Adventures In The Spider-Verse Part 1

Not long ago, I finally caught up with the latest Marvel movie, SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, which opened last December. I enjoyed the film, and it made me wax nostalgic about the different incarnations of Spider-Man I’ve experienced over the years. So join me as we take a trip back to a groovy time.

Note: Despite the image at the top of this post, this walk down Memory Lane doesn’t include, except in passing, the many animated versions of Spider-Man, or the comics that ran through the decades covered here.

 

When I was a five or six year old in the ‘70s, I became a fan of the web slinger via his appearances on The Electric Company. This was an educational PBS program that ran from 1971-1977, and featured such stars as Rita Moreno, Morgan Freeman, and, uh, Bill Cosby. The show posited itself as the hip alternative or companion to Sesame Street, and one way they grabbed kids’ attention was to align themselves with one of the hippest comic book characters of the day.

The recurring sketches entitled “Spidey Super Stories,” starred Danny Seagren, a puppeteer and professional dancer, who made history as the first live-action Spider-Man. Seagren’s version of the superhero never spoke (except in silent word bubbles), never appeared unmasked as Peter Parker, and never fought any of his normal foes like Lizard, Dr. Octopus, the Green Goblin, who were replaced by such supposedly evil entities as the Can Crusher, Mr. Measles, and Spoiler (who I guess spoils endings to movies, ‘cause what else can it mean?). Freeman apparently honed his narrator chops here as he lent his distinctive voice to explain Spider-Man’s motives to kids.

 

Over the run of 29 mini-episodes, Spider-Man was very popular with my elementary school mates who started collecting Spidey comics, and toys. My Mom even made me a Spider-Man costume, which I weirdly wore to school one regretful day. Anyway, the widespread love for The Electric Company shorts must’ve inspired somebody at CBS to give the already iconic character his own show.

 

The result, The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Nicholas Hammond (LORD OF THE FLIES, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD), made its debut in September 1977. One could say Hammond was the first feature-length live-action Spider-Man as the series started off with a 2-hour TV movie, and was released theatrically overseas.

I remember watching the show, but feeling bored by it. Like in his previous post, he didn’t fight any classic baddies, and his demeanor was cold, devoid of the snappy one-liners that he spouted as much as he spun webs. Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee said in an interview, “They left out the humor. They left out the human interest and personality, and playing up characterizations and personal problems.” 

 

I liked Hammond, and the effects were actually pretty good for the time, but the show wasn’t given any chance to grow as it was cancelled after only 13 episodes. So in 1979, after two television adaptations, the concept of a live-action Spider-Man was dead in the water.

 

That is, until the mid ‘80s, when Orion Pictures, and the B-movie master, Roger Corman, attempted to resurrect his corpse. Corman had the film rights to Spider-Man, but only briefly as his option expired, and Cannon Films swept in to give Marvel Comics $250,000, and a percentage of the gross, to make the first real SPIDER-MAN movie.

Coming up: The fate of the Cannon collaboration, the time that James Cameron was poised to take over the character, and the rebirth of the iconic web-slinger in the wake of 9/11.

Click here for Part 2

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CAPTAIN MARVEL: Spectacularly Adequate But The Cat Steals The Show

Now playing everywhere:

CAPTAIN MARVEL

(Dirs. Anna Boden & Ryan K. Fleck, 2018) 

The 21st movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe introduces a new character, Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel. Actually, a new old character as she’s been around for 50 years, so she’s new to the MCU, and new to me. I’ve, of course, heard of Captain Marvel, but didn’t know about her back story, or powers, or, well, anything really.

But I’ve been here before. Whenever they put out a new movie featuring characters I wasn’t previously familiar with, I head to Wikipedia and learn the basics so I at least have an inkling of understanding going in.

