, (unless you use a point system! Ba-dum-tish!). Whether you agree or disagree with my opinion, I hope what I said helped affirm it.
I hope you had a nice Valentine's Day. My valentine this year was my computer, as always. Until next time.
Look, it's the obscure Marvel characters everyone was waiting for - The Thunderbolts!
I was waiting until the hype had died down and the pop-hating hipsters had begun to crawl out of the woodwork to write this review, because, you see, I didn’t enjoy Guardians as much as everyone else.
Maybe I’m not a space adventure type anymore. I loved Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but that phase is over. One of the problems with that series are its characters, I just never came to like them, and in the end, it was more about watching the animation than being impressed with incredible storytelling. The same is sort of true for Guardians.
This is a spoiler blog, ridden with spoilers about absolutely everything I talk about, but for the sake of those people who do nothing but complain that “you spoiled it”, spoiler alert.
Speaking of, quick rant here. If knowing just one plot twist ruins the entire movie for you, then maybe it isn’t such a great movie. That’s what I think about it. On the other hand, I’ve had some pretty shocking non-spoiled surprises in my experience, and I admit they were fun, but usually they occurred in shows or movies that already had tons of twists and turns, (Death Note, Men In Black), so if I’d known in advance it wouldn’t have “ruined” it completely.
But back to Guardians.
The movie is just average for me. It’s a nice day at the theater. Most people liked it, I’m not saying it’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in a theater, (that award goes to Cat in the Hat, which I walked out on).
So, let me clarify that I don’t hate this movie, I just don’t think it’s great, and it’s pretty low on my ranked Marvel movies. Here’s another “controversial” opinion of mine: I think Iron Man 3 was better. I’ll save that explanation for a later section of this assessment.
My status before reviewing: hungry, honestly. I had a bowl of rice for lunch around 2:30-ish and it’s 5:41 PM currently. That might either make me more negative about the movie, or give my “witty” remarks some extra bite. Oh, and I should mention… by this point you may have noticed, (you don’t care, who am I kidding), that I don’t put a synopsis of the movie in my review. That’s because it’s essentially review filler. Most of the people reading reviews just want a few short sentences, to tell them what to think, in a non-spoiler-y way. Those people aren’t supposed to be reading these. My assessments explore how I feel about movies in great depth, often to explore an opinion I have that most people don’t, and as such, they tend to be negative, although there are a few movies I love that everyone, (mostly movie critics), seem to hate, like National Treasure. (What? He likes that crap and not Guardians of the Galaxy?! Screw his opinion! Hey, I haven’t said my opinion yet, pretend parenthetical opposer! Shut up.)
So here it is: my Guardians of the Galaxy review.
~ T H E P L O T ~
The best part of the movie is the opening, where, yes, a cheesy death bed scene takes place that I and everyone else has seen too many times. But, being the sensitive person I am, I shed a few tears, wiped them away, stuck them in this tiny jar I always carry with me, and continued to watch the rest of the movie.
Can somebody please explain to me what makes this plot passable, especially for a modern movie? It’s a MacGuffin Quest, basically. Every RPG has one. It’s a lazy way to throw together a reason why your characters should interact. And that’s where the problem starts. You see, GOTG doesn’t have a very good villain, which can be said about a lot of Marvel movies, (cough cough Thor 2 cough). You might say, “Well, The Avengers had a MacGuffin Quest plot, and a great villain, so clearly the plot has nothing to do with how bad the villain was!”
Let me correct you, hypothetical person who I created simply to make a point, The Avengers actually wasn’t a MacGuffin Quest. True, everyone was after the Tesseract in the beginning, but they actually managed to get it before the movie even really started! It was, in actuality, a Fake-Out MacGuffin Plot.
For everyone who already knew this, I’m only mentioning it because I think the reason why Ronan was such a thin bad guy was because the movie never stopped being about the MacGuffin. If the focus had shifted to Ronan as the goal instead of just an obstacle to the goal, I think he would have had a stronger presence.
“Aren’t villains supposed to be the obstacle to the hero’s goal, though?” you could ask, if you’d thought of it, (I really need to invent a better way to present these counterarguments).
Simply put, no. ANTAGONIST and OBSTACLE are separate, though similar. Obstacles are just small distractions from the goal of the hero, and almost all the time, defeating the antagonist IS the goal, and victory over them results in a feast.
By the way, I hate that trope. You killed or locked someone away, time to celebrate! Yeah, that rarely ever happens in real life. I don’t remember a special parade or White House dinner when Osama Bin Laden was killed. Actually, here’s a quote from Yahoo! News about it:
"I hardly think you've seen any excessive celebration taking place here," Obama said at the news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. His voice was taut and his smile thin.
Yeah that trope needs to be killed off, (but remember not to celebrate afterwords).
Sorry, I tangented again. Guardians manages to somehow twist its MacGuffin plot into a “villain loses, all is saved” scenario at the end, but it wasn’t in time to save itself from all the plot contrivances.
But, lest I get caught up in pointlessness as usual, this movie isn’t actually about Ronan, or the big MacGuffin, it’s actually supposed to be about the characters, tying them together in a way that makes sense. Guess I’m the only one who can only have it two ways: Great Plot Great Characters, or Bad Characters Great Plot. I’m sorry, but I just can’t tolerate Great Characters Bad Plot. That’s one of the reasons The Addams Family Values is, at least to me, a better movie than The Addams Family, though those characters are SO great that it’s hard to find a plot that would be so bad even they couldn’t save it.
You know what? I’ll be forgiving. I’ll give the plot a pass. This movie doesn’t care about the plot, why should I? It doesn’t care about its throwaway villains, like the Collector, Thanos, and Gamora’s alien sister, so never mind me caring about them. This movie wants me to pay attention to its main characters, all five of them. So let me do that instead.
