Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) - Review

Review:

*Originally written July 6th, 2019*

Far From Home is probably exactly what this series needed after the massive and heavy epic that was Endgame. I wasn't sure what to expect from this, as after Marvel followed up their nearly as huge Infinity War with the massively average Ant-Man and the Wasp, I was expecting something along those lines, but this surprised me in several ways I didn't expect.

Following from the events after Endgame, humanity has pretty much recovered from everyone returning to life after Thanos' snap and things are pretty much back to normal. It does also answer some lingering questions about the implications of bringing all these people back to life when people had moved on in the mean-time. Parker returns to college and his school trip to Europe is interrupted (Obviously) by some elemental demons being hunted by Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio and Nick Fury looks to Spider-Man to live up to Tony Stark's name.

Far From Home manages to balance things a lot better than I'd imagine. Peter progresses a lot here as he struggles with both living up to the hero Tony Stark was and dealing with his new responsibilities  while also wanting the normal life of a teenager by attending school and getting a girlfriend. The awkward John Hughes inspired teen stuff from the first film is thankfully intact, as the awkward chemistry between Peter and MJ make for some of the funniest and surprisingly sweet scenes in the film.

While there are huge CGI set-pieces, Far From Home is pretty much character focused first, which I always appreciate. We spend lots of time with Peter as he struggles with his responsibilities and it shows in Holland's ever growing performance as Spider-Man, who is just the right amount of awkward, smart-mouthed and easy to root for. At this point I'd say he's definitely surpassed Tobey Maguire in the role and easily Andrew Garfield's weird, almost special needs like Marty McFly impression he bought to the misguided Amazing Spider-Man films. 

A lot of these MCU films also suffer from humour problems, but the tone works really well with these characters. It makes sense that teenage characters would take things a little less seriously and be cracking a joke every now and then, it also helps a lot of the writing seems to be a lot stronger than the usual stuff we get in these films and the hit rate is also a lot stronger. Not everything lands, but some of the funniest stuff of the whole series is in here, especially the two absolutely gold post-credit scenes. I wish the MCU would keep tone down the humour a bit and leave it to separate films like this, as hearing middle-aged men making the same quips you'd here from teenagers is one of the main reasons I find the jokes in these films so cringe, but in the context of a high-school setting, it works.

While none of the action is massively spectacular, it still has a lot of energy to it, while it sadly amounts to big CGI things hitting each other. The more interesting set-pieces are saved for Mysterio's mind tricks, which creates a sequence so zany and out-there, it was close to Doctor Strange in terms of mad imagery and it made perfect use of the character to create that scenario for Spider-Man.

Mysterio himself is a little bit of a mixed bag. Jake Gyllenhaal utterly commits to such a barmy and crazy character, bringing a lot of his usual charm and charisma to the role, he honestly steals every scene he's in, but I just wish they spent more time with his motivation, which honestly isn't the most convincing. It connects to previous MCU films in a fun way and the reveal might divide fans the same way Iron Man 3's twist did. While his motivation isn't the best, the film certainly got more interesting once his intentions are clear and leaves Gyllenhaal much more room to ham it up to incredible effect. 


Far From Home is another excellent film from the MCU (Who are also 3 for 3 this year), it ups everything I loved about the first one, continues to develop Spider-Man in new and interesting ways, while delivering a screen-grabbing, but flawed villain. Looking forward to how the third film wraps up this trilogy, especially with THAT post-credit scene.

8/10 Dans

Spider-Man: Far From Home is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) - Cinema Review

Review:

*Originally written December 9th, 2018*

Damn, no way was this meant to happen. Spider-Man has had a rough ride in terms of consistent quality with its films, there was a long stretch after Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 when we didn't even get a good one for 13 years with the excellent Spider-Man: Homecoming. After many false starts and uncertainty with what Sony is doing with the franchise, I never expected Into the Spider-Verse to not only be as good as it was, but also the best Spider-Man film we've had yet. 