In this origin story, we are introduced to the lead character played by Brie Larson as Vers, a member of Starforce (that’s Starforce, not Spaceforce) on the planet, Hala, which is inhabited by the alien race, Kree. We also meet Vers’ mentor, Yon Rogg (Jude Law) who is training her to fight the shape-shifting, green-skinned Skrulls, who have been endlessly warring with the Kree.

Larson’s Vers, who is plagued with visions involving Annette Bening as Supreme Intelligence (that’s her actual character name, well, one of her character names here), gets captured by the Skrulls, and escapes in a pod that crash lands in 1995 Los Angeles (through the roof of Blockbuster Video, mind you). From here on out, the movie’s soundtrack is all ‘90s hits – Nirvana’s “Come as You Are,” Salt-N-Pepa’s “Whatta Man,” Elastica’s “Connection,” Garbage’s “Only Happy When It Rains,” etc. (Larson even wears a Nine Inch Nails T-shirt at one point).

Soon after, S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and Phillip J. Coulson (Clark Gregg), show up on the scene, both digitally de-aged (there’s always gotta be some digital de-aging in these flicks, you know?). Then there is simultaneously a foot chase on the LA Metro, a car chase, and a bunch of furious fist fights. Fury and Vers team up to, you know, save the world from an alien threat, the twist being that the ones we thought were the good guys may not be. Not that that is much of a twist.

Danvers and Fury find one of her old friends, fellow fighter pilot Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), who joins them on the adventure, and Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), who turns out to be not so bad, also comes along for the ride – oh, and to save his fellow Skrulls. Oh, and the McGuffin is once again the Tesseract (it’s been in around half of these Marvel movies), a cosmic, blue-glowing cube that can control matter and energy.

Vers begins to figure out something that most moviegoers will figure out right off that bat – she was an Airforce fighter pilot named Carol Danvers (the “Vers” come from her dogtag getting fractured in a plane crash that gave her her powers (I’m not going to explain anything more than that).

It’s a zippy adventure that fun to watch, even if you can pretty much guess everything right before it happens. The one element I didn’t expect was a cat named Goose who totally steals the show. 

The cat stows away on the military plane that Danvers and Fury commandeered, and even follows them up into space. That’s where we learn that Goose isn’t a cat, he’s a Flerkin, which are alien creatures that resemble ordinary earth cats except when they shoot masses of tentacles out of their mouths, or swallow whole objects or people.

Goose could be seen as an update of Jonesy from ALIEN - think orange cat on a spaceship – but if Jonesy could annihilate hoards of attackers. Now, Jackson is always really funny, but I’m not sure he’s ever been as funny as he is here talking cute and lovey to Goose.

I like Larson quite a bit, and think she won the Oscar for ROOM for good reason. She puts in a solidly stoical performance in the title role here, but sometimes I felt maybe she was taking it all a bit too seriously. No matter, the character still works despite than when I squint she looks like Supergirl. The plot is no great shakes, story beats can be seen way in advance, and some of the MCU tropes seem a little stale, but it’s still a fun superhero movie with enough cleverness to keep most entertained.

The audience I was in for this film were with it big-time because the regular roster of MCU characters that fill in the margins of the studio logo was replaced with a montage of images of Stan Lee’s many cameos throughout the franchise. It got big applause – the first time I’ve seen a logo get that kind of response. Of course, there was also his obligatory cameo later in the film (he had shot a bunch of cameos for upcoming films before he passed last November).

Except for Goose the Flerkin, CAPTAIN MARVEL is, at best, spectacularly adequate. That still means, like most Marvel movies, it’s well worth the price of ticket. Just make sure that, like always, you stay for the end credits stingers. But, of course, you know that; everybody knows that.

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SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE Is Crazy Cluttered Cool

Currently the #1 movie at the box office:

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

(Dirs. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, & Rodney Rothman, 2018) 

I keep thinking this is called INTO THE SPIDEY-VERSE because when I was a kid, my introduction to the character was on the The Electric Company, a kids show on PBS. The program featured the first live-action version of Spider-Man appearing in skits called “Spidey Super Stories.” This happened in the mid ‘70s, so yeah, I’m old.