~ T H E C H A R A C T E R S ~
Star-Lord: Something seems really off to me about Star-Lord, (more on that in the Humor section of the review). He’s supposedly incompetent, yet he manages to get from point A to point B with hardly any trouble. He’s supposedly a ladykiller, but we don’t ever see him make a pass at Gamora, (or did I miss something? I’m not counting the heartfelt on the balcony, it wasn’t shallow enough for a ladykiller type of character, and if his arc was that he was overcoming his ladykiller ways, it certainly wasn’t an arc with a conclusion). He’s written like a swaggering Jack Sparrow, no-cares, just in it for the chuckles, tough guy, but Chris Pratt plays him like a sitcom dad. I’m pretty sure the casting choice was more of a “that guy’s relevant right now, and we can’t have a no-name in the starring role” type of thing or a “eh, it’s not what I imagined but let’s not deliberate too much over it and just cast him” type of thing than a “his performance blew me away with its accurate depiction of what was in my head when I wrote this part” type of thing. I’m the only one who brought up Chris Pratt’s acting as a point of inconsistency, at least in my conversations about the movie with my friends, so this may just be nitpick-y old me. But hey, I liked Pratt in The Lego Movie, so maybe it’s actually just a problem with the script.
Drax: Best character. He hits one note over and over, but it plays a sweet enough tune. I wasn’t looking forward to another Hulk Smash type of character, and I was actually surprised by the stereotype reversal, mostly because I’d stayed away from clips and new trailers, to keep from being spoiled, (yeah yeah I’m a hypocrite, sue me).
Gamora: The movie didn’t give me a reason to like this character. Her personality is this universe’s idea of normal, just completely bland most of the time, except when she’s fighting, which is almost never. Because the villains were pushed to the side, her sister never got to properly establish a conflict with her, and the fight between them was full of fast cuts and shaky cam, so I couldn’t even get a nice action scene out of it.
Rocket: Uh, wasn’t Rocket Australian? Whatever. Yeah, Rocket’s fine. There’s that nice scene of him at the end where Drax pats his furry little head. But he’s really much better when he stops talking, at least for me. He has kind of a “I’m sarcastic” tone that needed to be punched up with more aggression to sound like the Rocket I know and love, at least for me. That reminds me of another problem with this movie. These guys are supposed to be bounty hunters and assassins, right? So why does it never seem like they’re genuinely bad guys? Being an assassin is a BAD thing, right? It would’ve spiced up Rocket or Gamora a lot if they’d randomly killed someone during the movie just to get a bounty.
Groot: There’s a sort of irony in a character who’s written out of the dialogue scenes so much that they never have to say anything at all, but still constantly repeats the same line over and over, possibly just to annoy everyone watching. Yes, its redundant and lazy. I give it a pass. The main problem with Groot is that he’s Hulk, the original Marvel “brute with a heart” type of character. This makes him pretty average as a character to me. I might’ve laughed once or twice at his antics. I definitely cringed once, as I will explain in the “Humor” section.
John C. Reilly: Why bother putting his character name, he’s playing himself. He really doesn’t fit in this universe. Maybe just a quick cameo would’ve been better?
Glenn Close: That wig is kind of ugly, but she should be glad to have it on, because her character wouldn’t have made an impression without it.
The Dealer: Why did this guy have more screen time than the Collector?!
The Collector: The best part of the movie is just used as an exposition dumping vehicle. Sigh.
That Alien Guy With The Flute: Who is that guy again? He’s tolerable enough, but sometimes he really annoys me.
~ T H E H U M O R ~
I'm mostly fine with the humor in this movie, but it's a mixed bag, and that bag includes "cutesy humor", which I find uncomfortable and unfunny. It won't surprise you, therefore, to learn that I didn’t like Dancing Groot, which actually feeds into my dislike for the movie in general.
SIGHHHHHHHH... just tell me when it's over...
Dancing Groot toys, puppets, clips etc. keep cropping up everywhere like it’s the most amusing thing in Guardians, and it really isn’t. The movie’s sense of humor, even when it isn’t laugh out loud funny, is mostly subtle and character-based. I didn’t think the robotic leg joke was “hilarious” or “brilliant”, but I could appreciate it in a way that I can’t appreciate Dancing Groot, or Groot in general.
Oh, and Howard the Duck is awesome. Go read some of his comics!
~ A F I N A L S U M M A R Y ~
"What is the verdict, oh wise Sadly Thoughtful?"
My final thoughts on the movie are this: It’s a movie that no doubt took tons of work and creative decisions, but the work and creativity was all focused on making witty banter, which makes most of the scenes come off to me as “trying too hard”, and because the plot and main conflict of the movie isn’t there, it’s just this big shallow shell of a film, just barely holding up on its visuals and occasional wit alone.
That said, I think that the movie ultimately succeeds, in a purely calculative fashion. The humor echoes past Marvel films, through the “Puny god” wannabe moments strung throughout, and when it isn’t riding on sarcasm or random dance moves. The film tries to set itself apart from the others in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe by being “the weird movie”, the one with the 80s soundtrack and the obscure characters that were never given any depth to begin with in the comics. The problem with the obscure character angle is that for the most part, audiences everywhere just see these movies as “superhero” movies, not “Avengers” movies or “Iron Man” movies. Heck, even I didn’t REALLY know anything about Iron Man, even after his first movie came out, and I’m a massive nerd in all other respects. So basing all the movie’s uniqueness on the assumption that people thought Marvel was taking a risk was a mistake. Marvel has done nothing but take risks, on all its movies, just because of the fact that at least 50% of the people going into the movie don’t know anything about any of their characters, let alone Guardians. If the movie had tried to take even more risks, maybe a controversial politically charged line from one of the characters, a less in-your-face plot, or just one really morbid joke, I would’ve liked it more. The movie wants to be smart, an above average romp with unique characters, but it isn’t smart. It’s just a simple MacGuffin plot with at best two dimensional characters, and at worst total rip off characters, (watch the Honest Trailer for the film and it becomes pretty obvious who the Guardians are ripping off).
Exactly.