While superhero films are becoming quite stale at the moment, often walking a line between mediocrity and excellence (The MCU delivers some of the most serviceable, but vanilla films in the past decade), Into the Spider-Verse comes along and derails everything in a self-aware piece of gorgeous animation that has more in common with The Lego Batman Movie than anything that's come before it. 

I'm not that big into comics, but I know Miles Morales is someone everyone has wanted to see in a film as Spider-Man for years and I can see why. He's both similar to Peter Parker in some ways, but is also a very different person with a different origin story and personal life. From the opening moments he's a very likeable character that's easy to get behind, forced into an elite school by his father where he feels he doesn't belong, only to get bitten by a radioactive spider and gain powers of his own. But that gets turned upside down as he sees Kingpin murder his universe's Peter Parker and open a portal that sends several different variations of Spider-Man into Mile's life.

Each one of these Spider-Man's has their own unique tone and style that works perfectly. Jake Johnson is an actor I usually find very irritating, but his voice work here as a more lazy and faded Spider-Man is equal parts pathetic and likeable. Then Nicolas Cage as "Noir Spider-Man" might just be the best version of the character available, a black and white coloured, private detective from the 1930's filled with lines that spoof the Noir genre cliches we know and love.

Hailee Steinfeld's Gwen Stacy is also infinitely more interesting than Emma Stone's take on the character from the Andrew Garfield films. She plays a great part in the dynamic and brings a lot of character to the role. The two more throwaway and sillier Spider-Men I possibly could have done without, but they were there for some serviceable comic-relief and it was fine.

From the trailers I was very excited by the unique animation style that Into the Spider-Verse takes on and it was even better as an actual film. It's hard to describe, it's sort of like cell-shaded, but stop-motion. It might be a bit off-putting for people who've never seen stuff like this, but it is absolutely gorgeous to look at. A bright, vibrant and colourful comic-book brought to life and being an animation makes it easier for some of the bigger and more cartoonish stuff that would be hard to do in live-action work. 

I was also taken back by how mature and emotional some of the character arcs and story could be at times. Morales arc of being who he wants to be was oddly touching and some of the big reveals towards the end actually worked and I didn't see coming, which is rare for a film like this. Some of the beats towards the end could actually Pixar a run for its money too, I'd even argue this is better than anything Disney or Pixar have released in years.

While going to some dark places and hitting emotional highs, they still manage to balance its comedy and self-aware tone very well. I'm sure there's a whole load of references to the comics that I didn't get, but there is an amazing jab at Spider-Man 3's emo/dance scene that I absolutely loved. 

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is an incredible achievement for the franchise and Spider-Man in general who has already had an insanely strong year already (Avengers: Infinity War and the PS4 game), but this incredible little animated film has managed to top them all and not only become the best Spider-Man film yet, but one of the best superhero films ever. A huge surprise and easily the best comic-book film of they year in an already very good year for the genre.


Who would have thought the future of Spider-Man was in animation? I know there's a sequel to this and several spin-offs in development, I just hope one of them is Nicolas Cage's Noir Spider-Man. 

9/10 Dans

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is out in cinemas in the UK on December 12th
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Venom (2018) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written October 6th, 2018*

After the piss-poor marketing and universally negative reviews, I expected the worst from Venom. It had been described as this years "Fan4stic" and "Catwoman". After watching it, that is an absolutely absurd notion. It does very little to break new ground, but for the most part, it's a perfectly acceptable and watchable ride. I 100% guarantee if the exact same film had been made, but under the MCU logo, it would have got an easy free pass from critics. This is far better than half the Spider-Man films and a lot of MCU entries. 

We hit a lot of ground covered by several other films. Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock gets a new set of powers, has to deal with that, embraces it and then takes on a bad guy with the exact same powers. It's cookie cutter stuff, but it's done in such a competent manner, that's largely entertaining for the most part. 

By far the most interesting stuff going on here is Eddie dealing with Venom himself, who is an actual character within him. Venom really comes alive when it's just Eddie dealing with the sarcastic symbiote inside him. Some of the exchanges between the two are genuinely funny and something I've not seen done much before in comic-book films. We got hints of that with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, but devoting a whole film to a character's split personality works far better.