But I’m not too old to appreciate Sony’s first feature-length animated Spider-Man movie as it’s a zippy, kinetic, and even psychedelic ride with a likable lead in the form of Shameik Moore voicing Miles Morales. Actually, maybe we should consider Morales to be the co lead, as, you know, this a Spider-Man film.

It starts off with our web-slinging hero being voiced by Chris Pine, who says through voice-over narration “let’s go over this one more time…” and we yet again get Spider-Man’s back story. In a BATMAN LEGO MOVIE way, we see that the canon of references are from all of the previous Spider-Man movies, and even include that embarrassing emo dance from SPIDER-MAN 3.

But Pine’s incarnation of the character doesn’t last long as he is killed during a fight with the Green Goblin (Jorma Taccone), and Kingpin (Leiv Schreiber). That’s right, killed. His death is witnessed my Miles, who had just been bit by a genetically modified spider so he’s got Spidey-sense too. So while the world mourns the fallen hero, Miles costumes up, and he goes through the comical motions of trying to climb walls, shoot webs, and swing through the city just like we seen time and time again.

(Spoiler!) Turns out that Spider-Man died in Miles’ dimension but is alive in another as a washed out, cynical, divorced (from Mary Jane voiced by Zoë Kravitz), schlub voiced by Jake Johnson. I know he’s always been a wise-cracking character, but Johnson’s take on Spider-Man gone to seed seems more like Deadpool than Peter Parker.

So the plot has to do with this super collider thing that can open portals to other universes that Kingpin wants to use to get his wife and kid back from some alternate world causing a giant black hole under New York.

Coming to help Miles out from the multi-verse is an array of different Spider-people: Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), a Japanese-American schoolgirl rendered in anime; Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), a hilarious hard-nosed black-and-white detective who looks like something out of the Watchmen; Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), who is actually from Miles’ universe, and, most amusing, Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), aka Peter Porker, who seems to have come from the Warner Bros. cartoon dimension.

As for the non Spider-people, there are well chosen appearances by Brian Tyree Henry, Mahershala Ali, Kathryn Hahn Luna Lauren Velez, Lily Tomlin, and maybe one of the best cameos in the whole Marvel movie franchise by Stan Lee.

The busy blend of all these different animation styles –shots can flicker from shiny, exquisitely rendered imagery to old school, hand-drawn, comic book flatness in flash after flash – wore me out in the second half. There are so many characters and plot points to keep up with, and the pacing of the action sequences came close to breaking my brain. It’s like they were trying cram every single idea that every digital artist for Sony Pictures Imageworks had into every frame.

But there’s a lot of energy and wit in Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman’s screenplay for SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, and the whole snazzy look of it is really cool despite being so damn cluttered at times. You’ll definitely get plenty of bang for your buck here.

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AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON: Satisfyingly More Of The Same

Now playing at every multiplex in the galaxy and beyond:

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

(Dir. Joss Whedon, 2015)

If you live on planet Earth, you’re aware that today the Marvel machine is rolling out the biggest super hero movie of the year - sorry, ANT-MAN, but, c’mon!

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (from this point on, A:AOU), the sequel to the biggest superhero movie of 2012, THE AVENGERS, and the 11th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise that began with the first IRON MAN back in 2008, is here to officially kick off the summer 2015 movie season - sorry, FURIOUS 7.

But if you’re reading this, you most likely know all that, and just want to know if this highly anticipated, star-studded, and CGI-saturated production lives up to its huge hype.

I’ll say - yeah, it does. I had a tremendous amount of fun watching the reunited team - Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America/Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) – working together with lots of wit and energy to defeat the powerful robotic villain Ultron (voiced by James Spader).

This adventure begins with an already-in-progress action sequence, involving the comic book crew storming the castle of Hydra leader Baron von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) in the icy terrain of the fictional European nation of Sokovia.