“Fun”, apparently, is a good counterargument to all my above complaints. I’ve heard a lot of people say they had fun at this movie. Good for them, but what makes this movie any more fun than Edge of Tomorrow, which was my favorite comic book film, (technically manga film), this year? And for me, Edge of Tomorrow just comes off as more genuine, smarter, and actually a bigger risk, because it’s based on a foreign property nobody had heard of, and was mostly just banking on its plot and star power to carry it at the box office.
I know some people didn’t like that film, but even if you didn’t, you can’t deny that a decent amount of energy was spent on the plot.
But what you were probably waiting for, (who am I kidding, you don’t care), is my comparison to Iron Man 3, and why I think that movie is better. In a word: “risks.”
Iron Man demonstrates how naturally cool he is, without even having to blow things up.
Iron Man 2 was panned by everyone, and yes, it’s pretty bad, except for a few funny lines from Whiplash and that car chase action scene, which I thought was pretty cool. It was a risk to assume people would even watch more Iron Man. And of course, then there was the twist in IM3. Now THAT was a risk! I respect Iron Man 3 for being brave enough to ruin a character just for a plot twist, (and a pretty funny joke if you stop being angry about it for a second). Even if it sucks for fans of the character, it at least makes the movie a controversial issue, so nerds have something to talk about after the movie. Guardians doesn’t offer much to talk about, unless you count “Remember that joke that was funny?” as a good discussion starter.
Aside from that, IM3 keeps the witty banter light when it needs to be, and it’s almost always delivered with impeccable timing, thanks to Robert Downey Jr. The plot wasn’t great, but it wasn’t a MacGuffin fetch quest either. I had a cold the day I saw it, and even that didn’t stop me from enjoying the movie. So, for me, IM3 is better than Guardians, at least in pure entertainment value, which, let’s be honest, is the only thing a Marvel movie sets out to accomplish.
~ M Y B I A S ( A . K . A . T H E H Y P E ) ~
Believe it or not, I do not hate fun, or admitting that I have fun. It’s just that at this point, I’ve seen so many television shows, so many movies, and absorbed so much content that there’s very little that surprises me.
And so, for at least one full day in the past, I was really excited about seeing Guardians of the Galaxy.
I was caught up in it’s new-ness, how obscure the characters were, without really thinking it through. I didn’t think the trailer was especially funny, but there’s a rule I have when it comes to movie marketing: 90% of the movie isn’t properly represented by the advertising. Case in point: Tangled (made it look like a really stupid, unfunny movie), The Incredibles (oh god have you seen the main trailer for that? Ghastly), Non-Stop (made it look like a thought provoking thriller).
And so, I allowed myself to be excited. Then, the day came, I saw the movie, and… I couldn’t talk at length about it. There was nothing interesting to discuss, except all the ways in which it didn’t work.
So there you are.
Agree? Probably not, looking at the Rotten Tomatoes score for this movie. Disagree? Most likely, as that’s been the direction things have gone when I’ve posted my opinion in public forums.
Whatever you think, I hope the second movie takes bigger risks. And also that eventually one day Marvel will make a Black Widow movie.
PS: I didn’t like Dark Knight either. This review by Sasha Arijanto pretty much sums up all that I'd say about it, except for the part about liking Lana Del Ray. I also liked Spider Man 3. That pretty much covers all of my controversial opinions about superhero movies. Please note that if a movie really clicked with me in some unexplainable way, then I would consider it a good movie, bad points aside. Guardians didn't manage to accomplish that. Hopefully the sequel will!
HGTV, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, Discovery, HBO and Sci-Fi
I’m just going to get my SPOILER ALERT out of the way up here. I should also mention that I almost never go spoiler-free in my assessments.
Before I watched the movie, my Oscar predictions went something like this:
The Lego Movie (will win) How to Train Your Dragon 2 (might win) Boxtrolls (too good for the Oscars) Big Hero 6 (too Japanese for the Oscars) Book of Life (too Mexican for the Oscars) Song of the Sea (too Irish for the Oscars) The Tale of Princess Kaguya (extremely too Japanese for the Oscars)
And, after seeing Big Hero 6, only one thing changed:
Big Hero 6 (too thin for the Oscars)
There are too reasons for this. One is that the movie doesn’t feel very Asian. As someone who watches anime regularly, I’m familiar with the tropes and style of Asian culture and this movie didn’t give off the same feeling of an anime at all.
This was really disappointing for me because I was looking forward to seeing a film for kids do something as well-paced and magical as a Ghibli film, but with a superhero twist. Instead, it turns out that setting it in “San Fransokyo” has absolutely no bearing on the plot, tone or style of the movie. It’s really just a Western movie with a backdrop of an Asian-like city. It makes me want to watch the film dubbed in Japanese, just to get some of that Asian feel that I wanted going into the movie.
The other reason is the incredibly thin plot of the movie. Other reviews have covered that extensively, so I won’t bother with it here, but yeah, it was a big problem for me. Why was it about revenge? Why give Hiro a revenge arc? Revenge arcs are tricky to pull off. It has to feel justified. You need to be with the protagonist in wanting revenge, surprised when they find it in their heart to forgive, and generally nodding along with every choice they make. I think there were a lot of problems with the way they handled this, though. In case you don't remember, the revenge story went something like this:
Hiro sees his brother Tadashi run into a building to save Professor Callaghan, and it explodes. Later, Hiro concludes that a person wearing a Bleach-like mask named Yokai stole his invention and tracks him down. When Yokai is revealed to be Callaghan, Hiro swears vengeance because his brother died in vain.
The problem with Big Hero 6’s revenge arc is that the event seems distant. Did Hiro see this guy kill Tadashi in front of his eyes? No. And the reason to be mad is as thin as the plot. Because his brother died in vain? Yeah, blame the survivor! Hiro isn’t an idiot. He’s smart. That’s why it annoyed me to see him channeling his anger like this. Why couldn’t he understand that Tadashi made a choice to stupidly run into a flaming building? And it disturbed me just how much Hiro seemed to want to brutally murder Yokai. I think less time should’ve been given to that and more time given to developing the other characters. Not to say that the other characters didn't make an impression, despite having nothing to do. I hope GoGo Tamago gets her own spinoff.