It's just a shame it takes so long to get there. I appreciate them taking the time to build up Eddie Brock as a character while we see him lose his job and fiancee (A thankless Michelle Williams), but they really should have fast-tracked this, as it takes a good 50 minutes or so to get going, or at the very least dedicated more time to Eddie being an actual journalist. None of this stuff is exceptionally terrible, but it is a bit of a slog. Once the action gets going in the second half, things are much more exciting.

I'm still trying to put my finger on Tom Hardy's performance. I'd seen people compare it to Jim Carey, which is just utter bollocks. There is definitely some comedic elements to his performance, particularly some slap-stick stuff towards the middle, but it's nowhere near as abrasive as people have made it out to be. Some of the absurd humour is when Venom actually feels like it has a voice of its own, it's very different to the lame cringe humour of the MCU films and works much better.

Where Venom doesn't work is easily with some of its action scenes and its villain. Riz Ahmed is a fantastic actor, so it was a shame to see him reduced to another cookie-cutter and disposable Marvel villain, he was so unbelievably bland and uninspired. A power hungry billionaire who eventually gets infected with a symbiote and has to go head to head with Venom. There is no time dedicated to actually making this character feel human, he's evil from the opening scene and never gets to do anything of note. Comic-book films have come a long way from 10 years ago in terms of villains, so it's annoying to see them backtracking at this point.

Part of what people seem to love about Venom is the fact he's an anti-hero. This was a big part of the marketing. Which turned out to be a huge lie, he's another superhero, but he has homicidal tendencies as he needs to consume living flesh to survive. We see him eat a couple of people, but never anyone good, it never goes far enough with the "Anti-hero" vibe it so wants. 

While the action is completely serviceable (The motorbike chase is the only standout I can think of) it is completely butchered by editing. Things come to a climax in one of the most spectacularly bland finales I've seen from a superhero film in a while. We get two characters with the same powers come head to head in a fight that I can only describe as "Two blobs of CGI ink smashing against each other". In terms of CGI, it all looks very good, I sorta love the design of Venom and there's no absolutely awful special effects that stood out. Good job.


This was also clearly shot with an adult rating, but they got cold feet at the last minute and cut it down. It's hugely noticeable. People are eaten and dismembered to bloodless results, it sticks out like a sore thumb and I'd really like to see an uncut version for home video release. I have to slam the BBFC for rating this a 15 too, aside from some mild moments of body horror, this is a 12A through and through, there is nothing about this to earn its adult rating in the UK. It's embarrassing that it was even considered for this rating.


Venom is not the disaster you expected, nor the great definitive film of the Spider-Man villain you wanted either, it's somewhere in the middle, joining the long list of Marvel films that are perfectly watchable entertainment. There is definitely room for improvement and I'd love to see the cut with "40 minutes of Brock and Venom" footage cut from the film, but for now, it is utterly fine.

6/10 Dans

Venom is out now in cinemas in the UK and a 4K UHD steelbook is available to pre-order from HMV

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Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written July 6th, 2017*

"The Almost Amazing Spider-Man"

I was pretty on the fence about Spider-Man: Homecoming before its release (Can you blame me?), the trailers have been uninspired, the posters sucked and Sony have fucked up Spider-Man more times than they've done it right. So I was actually pretty surprised that I liked Homecoming as much as I did.

Spidey joining the MCU is a big deal, they used him effectively in Captain America: Civil War, and this takes place mere moments after that in the form of a video log during Peter's time in Berlin with Stark. It also takes place 8 years after the events of The Avengers, as it still deals with the after effects of the Battle of Manhattan.

I'll say the stuff I liked first. Tom Holland is excellent as Peter Parker and Spider-Man. It was so refreshing to see a different take on the character as a young and naive kid, but still already Spider-Men (No origin story again, thank fuck. No mention of Uncle Ben either). It doesn't cover ground with seen before, although it does pay homage to a few moments from Sam Raimi's trilogy. Holland isn't an actor I'm very familiar with, but he really carried the film and was far better than Andrew Garfield's mentally challenged Marty McFly Peter Parker.