Amid the standard chaos and wisecracks (most of which are pretty funny) we are introduced to a couple of new characters, brother and sister duo Pietro/Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). “He’s fast, she’s weird,” is what SHIELD’s Maria Hill (the also returning Cobie Smulders) says of their powers, which means that Pietro can move at supersonic speeds, while Wanda can manipulate minds with magic.

The Avengers rescue Loki’s scepter, one of the McGuffins of the series, and return to their headquarters at the Stark Tower Complex in Manhattan, where we actually get to hang out with the guys as they party, and engage in a game of taking turns trying to lift Thor’s hammer. Meanwhile, Stark’s Ultron project, which is supposed to be a global peacekeeping program, is co-opted by the scepter and becomes sentient.

That means Spader, who in addition to providing the voice, performed on set in a motion-capture suit, takes over as the movie’s major villain, and sets out to wipe out humanity (“There is only one path to peace... your extinction”).

As if he thinks we don’t have enough characters to keep up with, Whedon keeps piling them on. We meet Barton’s (Renner, in case you forgot) wife (Linda Cardellini of Freaks and Geeks and Mad Men fame) and kids living at a “safe house” farm where the Avengers lay low between battles, geneticist Helen Cho (Claudia Kim) who gets co-opted by Ultron, arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, a motion capture master himself), and the re-occuring role of Stark’s A.I. companion J.A.R.V.I.S. (voiced by Paul Betttany) is expanded via a red and green android body (Bettany in the flesh).

There’s also the many cameos from the MCU including Don Cheadle getting in a few good one-liners again as as James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine and Anthony Mackie getting in a few glaring grins as Sam Wilson/Falcon, along with appearances by Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Idris Elba as Heimdall, and of course, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, who no Marvel movie should be without. And yes, there’s a Stan Lee cameo, but, c'mon, you knew there would be.

Yes, A:AOU covers every single fan-pleasing base it can in its 2 hour and 21 minute running time and is a pretty bloated affair because of it, but it swiftly juggles all these strands until they collide in the big climax set on a ginourmous hunk of a Sokovian city land mass that Ultron has lifted from the earth and is planning on crashing down. The Avengers try to save the city's people while warring with the armies of robots that are all forms of Ultron (in a MATRIX sort of way I guess).

The special effects, of course put together by thousands of digital artists, are flawlessly top notch, but it’s the human moments that give a lot of heart, soul, and humor to this enterprise. A romance blooming between Ruffalo’s Banner (another invested portrayal - where's this guy's Hulk movie?) and Johansson’s Romanoff adds a thoughtful touch, and while Downey Jr.’s Stark is still full of snark, there’s an unmistakable conscience behind it. The rest of the gang also have their moments, but Hemsworth's Thor is still my least favorite Avenger.

Spader, even with only a mechanical presence, makes for a powerfully worthy foe, one who gets his share of well delivered quips and takes delight in destruction.

If this is Whedon’s final fling with the super hero franchise, he went out with a multitude of big bangs. Maybe they’re all riffs on the familiar formulaic tropes of the genre we’re all used to, but that doesn’t make them any less effective. 

A:AOU is winningly and satisfyingly more of the same; it’s everything a superhero superfan would want out of a Marvel movie. Non fans who haven’t been won over by any of the movies in the series before won’t be converted by it, but I seriously doubt many of them will have read this far into this review anyway.

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THOR: THE DARK WORLD: A Marvel Mess Of A Sorry Super Hero Sequel

Now playing at multiplexes in all of the 9 realms:

THOR: THE DARK WORLD
(Dir. Alan Taylor, 2013)

One thing certainly hasn’t changed for me in this follow-up to both Kenneth Branaugh’s 2011 origin story, and Joss Whedon’s 2012 super hero ensemble smash THE AVENGERS:’s Thor, portrayed by Chris Hemsworth, remains my least favorite member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

However Hemsworth, who showed some decent chops in Ron Howard’s RUSH earlier this year, isn’t the one to blame. It’s the fault of screenwriters Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely who fail to make the Norse God into much of a compelling character. They also don’t succeed in creating much excitement in their unwieldly plotline, which I struggled to follow through tons of nonsensical exposition and a bunch of boring set pieces.