For all my gripes with this one, it’s harmless. It just feels too much like a How to Train Your Dragon expy for me to fully enjoy, and it’s disappointing how it doesn’t embrace the spirit of anime. Most of the problems will be fixed in the sequels, hopefully. Speaking of, what are they going to name them?
Big Hero 7? Big Hero 6 2? Big Hero VIII? Big Hero 6: Lost in New York? Big Hero 6: Now For Some Proper Character Development?
From left to right: Shaggy, Velma, Fred, Daphne and Scooby-Doo.
I was really looking forward to seeing Inside Out. The teaser, among other things, makes it less of a "Oh yes, this is going to be awesome" movie, and more of a "Fingers crossed it doesn't suck like everything leading up to its release has suggested so far" movie.
When I first heard about it, I thought it was going to be a really unique take on the human mind, but then I heard that they were going to personify emotions. Been there, done that. And very cleverly, I might add. Check out Brain Divided. Not only is it streamlined, (only four characters), it's full of visual gags, and the animation's pretty great too. We don't need a feature-length movie of that, it works fine as a short. Do I like the concept? Of course! It's a great concept! But Pixar hasn't done anything surprising with it so far. I thought it was going to be more abstract, watching beams of light travel through the cranium or something, and over time we'd learn how to spot what was going on when light was illuminating a particular tube.You know, something controversial and interesting.
Now, about the teaser. I don't care that they show clips from old movies, that's fine. They've done that for other teasers and if they released the teaser with just the material they have it'd be ten seconds long. But I do take issue with their choice of clips. Hey, remember what you love about Pixar! The touching moments, the brilliant writing, the incredible animation, the expert design and composition and lighting and of course, all the farting!
NO NONO NONO NONO.
My favorite thing about Pixar is how much they downplay juvenile humor. When it appears, I cringe and carry on, knowing it's probably the only crude joke I'll have to sit through. Good job, Pixar, you made me disgusted. I sure hope that's what you wanted.
Also, am I the only one who doesn't like the emotion character design at all? They look like gumdrops. Why is their hair sparkling like that, do they all have dandruff or something? Why is Joy colored so terribly? Blue hair and orange skin?! And why is she glowing like a bad iMovie Bloom effect?! That's going to bug me throughout the whole movie. Remember, this is a studio that makes extensive color scripts for the entire film. COLOR SCRIPTS!
Okay, there's still some hope. From what little I saw of Riley, I can tell she's going to be an interesting main character. We'll probably get a contrast between the colorful world inside her head and the mundane world outside. Also, the fact that she has two male-looking emotions in her head is an interesting take on femininity/masculinity, (I doubt that's what they had in mind, but I'll remember that while I'm watching in case they point to it). I'm also curious to see how they're going to convey when one emotion is predominant over the others.
I wrote this piece because I looked all over the internet, (or spent two minutes of my time searching "Inside Out terrible", whatever you choose to believe), and I didn't come up with an article expressing the same opinions I just expressed here. Maybe that means people are going to like it, maybe it means they're in for a fall. In the meantime, I'm going to wait it out for the next trailer, and decide whether I'll see it based on that.
Meet the incredibly wooden characters... yeah, you knew that pun was coming.
It really, really pains me to do this, because this movie SHOULD'VE been an awesome, quirky, dark but fun children's movie with an intricate and beautifully crafted world. I was definitely expecting more. In my How to Train Your Dragon 2 review, I predicted that it would be better than people expected. Well, it... wasn't.
Rotten Tomatoes' little description reads like this: "The Book of Life's gorgeous animation is a treat, but it's a pity that its story lacks the same level of craft and detail that its thrilling visuals provide."
Unfortunately, the reviews on the movie go into just about as much detail. I've read all of the rotten reviews, and they barely scratched the SURFACE of why this movie is a complete disaster. For every good thing, there's a bad thing, much like a certain celebration full of festivities and sugar skulls that constantly reminds you that someone you loved died.
Of course, I'm going to analyze every single aspect of this train-wreck and that means SPOILER ALERT.
Now without any further blabbing, let's start the fiesta, (more like the siesta), that is The Book of Life.
The story is actually the least of this movie's problems. I have no complaints about a simple romance story with an underworld twist. Simple is usually better, (the "usually" I put in that sentence is worth an entirely different discussion. Maybe some other time). I actually really like the premise, a good director could get a lot of mileage out of it. Just look at Corpse Bride, which is basically the same story and equally as visually appealing. I don't LOVE Corpse Bride but it's not the shot to the frontal lobe this atrocity is, so clearly they did something right. Anyway, note that I said GOOD director. I know it's the Jorge Gutierrez's first project, and Guillermo probably wanted his style to shine through, but that was total misstep. There's no doubt in my mind that if Del Toro had directed this flick than it would've been much quirkier, much smarter, more fun, and funnier then it turned out. But enough ranting out of context, here's why this movie misfires every step of the way.
~ THE ANIMATION ~
I know "the animation" is the first thing anyone will praise about this movie, but what they're talking about is the visual element. I'm talking about the movements of the characters and how long the camera stays still. It's incredibly distracting how every character whips their limbs around faster than Johnny Test on Monster Energy. The camera doesn't linger very long on anything, either. Watching it in 3D was stressful. I think my eyes crossed during the second act because of how much was being shoved in my face.
I guess the movie doesn't trust its dialogue to carry a scene with subtlety and depth in the animated movements of the characters, (and with good reason, but I'll get to that in a moment), instead relying on the old: "Kids like action. All. The. Time," mantra. The weird thing is that the movement is inconsistent, but always distracting. Sometimes they'll be whipping about, during comedic moments or action fights scenes, in which case my eyes can barely register what's going on. Other times, they'll move like the story's taking place on the Moon. They look floaty and weightless, in other words.
Check out this scene for an illustration of that, and pay attention to the moment where Manolo and Joaquin are fighting.