The stuff I loved the most was all the high-school stuff. This feels like a love letter to John Hughes' films. It's a coming of age tale as Peter has to balance his double life as a student and Spider-Man. There are some wonderful homages to Ferris Bueller's day off and other general cliches of these sort of '80s high school comedies, and that's where Homecoming really shines.

There's a decent supporting cast. Michael Keaton is far more memorable than most Marvel villains as The Vulture, although he's a little underused. His character had genuine motivation, charm and real intimidation, especially during an hilarious scene towards the end as he's forced into a situation by pure coincidence and has to deal with Peter Parker, rather than Spider-Man. I loved Zendaya as Michelle, who delivers some really dead-pan humour while still remaining cool and I hope to see her expanded for further films. I really did not like Jacob Batalon as Ned, he was a purely lame attempt at humour and felt like he was directly from the worst of Marvel.

It is seriously funny at times too. I usually find Marvel films to be horrifically childish and cringe-worthy with their humour (Age of Ultron and Thor 2 being the biggest offenders), but it really helps that the humour doesn't really feel like a marvel film and does actually pull out some decent gags, including one that was surprisingly dark for a kids film. Captain America's brief appearances also make for some of the funniest stuff in the MCU to date. Homecoming easily has the best closing 3 seconds of a Marvel film so far and best post credits scene.

Where I found fault in Homecoming however was the pacing and action. I found myself really bored in moments during the action, which were very forgettable (And spoiled in the trailers). It should have been trimmed down to around 2 hours. The only action I really liked was the montage of Spider-Man just being a "Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man". The finale was a complete trainwreck. It wasn't a bombastic, city-destroying end, but it was far too dark to see what was happening, so I was so taken out of the film and I just wanted it to end by this point.

The CGI was pretty solid for the most part, but I really don't like the look of Spider-Man's suit, it just looks really fake and distracting, but I did like variety of gadgets and settings it had. His homemade suit is better though.

They made a huge deal of Robert Downey Jr. returning as Iron Man here and Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan. Thanfully, they did not steal the spotlight at all and it was all about Peter. Iron Man did add a genuinely sweet touch of being Peter's father figure in the film. Again, something I hope is explored in the future. Assuming, Iron Man dies in the next Avengers film, that could make for an interesting character arc for Peter.

Spider-Man: Homecoming has its faults like a lack of any interesting action or visual style (It is very "Marvelized"), I still had a lot of fun with it and it's easily the best Spider-Man film in 13 years now. Here's to more good Spidey films.

7/10 Dans

Spider-Man: Homecoming is out now in cinemas in the UK
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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written June 30th, 2017*

"Dead franchise on arrival" It's the best I had in my head.....

Well, I'm finally at the end of my series of Spider-Man reviews (Thank god) before the next reboot 'Homecoming' comes out in the week. It's been a long and interesting journey, with mostly lows, but a couple of high, it's just a shame that the series ends on this low note of shit.

Did Sony learn NOTHING from the failure of Spider-Man 3? Like, seriously? The reason Spider-Man 3 failed was because of too many villains, far too much plot and it was way too long. So they did it again. Are they fucking retarded? I'd honestly like to know if the people behind this mess had IQ's in the double digits, because I seriously doubt it.

There are some moments of good in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Ah, how I missed the simplicity of numbered sequels), but they are undercut by such cancerous awfulness. Everything feels off and is extremely underdeveloped. Electro and Rhino should have been scrapped right off the bat and this should have purely been about Peter Parker and Harry Osbourne. Eveything else was unnecessary filler.

