1. Top Gun
After the massive box office of Spider-Man, it was without a doubt that Columbia would ‘spin’ it out into a franchise. I thought the first film was so-so, and although remained faithful to the source material (for a change, Hollywood) it remained a luke warm affair. One of the main damp squibs for me was Kirsten Dunst who seems to have fooled the world into believing she is extraordinarily attractive. Her black magic hasn’t worked on me, and so it was with some shock to see how they portrayed her in the sequel. More of that in a moment...What I will say up front though is that this is an improved film to the original. Weirdly though, there are faults with it that the first film got right, but it feels better. One of these was the villain and the actor to play him. The Green Goblin was clearly nuts and was intent on killing and maiming. Yes, he should be stopped. We know why. But in Spider-man 2 we have a scientist who just wants to complete his life’s work. It doesn’t involve ruling the world – he actually wants to provide a cheap source of power that doesn’t exhaust fossil fuels or produce pollution. He doesn’t even want to own the monopoly of the power and become Bill Gates. Yikes, what a nasty piece of work! Sure, he’s got four metallic arms that snap away at people, but his intention is to finish his work. Here’s where the script falls short, as we never really buy into Spider-Man’s need to stop him. In the end, despite his powers, all Spidey has to do is talk to the man, and he agrees. That’s it – crikey, could have saved myself two hours there.
What fills the rest of the film is a rise and fall type strand, where Peter parker decides to jack in the superhero gig, and whereas we’re given no motivation for the bad guy, we have FAR TOO MUCH for this. Peter does bad at school. Peter does bad at work. Peter does bad at family. Peter does at friendship. Peter does bad in his lovelife. ALRIGHT! We get it! But you can’t have a Spider-Man movie without the web slinger, so he decides to come back after realising it’s his destiny. Again, our head is bashed for 20 minutes with scenes explaining this to us…
The other glaring fault in the film is that Dunst girl. We’re supposed to believe she’s America’s hottest model. She’s also supposed to be a standing ovation type actress. Oh and did I mention she’s desired by men. Jeez.
Tobey Maguire isn’t much better as the hero. He just looked ridiculous when he was running across the rooftop with his non-existent lips and Sam Raimi’s slow-motion camera. They’re both good actors, but good looking they ain’t. Bring on Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman I say.
Alfred Molina. Who thought of calling him for the bad guy? Again, he can be a good actor – Boogie Nights for one – but in this he’s lost. There’s a scene with him, his on screen wife and Peter Parker where they drink tea and talk about love. Sounds awful? It is. With a better script, and certainly more for the bad guy to do, the producers could have got the right guy rather than a ‘yes’ guy.
James Franco, who was brilliant in the first film and definitely one to watch, is not as good here – until the end that is. Hopefully when they inevitably expand his character, he’ll come into his own. I don’t doubt it, despite this small glitch of work here.
Sounds like I hated the film, right? Not at all. There is some terrific stuff in here – the effects of Spidey swinging through the city are breath taking.
Some of the set pieces are inventive and extremely well played – the subway chase isn’t the best thing since sliced bread, but it’s thrilling to watch.
JK Simmons as Peter’s newspaper boss takes his performance a step up from the original, and even if De Niro, Pacino and Hoffman were in the same scenes it would be hard to see them getting a look in.
There are some great moments of comedy, particularly the Chinese violin player, but Raimi does overstep the mark with an odd elevator scene that just goes…on…too…long.
And the wrap up, as we meet each of the dozens of characters for their sign off, is elegantly played. For fans of the source material, they will be having wet dreams at the implications of each of the strands, but for the non-fan they still play well with an understand of what happens rather than what is GOING to happen.
It is what it is, a massive blockbuster that everyone will see at some point, but for my money it’s still not quite got the class of the X Men where the actors get even less screen time but make more of an impression.