Like I said earlier, for every bad thing there's a good thing. In this case, that would be the visuals, which ARE extremely well lit, composed, designed, etc. etc. I do have an issue with the textures though. If I said I bought that these characters were made of real wood I'd be lying, so I guess the aim was puppets as guideline, fun design as the rule. Sometimes a surface will look really, really... computer-y to me. But the majority of audiences won't notice.
~ THE SCRIPT ~
Oh yes, the script. That little thing. My guess is that the visual style was the thing the movie was made for, because if you gave me this script and told me to pay you to make a movie out of it, I'd laugh in your face. And fire you.
This is the most pander-y, boring, unfunny, offensive, hypocritical script I've ever had the privilege of despising. What makes it worse is that kids won't care. They'll watch the movie and think "Wow! That was just as good as The Lego Movie!" Well, it's your opinion, hypothetical child, but I disagree with every fiber of my soul. I cringed so many times during this movie. I thought I was cured. I thought I could handle kid's movies now. I only cringed once during How to Train Your Dragon 2! Oh wait, sorry, did I just compare that script to this? My mistake. In my review of that particular movie, I chided the movie's insistence on "Oh yeah!"s and "Woo-hoo!"s. I'll take them over this movie's forced energetics and bland self-aware, reference-based humor.
It reminds me of the only thing I didn't like in The Lego Movie, which were some of it's less-than stellar jokes. In fact, they actually stole a joke from The Lego Movie when Manolo falls in the Land of the Remembered sequence. Basically, this kind of humor is what I call "Listless Awkward Antics And Manic Energy", which I will acronym to simply "LAAAME". Though that pretty much speaks for itself in regards to my opinion about this type of humor, let me describe why I hate it. 1. It excludes adults.
This kind of humor is so pandering, so dumb, and so hard to sit through that unless you're a "World's Number One Dad"-type I can't picture anyone over the age of seven enjoying it. This wouldn't be a problem if the movie was Carebears and made nothing but safe jokes that are clearly aimed at kids, but this movie has lots of adult jokes, some subtle, some not so much, so this is completely inexcusable. It's two extremes, there's no middle ground. One second there are men drooling over women, the next, meme references "cleverly" disguised with spastic animation. As someone who believes that children's films, especially animation, should be as smart, daring and interesting as adult films, this comes off as pathetic and irritating.
2. It's hard to laugh at unabashedly.
Like I said, unless you have no inhibitions, this humor won't work at all for you. You need smart jokes to balance the dumb jokes in order to not look like an idiot. As much as I don't like Dumb and Dumber, I know there are jokes in there that would make me laugh. The smart stuff and the dumb stuff is properly balanced. This is just high-fructose energy with no funny to back it up. It's the humor equivalent of a beggar in the street yelling random words at objects, in other words, it's more sad than amusing. 3. It has a wearing effect on the viewer.
Have you ever eaten only one thing for a month, like cereal or Chinese take-out? This humor is shallow, grating, and isn't diverse. There's no rest from the slog. It just keeps punching you in the face.
Can I find it in my heart to forgive the humor? Surely, there are people who enjoy it. Actually, at the screening I attended, there were kids genuinely laughing at some of the jokes. So why can't I let it slide? Because of one simple thing. It was CONFUSING.
The setting was ancient Mexico. The framing device, (which I'll get to in a second), established the story as being an old story, so all these modern day references felt extremely out of place. It's a classic example of sacrificing character-based humor for shallow gags.
~ THE GOD-AWFUL FRAMING DEVICE ~
The film opens in Mexico, just before the denizens of a little village begin to celebrate the Day of the Dead. The film's unique style of wooden characters is elegantly presented. The film trusts audiences to adjust to the style of the movie, without having to explain why anyone is made of wood. After all, did A Bug's Life need to explain why the characters were all bugs? Of course not. Audiences are smart. Kids don't care. Everyone's happy.
What? Who are we kidding?! American audiences don't understand that!! Let's add the gratuitous framing device of a field trip! Yes, because if there's anything kids want to see, it's an educational trip to the museum. Why, they won't have ever experienced that before! I'm so glad the magic of cinema stepped in, to highlight something we didn't even know we were missing. Romance? Adventure? They can't educate anyone!
Yeah, you know a children movie's script is bad when it panders to the parents. There's no reason to have this framing device. It ruins everything. The opening scene is supposed to set a tone for the entire movie. Apparently the tone of this movie is America Learns About Mexico, by the Education Agency.
For an example of a framing device gone right, see Princess Bride. When you look at the facts, these framing devices accomplish the same things, basically.
• They let the audience avatar step out of the story, to let the characters be characters without having to additionally take on the role of audience avatar.
• They allow for ironic/self-aware/lampshaded commentary on the events in the story being framed.
• They involve a grown-up telling a story to a kid, perhaps inspiring real life parents to do the same.
• They both end with a moral.
The reason why one sucks the life from the story and the other elevates it is because The Book of Life's framing device fails on every single point.
The Book of Life's audience avatars are nothing BUT avatars. The movie doesn't care about them, and you shouldn't either. Princess Bride's, on the other hand, are endearing and relatable. I think one of the reasons why the framing device characters appall me might be because they're clearly not having fun, and it's covered up by just making them talk really fast and energetically. Perhaps they're faking their enthusiasm. Anything to interrupt the terrible story.
The Book of Life's commentary is abysmal. These kids don't have any insight into what's happening. Why should I care what they have to say? It doesn't help that their characters are inconsistent. Why is that kid wearing a punk outfit and spikes scared of death and blood? You subverted the wrong expectation, movie! I guess it would've worked if he'd been a bit sensitive, but because of this movie's "Dial It Up" brand of LAAAME he violently overreacts to everything instead.
There's one little joke that works, which is that at one point he says something along the lines of, "What's up with all the death?! We're just kids!" I like how self-aware that is. But one joke doesn't save this shoddy framework. Why is Princess Bride's commentary better? For the same reason that that one little joke worked: because it's primarily character-based, with a pinch of irony. The kid in Princess Bride doesn't like romance. That's ironic, because he's in a romance movie. The kid in The Book of Life doesn't like death, which is ironic because he's in a movie about the Day of the Dead.