It doesn't help by the lack of effort put in by the actors. Jamie Foxx is atrocious, hamming it up to 11, which could have been fun, but comes off as painful. The design is ugly and looks fake as hell. All his scenes are accompanied by this lame and cringy dubstep score. Dear god, I forgot how bad that shit was. Paul Giamatti amounted to 3 minutes of screentime, all his scenes were in the trailers. He is equally as embarassing to watch, complete with a hokey Russian accent. It's a shame to see such accomplished actors reduce themselves to this.

Dane DeHaan fares a bit better than the rest as Harry Osbourne/Green Goblin. He's pretty good at the problem child thing by now (He was much better in The Place Beyond the Pines though). His character falls apart once he becomes Green Goblin and becomes a fuck ugly mix of CGI and poor make-up. They at least attempt to build up Harry and Peter's relationship with a cringy montage.

Being an action-heavy superhero film, I am failing to recall any memorable action. Nothing was unique or stood out, The only thing my brain can recall is how ugly and cartoony the CGI looked in a lot of the scenes. I'd go as far as saying there's not even anything here as good as the school fight in the last film.

The positives I'd say out of this mess are Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone once again show genuine chemistry. Garfield also played Peter Parker as much less mentally challenged this time, which was good. I also much preferred the costume here than in the first one, it reminded me a lot more of Raimi's Spider-Man 2 costume.

They also take a huge risk by actually killing the love-interest at the end of the film in a surprisingly brutal way (Surprising if you haven't read the comics. Which I haven't). It was a ballsy move that would have been much more appreciated in a film that wasn't such a trainwreck. I would like to see more superhero films murdering lead characters and not bringing them back. Looking at you Batman v Superman.

Another big mistake this film makes is its obsession of trying expand its world rather than tell an interesting story. It introduces a retarded amount of subplots that were never answered or even asked for. Wanna know the mystery behind Parker's parents? Well... you're never gonna get that answer. 

Hell, we still never got the Uncle Ben stuff resolved from the last film. Don't get me started on all the Oscorp shit. Fuck me.... There was one scene that was just dying to be a launching pad for spin-off films, but the franchise died and is now shared with Marvel. So we'll see what happens with that.

That's The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a complete mess, overstuffed, long, boring and forgettable, but never as offensive as the "Emo" scenes from Spider-Man 3, still painfull though. Your move, Disney, Save Spider-Man.

4/10 Dans

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written June 21st, 2017*

"With great power, comes a mediocre reboot"

The Amazing Spider-Man is something I remember enjoying when it was released, despite being a pissed off 15 year old who was annoyed we never got Raimi's Spider-Man 4. I never loved it, but I did enjoy it. Now, however, I found it to be the film equivalent of chewing gum for two hours that has lost its flavour.

I was never offended by this reboot, but it just walked a fine line of mediocrity during its entire, bloated 137 minute run-time. The biggest crime Marc Webb's film commits is probably being far too familiar and certainly unnecessary. 

Rather than do something new or interesting, we're once again given Spider-Man's origin story. It's far too similar to the first Sam Raimi film, despite being different. We see scenes we've seen before, Peter going after who killed Uncle Ben (Which is a subplot that is dropped and never mentioned again), him discovering his powers, a big villain who's the result of a science experiment gone wrong. It's all just really dull, despite flashes of something better that is potentially underneath the surface. Oh, they do the whole "Beam in the sky" finale here too... urgh.

Andrew Garlfield is better than I remember when he's actually Spider-Man (I love the look and design of the suit) and he has some genuine chemistry with an underused Emma Stone, but when he's Peter Parker, he acts like a mentally challenged and twitchy Marty McFly and it is weird, so weird. I feel it's meant to be charming, but it comes off as all wrong.

Rhys Ifans doesn't fare much better as Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard. We were given hints of The Lizard throughout Raimi's trilogy and we sadly never got him, but here he's pretty wasted. He looks like a terrible cartoony CGI mess and plays it very hammy and over the top. I noticed a weird scene where he's shouting, but his mouth wasn't moving, which is a goof. Sure, whatever, but I expect better from a film that cost this much. Again, his character is far too similar to Spider-Man's Green Goblin, another science experiment gone wrong who gives the host split personality.

