Mon, June 18, 2007
It Comes In Threes—6:50 PM
I ducked out of work early today to finally get Spider-Man 3 under my belt. It was the only major movie so far this summer that had slipped away from me. Usually, when events conspire to keep me away from a movie I had planned to see, I get a nagging feeling that there's an underlying reason for that.
Damn right there was. It's unlikely I'll summon the time or energy to write a review of Spider-Man 3, but I spent a lot of my time in the theater (and there was plenty) thinking, "Is it possible for a comic book movie to be too comic-booky?"
Also, since this is the "Summer of the Threequel," there's something we should pay attention to. The third Pirates movie had its problems (nothing compared to Spidey 3), but both suffered for having amassed more and more characters over the course of their trilogies. People! It's okay to do like Batman or James Bond and just move on. There's no cause to top yourself if you got it right the first time. I like Topher Grace twice as much as I don't like James Franco, but this movie would've been much better without both of them – and maybe it would've come in under two hours. Each successive Spider-Man movie added a villain and about ten minutes of running time – and lost about a star. I don't think it's a coincidence.
Fortunately, the cast of The Bourne Ultimatum doesn't have this overpopulation problem. They took the bold move of extracting the love interest in the opening moments of Bourne 2! Matt Damon is quoted as saying they made each movie with no expectation of making another. This is likely just movie PR-speak, but it's definitely a workable strategy. The Bourne Supremacy joins a very short list of sequels worthy of their original: Toy Story 2, Back to the Future, Part II, and – if taken together – the Indiana Jones sequels. (Terminator 2 and Aliens go in a different category – they should've been made instead of their predecessors.)
Joe Mulder — Thu, 6/21/07 12:35pm
Yeah. The Hulk.
Look. You know I love you. But, I implore you to watch Back to the Future, Part II in the cold light of adulthood. Until they get back to 1955 again, it's pretty bad.
I know. I know; it was years before I was willing to admit this. But we must, so the healing can begin.
Bee Boy — Thu, 6/21/07 2:10pm
Sorry, I love it all. The flying De Lorean, the criss-crossing timelines, everything. I'm a fan of 1985-A; I'm a fan of Marlene McFly. I love Christopher Lloyd at the chalkboard going haywire. I love how everything overlaps to create crazy chaos (the working title was "Paradox," which describes my favorite theme of the story – besides being a delicious pun).
Admittedly, the 1955 stuff is my favorite part. That's where it really starts to sing. Particularly at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. You know how nuts I am about diving back into your own story (á la the Being John Malkovich scenes in the otherwise lame Adaptation.). This was the first movie to do it in a way that was simultaneously brain-tingling and damn fun. I make no apologies for giving it a few extra points for that.
Joe Mulder — Thu, 6/21/07 5:07pm
Fair enough.
Bee Boy — Thu, 6/21/07 5:14pm
God, I completely forgot to mention Futurama! It's a much better example than Adaptation., albeit a TV one. As I posted my rebuttal, something in the back of my brain was nagging that the argument was incomplete – that's what it was.
Also, you'll note that The Lost World: Jurassic Park is not on the list. For a long time, the last 20 minutes of that movie won it a lot more esteem than I owed it. So the cold light of adulthood is not entirely absent!