The Book of Life's teacher/student dynamic is disgustingly polished-apple saccharine, not to mention offensive. One of the kids keeps talking about how pretty the teacher is. Guess the animators needed an ego boost. I'm not familiar with Christina Applegate's body of work, so I don't know how much talent is being wasted, but I recognize her name so that's worth something. This part feels like it was written for a no-name voice actor. Anybody could've done it. What a waste of star power. It doesn't help that this teacher is written like a clerk at Hannaford's: "Good morning class, please proceed to the 14 items or fewer line." Compare Princess Bride's dynamic, which is grandfather/grandchild. It's not often explored, and the movie's excellent writing gives us a good reason to keep returning to the frame: it's just as witty and interesting as the rest of the movie.*
I'm not sure who would be inspired to read a story to their kids after The Book of Life. I mean, it's inspiring to a teacher, but not parents. The dynamic is just so impersonal. There's almost a visible boundary between the teacher and the students. The kids are kids and the teacher is a teacher. This isn't about bonding. This isn't about friendship. It's cold and professional.
Finally, there's the moral. How incredibly tacked on it feels. "Be Yourself". Yeah, so what?! That kind of moral is like telling me killing is bad! Oh wait, THEY DID! I wouldn't care if it was subtle, or if the movie showed HOW to be yourself, or WHY killing is bad, but of course they don't do that. Instead, I get the moral shoved in my face throughout the movie, and the one-dimensional main character constantly TELLS me how unsure of himself he is instead of BEING unsure of himself. He says he doesn't want to kill bulls when bullfighting. Oh, okay, so you're going to solve conflicts peacefully, right? Well, we sort of get that. At the end of the second act, Manolo faces off against a giant bull, and then gets him to back down by singing a sappy pop song on an acoustic guitar. Right afterwords, the characters fight a huge battle. What was the message again? Something about resolving conflict through - oh, never mind, FIGHT FIGHT ACTION TIMMMEEE!!!
*By the way, I know that there are some people who don't like Princess Bride. You still can't deny that it's extremely quotable. I didn't like Anchorman, but I can't deny the thousands of people typing "That escalated quickly" on the internet right now.
~ THE VOICE ACTING ~
As I said before, the movie tries and fails to blend tradition with a modern twist, which unfortunately once again leads to a comparison with How to Train Your Dragon 2. I don't like the Americanized Vikings idea. It sucks. You know what? I forgive it. At least it's consistent. For some reason the voice actors can't decide whether to go with full-on Mexican accents or go with "modern", which for some reason means "American". Some of them even switch accents halfway through sentences! Aren't you glad that a Mexican movie, made by Mexicans, about Mexicans, with Mexican themes, about a Mexican holiday, stars... Channing Tatum, Ron Perlman and Christina Applegate? Go Mexico!
At least Deigo Luna's in this, that's all I have to say.
~ THE MUSIC ~
Ugh, electronic music? What an unpleasant surprise. Oh and, thanks for ruining "Just a Friend" for me. I thought that was an original song, (and therefore an original joke), when I first heard it in the trailer. You know what the worst part is? The majority of the audience will too.
The music also rips off a lot of other scores, and as such, has no life of its own. I found out recently that Jessica's theme from Who Framed Roger Rabbit was improvised by a jazz band. How cool would it have been to have had The Book of Life's score improvised by a mariachi band?
~ THE OVERWORLD CHARACTERS ~
Manolo is your average loner. Except he's in an annoying comic relief band so I don't understand how he's alone, but anyway, his main motivation is this girl, Maria, (who needs a whole section of this review for herself, I'll get to it in a minute). He's also a bullfighter who doesn't want to kill the bull at the end of the fight. Oh, and he has some boring daddy issues. I guess my main problem with him is that he's as bland and corny as a corn tortilla. His approach to romance is simple: sing pop songs and light candles. His personality is The Hapless Lover. Wait, isn't that his motivation? Ha ha, of course it is, this movie doesn't care about giving our main protagonist a personality, even though the framing device sure as Underworld allowed it by already including an audience surrogate.
Joaquin is manly and boasts all the time. The ironic thing is, I think he's more deserving of Maria than Manolo. He constantly talks about himself, so what? At least he's honest! And just because he WANTS Maria in the kitchen doesn't mean she HAS to go there, because she's disobedient, remember? And who knows, maybe without the medal, he'd have learned some humility and lost that particular flaw. He saved Manolo's life without considering his own! I think that shows a step in the right direction.
The Pig is a mascot character who should've acted as Maria's confidant, but instead he gets ugly and sidelined after the flashback's over because Maria is so one-dimensional that she doesn't have thoughts or feelings to express.
Chakal is this well-designed bandit guy who gets introduced at the end for the big battle. He's just as one-dimensional as everyone else but at least he's fun to look at.
~ THE UNDERWORLD CHARACTERS ~
La Muerte is actually pretty cool. Basically what Maria should've been. Nice relationship with Xibalba. They're honestly the only part of this movie that completely works.
Xibalba's design is a bit confusing. Why is his neck glowing? But I like the skull pupils and he has a great voice, thanks to Mr. Perlman.
The Candle Maker is a horrid black stereotype. It disturbs me to think that kids were meant to find this funny. Not cool, movie.
There are two cousins of Manolo's that he meets in the Underworld who I thought were pretty cool, at least until they started talking like Valley Girls. Why couldn't the story have been about them? Wasted opportunity.
~ I JUST MET A GIRL NAMED MARIA ~
Okay, so the whole plot of this movie revolves around Maria, basically. And that's where the trouble starts. She's completely boring! She's "read books". Okay, which books? She knows "how to fence". Then why is she using a sword and not a foil?!
As far as I can tell, the whole point is to protect the hand, not to look fancy.