There are some decent bits of action spread throughout. I liked some of the POV shots of Spider-Man going around the city, which I remember being in the teaser trailer for the film. I just wish there was more creative stuff on display, like the most of the film, everything is just very forgettable and vanilla.

The Amazing Spider-Man is an instantly forgettable and mostly dull attempt at rebooting Spider-Man by rehashing a lot of stuff we've seen before.   

5/10 Dans

The Amazing Spider-Man is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Spider-Man 3 (2007) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written March 21st, 2017*

"Web Dead"

WOW! Where do I begin with this mess? I liked this as a kid, maybe even loved it, but I'm a little fuzzy on that. How wrong a 10 year old me was. This film is pretty much a disaster on all accounts, no wonder it single handedly killed the series for 5 years and forced Sony to reboot it.

This time around Peter Parker's life is going just fine, all is good, he's going to ask Mary Jane to marry him and he's thriving as Spider-Man, but all this goes to shit due to the appearances of The Sandman, Venom and Harry Osbourne, who now takes over his father's Green Goblin persona.

It's a mess. There are way too many villains and sub-plots for one film. It was even considered at one point to make this into two films, but instead, it was all crammed into this utter mess. So much could be cut out. The idea of making Sandman the guy who accidentally killed Uncle Ben is pointless and brought nothing but an emotionally manipulative villain that lacked the humanity of Doc Ock or the campy fun of Green Goblin. Making him some criminal trying to get money for his dying daughter is woefully cliche and just awful.

Then we have Venom. A black alien symbiote that attaches itself to Spider-Man, turning him black and becoming more aggresive, violent and a huge asshole, both as Parker and Spidey. There's also a scene where Peter has a montage of being a massive douche set to jazz music, that is either best or worst thing to ever happen to cinema. I honestly don't even know anymore. Topher Grace's Eddie Brock fares no better as Venom, once he is infected by the symbiote. He's far more annoying than he is intimidating.

After a brief green screen heavy fight, Harry gets amnesia, which Peter just takes advantage of to make them friends again, until the end where he remembers everything, but changes his mind to help him save Mary Jane from Venom and Sandman. A fucking mainstream film that uses amnesia for plot. I forgot Spider-Man was a daytime soap.

It's clearly a film ruined by studio interference. It lacks the personal journey Peter goes through in the first two, I was a little warm on the first, but it's looking a lot better to me after this. I wonder how The two Amazing Spider-Man films compare to this, it's been a while, but I think they're both stronger than this? (I will be revisiting them to confirm)

The only real saving graces of Spider-Man 3 are some great performances. J.J. Jameson once again steals every scene he's in and it is true gold for every little moment he's in. Even with the final battle, he trumps everything else happening with one 30 second scene. There is some creative action scenes spread throughout, but they are more often than not, undercut with some really terrible CGI and use of green screen.

Despite Raimi still at the helm, the action just feels off. Everything feels fake and it's way too CGI heavy. I couldn't pinpoint a single moment that looked or felt real. I did like some of the ideas though, black Spider-Man looked cool I will admit and it was sorta fun to see him be more of a dick, but yeah, that's pretty much it.

Spider-Man 3 is a complete mess that killed a franchise with so much potential, it's somehow watchable, but a bloated, stupid and at times, laughably bad sequel and a disappointing send off for Raimi's trilogy.

4/10 Dans

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Spider-Man 2 (2004) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written March 18th, 2016*

"Webscellent"

Bigger, longer, deeper. Urm, that sounded less filthy in my head.... anyway, Spider-Man 2 is a vastly superior sequel, in every way imaginable and was a new standard for superhero films at the time. Unlike the first Spider-Man, this sequel holds up remarkably well, despite the extreme cheese at some moments.

Picking up 2 years after the first, this sequel finds Peter Parker struggling to balance his life as Spider-Man and Peter Parker, all while a new threat emerges in the form of 'Doc Ock', a mad scientist with metal tentacles trying to finish his experiment that could destroy the whole city.

