Compartment 14B

Does whatever a spider can... 2004-07-07 - 12:53 p.m. Warning this entry contains spoilers! If you haven�t already seen Spiderman 2, avert your eyes... So the husband talked me into going to Spiderman 2 last night. This was not an easy feat as, despite the fact that I wanted to see it, it was an absolutely gorgeous summer evening and I don�t like missing those. J loved this movie and I think he wanted me to love it too, and I feel kind of guilty killing his buzz a bit by not loving it. At first it was kind of hard to put my finger on why I didn�t love it like I was, truthfully, expecting to. The acting was great. I�m not a huge Tobey Maguire fan in that role because he�s never looked enough like the comic Peter Parker for my taste (and incidentally, my husband looks almost exactly like Peter Parker minus the glasses), but he�s a fine actor. The supporting cast were also competent in their roles. The effects, it pretty much goes without saying but I�m saying it anyway, were amazing. The dialogue was fine. The truth is, it was the plot. It just didn�t do it for me. There were two things that I really found glaring. Peter is conflicted about his role and what life he�s meant to live. That�s fine in and of itself and, we get it, we really do. But the way they play that out, well, I have some issues with it. When Peter (spoiler!) starts finding his powers are becoming unreliable and they try to convince me that it�s in his mind, well, I just don�t buy it. See, the spider bite altered his DNA and that�s a mighty hard thing to just turn on and off, even with your subconscious. You may think it odd that I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept that a bite from a radioactive spider � oh excuse me, in the movie it�s a spider with recombinant DNA � can completely change the DNA of a human to the point where he can climb walls and shoot webbing, but not enough to accept this aspect of the plot, but that�s just the way it is. The other thing? The thing that really bugged the crap out of me? The fact that almost everyone in this damn movie (spoiler!) sees Spiderman unmasked! Friends, enemies, strangers on a train� they took the �secret� out of �secret identity�. Also annoying but more minor (spoilers galore!): The fact that MJ ditched her fianc� at the altar, with a note. I�m sorry but if she doesn�t have the decency to at least pull him out and explain it gently to him herself, this is not a woman I have a lot of respect for. Why would I root for her as the romantic heroine? Why was she getting engaged to someone if she obviously loved someone else anyway? Why get married at all if you�re only going with the �default� option? The number of women in skirts or dresses carried off/waved around by Doc Ock. Apparently, if you�re young and female and want to avoid his tentacles, wear pants so there is absolutely no chance of titillating the onlookers. The stage is obviously being set for Harry Osborne to be a villain (presumably the Hobgoblin) in the next movie. But I don�t recall the Hobgoblin knowing Spidey�s identity (though I could be wrong about that) as Harry now does. So, while I didn�t dislike this movie, I was disappointed that a few things about it kind of spoiled it for me when I wanted to love it. Before - After All content � Shawna 2003-2010 That means no swiping my stuff - text, images, etc. - without asking. P.S. If you're emailing me, replace the [at] with @ in the "to" line. Oh, and if you put the word "journal" in the subject line it'll have a better chance of making it past my junk mail filters. recommend me HTML and design help by Jo hosted by Diaryland