The movie may have been well intentioned by including a feminist message, but it doesn't come off that way. The reason is that it's clearly not a feminist movie. The whole story is centered around a love triangle where the only people benefiting are men. Maria doesn't get anything out of a relationship with Manolo or Joaquin, they're both idiots! One brags about himself all the time, and the other pretends to care by singing sappy love songs! Neither of them actually spend time talking with Maria, or getting to know her. They're just high off a childhood crush, without any consideration as to who she is in the present. It's deeply ironic that the film makes a point about how only talking
about yourself is wrong, when it never shows an alternative.
The fact that both the guys are idiots ruins the main focus of the movie — the romance. The pursuit of Maria has zero tension because I hate Manolo just as much as I hate Joaquin. Neither of them deserve Maria, frankly. In fact, they repulsed me so much I half expected Maria to walk off with some other guy entirely. Then, at the end of the movie, when Joaquin saves Manolo's worthless life, and I knew they were still going to have Manolo end up with Maria, I was incredibly disappointed. The movie clearly wanted me to want those two together, but it didn't work at all for me.
This movie would have been less offensive if it had unabashedly offered a love story with two idiotic men, and an idiotic women who they both loved. That way, it's all evenly dealt. Or, they could've made Manolo more intelligent, to connect to Maria on an intellectual level. Instead, it says "We have a strong female character! But don't worry, she doesn't do much and, deep down inside she's just the same weakling all women are." Yeah, check those little boxes, Mr. Executive.
• A few poop jokes for the kiddies, shoved in the beginning there so we get that PG rating taken care of. √
• Lots of yelling. √
• Blah blah moral blah blah true to yourself or whatever. √
• Blah blah female doesn't want to be in the kitchen. √
• Oh, now that we've said that we're allowed to have some men drool over her as a joke, haha! √
This doesn't just tick me off, it's also degrading to the character. This was the final nail in the coffin for me, and that's the main reason why everything leading up to this point has been negatively flavored. To get something so integral to the movie so wrong is unforgivable.
~ SO WHAT DID I LIKE? ~
I always save the positive stuff for last, it's like a dessert after a toxic waste main course. It softens the blow dealt by earlier attacks to the body. And there is some positive stuff to be had.
Xibalba and La Muerte have a good dynamic. I like their love/hate relationship. Also, even if I didn't like how Xibalba and La Muete were constantly teleporting around, it was still fun to see the poofing effect. There was also a very funny morbid joke that Xibalba made in the cemetery.
The film has a bunch of lame moral messages, but there was one that was important, which was the anti bull killing message. Apparently that's a real problem in Mexico.
There was a scene at the end where Manolo's family helped him climb up to a church's roof that I found very touching. There was also some religious symbolism going on, not only there, but also through the presence of a bunch of nuns, who were the only funny running gag in the film.
The visuals are very striking. This is probably what blinded most of the film's critics to the flaws. Either they didn't care or thought it was just light entertainment for kids and didn't make a big deal out of it. Well, I'm Sadly Thoughtful, and, sadly, I think about these things a lot. If something about this film was irking you and you didn't know what it was, maybe I've shed some light on it. That was the point of this review.
I don't want to see this film again, but if I did, I might be able to enjoy it a little more now that I've ranted about it. I understand that this film has fans, as does everything that looks pretty. But sometimes you have to go deeper than surface.
And there is one last good thing I have to say about this movie, which is that it's plot is fairly complex, which I like a great deal. In fact, it's what I wish I could say about Big Hero 6, but that's another review...
I'm a big Spiderman fan. I've watched the original trilogy, and the Spectacular Spiderman TV show twice. I've read hundreds of old Spiderman comics, (I have about six or seven omnibuses).
What I've always loved about Spiderman is that A. He's not a sidekick, and he doesn't have one either, B. He's got a great, consistent power set that can mostly be explained by science, C. He's got one of the best rogues galleries, and D. He's relatable and funny, even when he's fighting.
I felt like The Amazing Spiderman was a great adaptation. I didn't mind seeing the origin again, mostly because it was too cheesy and over the top for me in the original. Even the elements that I'd seen in other movies were fresh, new, and different feeling just because the character of Peter Parker was so much better. In the original, I never bought that he was a dorky, nebbish, or awkward. Tobey Maguire doesn't look like a nerd, at least to me. In the reboot, the awkwardness was there. Peter was always kind of a loner, and it made sense to transition him into that crowd, mostly because the negative connotations with geeks has gone away. But loners will always be outcasts, and in a way, the ultimate underdogs.
I was really looking forward to the sequel. And I was disappointed. Let me examine that.
First of all, I haven't eaten anything since the huge late breakfast I had at around eleven this morning. So if this sounds even the slightest bit cranky, you can blame that. I'll try to suppress the urge to rage. Oh, and... spoiler alert.
Amazing Spiderman 2 is a train wreck. It's a well built machine that tragically crashes, leaving all who boarded either dead or stranded. The elements at play here, the screenwriter's only friends: plot, characters, and tone, can help explain why this movie didn't work.
~ T H E P L O T ~
I like complex plots. I don't mind multiple subplots either. It didn't bother me that Peter was attempting to figure out his father's past while his girlfriend was graduating and going off to college and the Rhino was building a suit and Harry Osborn and Peter got back together because Harry's father was dying and Harry needed Spiderman's blood because HE was dying and did I even mention Electro yet!? But yeah, none of that really bothered me. I could keep track of everything.
What I think went wrong was the handling of these multiple stories.
I know material was cut from the film, just like it was from the last film. When is the studio going to cut it out, (excuse the pun)? When will they learn not to butcher every Amazing Spiderman film to death? But that aside, the sequences were arranged in some really odd ways. If you're going to cut out material, how about you cut that completely random opening with Peter's father? During the entire scene I was wondering if TheNovember Man had been released several months early. I think it would've worked better as a flashback, or maybe it should've been cut and Spiderman action could've opened the film instead. The first scene sets the tone for the film. The tone of the film was not spy action thriller. It was supposed to be a fun Spidey adventure with dramatic elements.