There's just no other way of putting it, this is just an insanely improved sequel. The action scenes are all memorable and amazing, the story is compelling, as are the characters and the paths they take, it's funnier and the cheese and campiness is taken down a notch.

Doc Ock is a great villain, a sad and tragic figure with a sense of humanity. Alfred Molina's performance was fantastic. A lot less hamming up compared to Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin. We spend more time with him before his transformation, showing he truly is a nice and caring man, making his fall that much more sad and effective.

Tobey Maguire is even better this time as Peter Parker and Spider-Man. Being taken through a very deep story about doubting who you are and discovering who you're meant to be. It played extremely well, and was pretty damn effective. While it had moments of extreme cheese, the love story between Peter and Mary Jane provided a heart for the film.

Raimi's direction is much more confident this time as he handles some much more ambitious set-pieces. The bank heist and train sequences in particular are still the highlights for the whole series. We even got Doc Ock's "awakening" scene, which is pure Raimi getting a chance to flash his horror roots. I barely noticed any of the CGI either, this has barely aged at all.

The humour is so much better this time around and J.K. Simmons gets much more screen time as the scene stealing J. Jonah Jameson, I honestly wish they would have just made a whole film based around this character, would have been amazing. And that scene where he wears and plays in Spider-Man's suit? Genius.

I do feel there are moments that don't work and it is a little too long. The whole 'Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head' scene is pure cringe and even ends in a bizarre freeze frame that made me laugh out loud, and I don't even know what the intention was. There's a few plot-lines left unanswered, which are obviously going to be explored for the next one, but I still wish there was more with Harry and Peter.

Spider-Man 2 truly is a franchise peak, bigger and better in every way imaginable. Such a shame that the series completely lost momentum after this. Who knows what Disney can conjure up, maybe they'll managed to get their new Spider-Man up to this standard.

8/10 Dans

Spider-Man 2 is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Spider-Man (2002) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written March 18th, 2016*

"With great power, comes great responsibility"

Since we just got our first glimpse of Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War and with Spider-Man: Homecoming on the way, I thought I'd go back to the first real time Spidey hit the cinema screen with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. A film I adored in my childhood, so it's a shame to see that, my god, this has not aged well.

Superhero films have come a long way since 2002 and Spider-Man certainly laid the groundwork and formula for what was to come. You know the story, high school loser Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains superpowers like web-slinging, enhanced reflexes etc and adapts the alter ego Spider-Man, while coming to terms with his powers and his personal life.

I always find it strange that Sam Raimi directed this trilogy, he just doesn't seem like the guy for the job, but he pulls off some distinct visual style of his, including a Bruce Campbell cameo and it has more of a unique personality than 90% of today's cookie-cutter Marvel films. Not that their bad, it's just they lack their own style.

A lot of the effects are laughably outdated, although I admire the use of a lot of practical effects, but the CGI really stands out, like it seems like a PS1 game sometimes, the Green Goblin turning those guys into skeletons in particular. Then there is some brutally fake looking shots of Spider-Man swinging through the city.

A lot of the action is actually really brutal and kinda shocking for a kids film. The Green Goblin killing innocents is done in a mostly cartoony way, but the one on one stuff with Spider-Man and Green Goblin is really violent. You really feel the punches and cuts we see, it even ends with Spidey's face completely covered in blood.

Where Spider-Man excels most is with its storytelling. Each of the characters has their own arc and feel developed, helped by the great job from everyone. Tobey Maguire is easily the best Spider-Man/Peter Parker we've had, going from socially awkward nerd to superhero. James Franco is.... James Franco, but with subdued anger and daddy issues. Kirsten Dunst is an extremely likable girl next door and a lovely bit of bacon to boot. And Willem Dafoe does such a fun job of hamming up his villain role as the Green Goblin. There's not a lot else to say about J.K. Simmons in his role J. Jonah Jameson, just perfect casting, the man was born to play that role.