This installment deals with Thor being forced to team up with Loki (Tom Hiddleston, reprising his villainous role from THOR and THE AVENGERS) in order to stop an ancient race of Dark Elves led by Malakith (Christoper Eccleston) from conquering the 9 realms, of which Earth is one. Threading through this is the threat of a floating red fluid life force called the Aether that infects Thor’s love interest, the returning Natalie Portman.

Also reprising their roles from the first one are Anthony Hopkins as Thor’s father, Idris Elba as Norse God Heimdall, Stellan Skarsgård as Dr. Erik Selvig, Rene Russo as Thor’s stepmother, and for comic relief there's Kat Dennings, taking a break from her trashy sitcom Two Broke Girls.

So there’s a likable cast caught up in all this mayhem, and fans of the formula will surely appreciate the surprise appearance from one of the other Avengers, the obligatory Stan Lee cameo, and the requisite after the credits stinger, (sadly Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson doesn't pop up as he’s busy with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. these days), but these elements just don't have their usual zing here.

No matter how high they try to make the stakes, what with the fate of the universe hanging in the balance, it never really seems like Thor or anybody or anything is in any danger. 

As you’ve probably seen in the trailers, Thor obliterates a ginormous rock monster into tiny boulder bits with just one swing of his mighty hammer and then casually tosses off a standard action hero one-liner: “Anyone else?” This got a big laugh at the screening I attended, but I groaned. The scene is intended for us to be impressed by the power of our protagonist, but for me it perfectly displays that the indestructible Thor is one smug douche. And people say Superman is boring.

Of course, we don’t trust Loki to begin with so none of the twists in their scenario have any impact, but there’s a little fun to be had with Hemsworth and Hiddleston’s bickering - a little. 

Unfortunately again there’s zero chemistry between Hemsworth and Portman, who acts like she’s an awkward lovesick character in a fluffy rom com, except when she’s in an alien space junk-induced trance in strained close-ups.

THOR INTO DARKNESS, sorry, THOR: THE DARK WORLD doesn’t even try to be bigger and better than the first one. It’s just another big ass CGI-saturated sequel outfitted in useless 3D – seriously, I can’t recall a single instance of the imagery being helped by the tediously trendy device.

The only real surprise for me was the odd bit of casting of Chris O’Dowd, the Irish comic actor who comedy fans know as Kristen Wiig's love interest in BRIDESMAIDS and Roy in the British sitcom The IT Crowd, as a guy who goes on a blind date with Portman early on in the movie before Thor returns to earth.

O’Dowd is only in two scenes: the date scene which gets interrupted by Dennings, and a later bit in which O’Dowd phones Portman for a second date, and his signal somehow helps her and Thor reconnect to another realm or something, I can’t remember exactly how.

O’Dowd is on the sidelines disconnected from all the chaotic events, with no character being straight with him, or caring that he has no idea what’s going on. In the mist of this Marvel mess, I so know how he felt.

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5 Things Spider-Man 3 Got Pretty RIGHT / 5 Things It Got Drastically WRONG

So yeah, I saw Sam Raimi's big new superhero sequel SPIDER-MAN 3, which opened last weekend. It's been getting tremendous amount of backlash - for example, Manohla Dargis of the New York Times called it "aesthetically and conceptually wrung out." Many others have lamented that the fun has gone out of the series, and while I wouldn't exactly say that, I do agree that it is a very mixed bag. Here's how mixed:

5 Things SPIDER-MAN 3 Got Pretty RIGHT: 

1. Much better special effects: In the first two installments, Spider-man (Tobey Maquire) web-slinging his way from building to building looked video gamey, and at times borderline absurd, but now has a fluid graceful believability. 