So clearly, I have an issue with the beginning. But I also have an issue with the ending. I didn't really like the Incredibles-style Rhino battle. I got immediately what it was doing. It was trying to end on an exciting, anticipatory note, with Spidey swinging into action again. The problem is, in order to do that, it had to montage past Gwen's death. If you're going to have Gwen die in this one, which I guess was inevitable but there was a better way to do that, at least respect and hold that moment until the end. Give us a little hope, maybe. Like Peter looking over to his costume, then at the trashcan, and then getting up and leaving, unable to decide just yet. But having a full blown action scene didn't work, because it made it seem like Peter had gotten over it really fast. Remember, we didn't live through those months where he was getting over it because you skipped all of them! The only part about the death that worked was seeing that web try to snag her. I thought it was beautiful and well paced, and I felt some real tension there even though I knew that it was coming.
The other subplots were handled pretty well, save two, but I'll get to THAT in the characters section.
~ T H E C H A R A C T E R S ~
Peter Parker. He's just as good as the last movie, and he has some great obstacles to overcome and new types of relationships to showcase, like the friendship he has with Harry. No problems there.
Gwen's also as great as before, with character growth revolving around her decision to leave Peter to go to college, and a few funny lines.
Harry's great. Norman's great.
Aunt May's okay, I'm surprised there was time for her to be in the movie, but there was and it's actually kind of fun to see her and Peter's relationship after Ben died, since the last movie had to skip some of that to get to Spidey action.
But enough about what works, back to what's wrong.
So. Electro. Spiderman has a great rogue's gallery, as I mentioned above. His movie franchises have great, tragic villains. I liked Lizard from the last movie. Yeah, we got that stupid Gollum moment again, (what is up with that?!), but he wasn't that forgettable, really, and I like how they handled his nose and gradual transformation. Here we get Electro. This should've been awesome, but I think they tried to inject too much character here. What I mean is that they tried TOO hard to make him sympathetic, almost to the point where it was like watching a cartoon. The one moment that worked was when he snapped at the Oscorp employee, and then we see that it was just in his head. A lot of screen time was devoted to Max Dillon and Electro, but honestly when I try to remember Electro's scenes all I can remember is Max opening a fridge and seeing a cake, Max internally snapping at the Oscorp guy, Max getting shocked, Electro in Times Square, and Itsy Bitsy Spider, (which by the way, I didn't recognize at all when I first heard it in the movie). So basically, the stuff I remember is the IMPORTANT stuff. The stuff that should've been kept in and everything else cut out. If you must have Electro, Rhino, and Green Goblin in your movie, please make way for them. Which brings me to my second character gripe.
Green Goblin. I didn't like that Green Goblin was in the movie at all. I think having subplots about Harry and then maybe a tease at the very end would've untangled a lot of the subplot problems. Furthermore, I think Gwen should've been done in by Electro, not Green Goblin. Who cares if the fans get on your back about it, Gwen's death didn't need the complexity of having to introduce Green Goblin to the final battle. Keep it simple.
And finally, Rhino. I mentioned before that I didn't like the ending. It wasn't just because Rhino was ruining the aftermath of Gwen's death, it was also because... the mech suit didn't look that great. Mech suits need to be properly balanced looking. I understand that maybe they were going for a rough prototype look, but still. Even if Rhinos have tiny arms and legs and huge heads, tweak the anatomy for crying out loud! It looks really weird, guys. Maybe take a look at some of the comic versions of the suit, I'm sure someone's done an awesome mech version of it before.
Like this one!
...this one looks kind of fat, guys.
~ T O N E ~
The sad thing is, like a train wreck, there are pieces of the film that still work, like the parts of the train that are still functional after the crash. Unfortunately, the most important parts of the train broke. What this admittedly bad metaphor is trying to illustrate is how there is some genuinely good stuff trying to alleviate the bad. And it almost works. The scene where Peter's distracting the guards surprised me. I thought it was really funny. The closet scene was pretty funny. It seemed improvised, which made it feel a bit amateurish to me, however, I think the charm of the actors showed through enough to salvage it.
I liked Peter missing the graduation, that was kind of a callback to the comics, which I appreciated. I liked all the Gwen/Peter chemistry and the Peter/Harry chemistry, and yes, even the Harry/Norman chemistry. The main actors were great, the script was clearly the problem.
There was a scene during the movie that made the entire movie ten times worse for me, though, and is the reason why my overall feeling with the film is "Ehhh." The Ravencroft scene. I don't know why the movie suddenly tried to go Young Frankenstein-esque goofy, but it REALLY didn't work. The over-the-top scientist was almost unbearable to watch. It ruined the tone of the movie. Other, small things that ruined the tone were some of the jokes around Max Dillon and how goofy evil Green Goblin was. But I could forgive those if the Ravencroft scene had been scrapped, or at least made more serious. This is supposed to be a gritty reboot of Spiderman, (though it usually manages to shake that off and be lots of fun in spite of itself), so when you can go darker, the idea is to go darker, not to flip the switch and give us a Disney prison!
~ I N S U M M A R Y ~
Cut opening scene, have Spiderman chase scene open the movie. It was fun and funny. Don't fast forward over Gwen's death. Either make the Rhino awesome or cut out that ending. Eliminate all the goofiness. Give us less Electro back story and more Electro. Don't just give Electro puns to say. Give him some awesome, quotable lines to say too. Don't make Harry Green Goblin yet, just establish Peter and Harry's relationship for now.
And, while I'm at it, in the next movie... Don't introduce Mary Jane right away. That's cold and contrived after what just happened to Gwen. Upgrade that Rhino suit, or make the arms bigger at least. Give J.K. Simmons the role of James Jonah Jameson, nobody cares if it's the same actor from the other movies. He was born to play that role! And please, don't do the Clone Saga or the Black Suit Saga. And don't introduce Black Cat yet unless the Sinister Six movie covers Green Goblin.
So there you go, that's what's wrong, in my opinion. I tried to include everything, but chances are I missed something, so I'll probably edit this post in the future. Thanks for reading.