I really like Danny Elfman's score too. Both the action heavy stuff and the more quiet and sometimes sinister tracks. While the not film's fault at all, it does hit a lot of the same notes that make modern day superhero films so stale. It's a fairly basic origin story and even has the "Impossible Choice" scene towards the end, which has been done to death.

It is also very campy and often cheesy, like most of Raimi's films, and I don't feel that tone has held up very well to this point. The point where New York "unites" to help Spider-Man fight Green Goblin was more brutal and cringe worthy than it was inspiring.

It didn't hold up as well as I hoped, but Spider-Man is definitely one of the more interesting and better origin stories we've had and has a unique voice, but so much just doesn't hold up. Shame. Still, from what I remember, this still has more charm than the Andrew Garfield reboot.

6/10 Dans

Spider-Man is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

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Captain America: Civil War (2016) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written on April 29th, 2016*

Here we are, Marvel's biggest film of the year. I was a little sceptical of this, as I've have been suffering some Marvel film fatigue. I was severely disappointed by Age of Ultron and Ant Man was just fine, so I pleasantly surprised by Civil War, which is now probably in my top 3 of the MCU.

After all the carnage caused by most of the previous films of the MCU, the government finally decide it's time to keep The Avengers in check, something not all the team members agree with. Split into two sides, one led by Captain America and the other by Iron Man, they go to "war" while trying to deal with Bucky situation left at the end of The Winter Soldier.

I'll get the bad out the way first. Again, like 90% of the films in the MCU, the villain is forgettable and bland. His motivations are pretty clear at least by the end so it was fairly easy to sympathize with him. It's just we were given enough time with this character played by a fairly talented actor who deserved more. He also didn't get in on a single action scene, which was strange.

Captain America and Iron Man

I will also say it played a little too safe, there was no real or big surprises here. The big reveals are stuff people (Including myself) have predicted since 2014, when the Winter Soldier was released. It didn't bother me too much though, because at the end of the day, I was just there to have a good time and that's what I got, a good time.

It was also a real display of how far some of the main characters have come since the beginning of the MCU. Tony Stark is far more mature and responsible than he used to be and has somehow become the voice of reason in the group. While Captain America has adjusted to the modern day, he even had a smartphone and his morality hasn't changed, but he still does the right thing.

What scared me most about Civil War was the run-time, I had no idea until just a couple of days ago that was 2 and a half hours long and the longest entry in the MCU so far. So I was a little braced for a slog, but I didn't really feel that time at all, despite being extremely tired and worried I was going to nod off throughout.

I was also pretty pleased by the focus on Captain America, despite the large roster of characters to play with, new and old, the focus is firmly on Cap' and his fractured friendship with Bucky that comes to a fairly satisfying conclusion in the finale with some surprisingly high feeling stakes.

Tom Holland as the new Spider-Man

The action is far more inventive than other MCU films, there's no big third act where a whole city is levelled. It all felt personal to the characters and had some really cool moments. The airport fight was awesome and gave each character a time to shine. The Russo Brothers really seem to have a handle on these characters and the action, so I'm excited to see what they do with the two part Avengers: Infinity War.

In terms of story. Not every character felt essential to the plot, but it all made sense to the plot, and any second spent with the gorgeous Elizabeth Olsen was fine by me. With the new additions, Black Panther was fine and his character is introduced with no boring origin story and very quickly into the story which was fine.

Then we have the big new character to the mix: Spider-Man. Who I loved, he stole the show with every scene he was in. He felt far different than the Raimi Trilogy and the misguided 'Amazing' series which was short lived. Here he's fun and full of quips and pop-culture references and he felt like an actual kid, which was nice. And I liked Stark's small, but fatherly like relationship with him, which will explored more in Spidey's own film in the MCU 'Homecoming'. I gotta say, the new aunt May, I did not see that coming, what a lovely bit of bacon.

Civil War was a pleasant surprise overall. A fun, action packed entry in the MCU with smaller action, but higher emotional stakes. It's also pretty much everything Batman V Superman failed to be. Excellent.

8/10 Dans

Captain America: Civil War is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

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