Nice to see that the reportedely most expensive movie ever has its money up there on the screen.

2. The Sandman: 

Thomas Haden Church is perfectly cast as escaped felon Flint Marco who accidentally fell into an experimental particle physics site that molecularly binds him with sand, so he gets fantastical shape-shifting powers. Like all the villains in the franchise he's really not evil deep down in his heart - he's just computer generated that way.

3. The Black Suit: Yep, shiny goth Spidey looks pretty cool. That was evident in the trailers from a year ago though. But no - I'm not gonna copy 'n paste that same ole brooding dark SPIDERMAN in "the thinker" pose promo photo and post it here.

4. Venom: Though only named in the credits - a satisfyingly scary villain (especially when he grits his teeth) albeit in a movie with one villain too many - damn I said I'd save the cons and there I went again. Anyway since the other half of this element is covered in the cons I'll just say this - Venom has bite. 

5. The obligatory yet hugely satisfying Stan Lee and Bruce Campbell cameos: Appropriately cheesy Spider-man creator Stan Lee's quick pep-talk appearance to a battered soul-fried Parker hits the spot - "You know, I guess one person really can make a difference...". You tell him Marvel Man! And wouldn't we all feel cheated if we didn't get Bruce Campbell for the third time to cameo? His pretentious French Maitre d' may not have anything on John Cleese in MONTY PYTHON'S THE MEANING OF LIFE but in this film it's one of the only bits of comedy that worked - "I love romance. I am French."

Now to let the disses truly fly: 

5 things SPIDERMAN 3 got drastically WRONG:

1. J.K. Simmons: As newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson Simmons was dead on in the first 2 installments but here his fast talking manipulative shtick is tired, unfunny and only annoys the audience every time he appears. 

Maybe it was Simmons' Simpsons appearance from last season that fully wore down the character - "stop the presses, send my wife some flowers, get me an Advil - what do you mean you don't work for me? You're hired! Now that you're hired you're fired. Now that you don't work here we can be friends - now that we're friends how come you don't call? Some friend you are!" I guess once the Simpsons has got you down your gig is up.

2. The Harry Osbourn (James Franco) amnesia subplot: As a writer I always dislike the "he lost his memory" plot-line that has been a longtime cheat of sitcoms, - Hell it made me swear off the show 24 forever. Despite that Franco sells it to the best of his ability, It's such lazy screenwriting to have Harry conveniently have his recent revenge fueled memory erased after such an unimpressive alleyway tussle with our hero.

3. Kirsten Dunst sings 2 songs: Yes, I know it's from the original comic that Mary Jane Watson is an aspiring actress, a wannabe Broadway singing star, but nobody, and I mean nobody, was buying a ticket to see her warble through two complete numbers. Show stoppers in the worst way.

4. The extended black gunk from outer space that turns Peter Parker into an asshole sequence: Yes, the black suit looks cool, as I noted above, but the gunk, an alien symbiote (some sort of parasite) coming from a small meteorite that attaches itself to Spidey's suit brings out the jerk in Parker in a painful sequence. Looking like strands of Twistler's candy dipped in tar - the ooze infiltrates Peter's nice guy mentality and promptly makes him strut around Manhattan with an entitled attitude, which makes him come on like Jim Carrey in BRUCE ALMIGHTY. This whole bit should have been a deleted scene. 

5. Topher Grace/ The Overall Bloat : I loop these together because as scary cool as Venom was and maybe that was because it's the only less-is-more element here - the entire Topher Grace origins of the character are lame, it comes in way too late in the story to have proper impact. Grace's overall smarminess is pretty hard to stomach too. 

The two and a half hour flick is crammed with too many incidental characters and go nowhere plot threads. Also, do we seriously need a scene of Franco and Dunst making an omelet? Repeated appearances by Peter's landlord and daughter Ursula? Really?! And did I mention Kirsten Dunst sings two full songs?!!? Okay, well at least I got that all out of my system.

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