My Spidey Sense Is Tingling. The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Remember 'Spider-Man 3' from way back in 2007? A film that was such a muddled anticlimax that it forced Sony to reboot the whole franchise. Remember the problems with that movie: it was too long, too convoluted, it had too many villains, too many sub-plots, too much soap opera, too much "me time" for the big name stars, too much stupid dancing. Well, guess what folks, here we are in 2014 with the first reboot sequel and all of those factors still apply - except for the dancing. They've at least ditched the dancing.

First the good stuff. As I've said before, Andrew Garfield made a wonderful Peter Parker in the first film. Here, he makes a really good Spider-Man. This film really nails the character. He's as quick with his wits as he is with his wisecracks and reflexes. He's heroic and inspirational. We see him endeavour to put people out of harm's way, we see him sweat the small stuff, he stands up for the little guy. He's the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man we know and love out of the comic book. He's fast, funny and acrobatic and the early sequences where he swings through the city are the most exhilarating we've yet had in any of the films. The action scenes are average but there's good use of "bullet time" and a really strong sense of what our hero's strengths and weaknesses are, what his powers are and how he uses them.  He's super strong and cockily confident but you still get the feeling that he's out of his depth as he squares up to Electro. You worry for him, but that's a good thing. Emma Stone is spot on as the gorgeous but normal Gwen Stacy and she has good on-screen chemistry with Andrew Garfield. They make a believable, watchable couple.

So we have a great Spider-Man, a good Gwen .... but also Jamie "overrated A-list star" Foxx as Electro. He plays it pantomime. He's Dwayne Dibley via Mr Freeze. He looks like Luke Goss in 'Blade 2'. It's a disappointment. Electro should be manic; fizzing with energy and lunacy. Instead we get a moody, intimidating thug in a hoody. I can see one of those at any bus stop in town.

This film has Spidey encountering three of his greatest villains: Electro, The Green Goblin and Rhino (I think Rhino was meant to be a surprise but he's been in all the trailers so...there was no surprise). Electro didn't scare me (although he will probably frighten little kids) and I was never sure or convinced of his motivation. The Green Goblin (again!) is stale (Dane DeHaan is much scarier as Harry Osborn than as The Goblin) and as for the Rhino (!)... well...they've tried hard to realise Rhino for a movie audience and done it as well as it could be done but at the end of the day it's just another baddy in an exoskeleton suit and a laughable one at that. The villains talk the talk but don't walk the walk.

As before, one film is too much to contain three villains, even a film with a two and a half hour running-time. We have to get all of their back stories and their character arcs. They just chew up too much screen time and the cumulative effect is wearisome. On top of this there is all the main character baggage we have to carry. We get Peter and Gwen's relationship woes, we get the tedious absent fathers trope again for Peter, Gwen and Harry Osborn. There's some "uncovering a big secret from the past stuff" that bored me. We also get the obligatory "me now!" show off scene where Sally Fields has to sit at a kitchen table and cry in order to show that she's still, you know, a really good award winning actress and is taking her character on "a journey" and not just slumming it for a box office paycheck. There's a lot to cram in; lots of villains, lots of talking, lots of big character moments. It's a real chore at times I can tell you. It's never bad exactly, but it's not a whole lot of fun either and the action is only adequate where you want something really special.

The really big emtional scene in the film (that any fan of the comic knows is coming) happens but it sort of just gets lost due to the awful way the film is structured. It exists to pack a real punch and should have been the natural (albeit downbeat) ending for this narrative. Instead the film shoehorns in another villain for no other reason than setting up the scenario for the next film. We have to dust off and move on really quickly; much too quickly. The tone jumps straight from pathos to a really goofy, Saturday morning cartoon ending.

Women are clearly a problem for this franchise. Much time is spent on Parker brooding on his missing father but we don't see him pining for his mother much because she isn't involved in the "big mysterious conspiracy thing that is actually really boring" and therefore she is not very important. We don't see Harry's mother at all. Gwen gets to talk science and push buttons but she still gets webbed to a car to keep her out of the way and then frees herself only to end up little more than a damsel in distress. She makes choices but those choices lead to her doom. Aunt May gets to argue about laundry with Peter and make him sandwiches...and has to go out and get a job as a nurse.

Speaking of sandwiches...it's hard to know what this movie is about other than being an overstuffed middle bit. You'll munch your way through it but you won't find it particularly filling. You do walk  away thinking that you've wasted two and a half hours even though it's not that bad. There's just something missing, like there's not much point to it all, even though the film goes out it's way to make sure you know everything that's happening is actually a really big deal. I won't be giving this one any repeat viewings. It's a shame because I'll sit down and watch the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man films any time.

It's not hard to see where Sony is going with this; presumably the next film will incorporate The Sinister Six. That's going to mean introducing at least another three villains into the fold.  I don't know which foes they will pick but I guess Dr Octopus, The Vulture and Mysterio are the likely suspects. If it's big name stars playing them then it will be a fight for equal and lengthy screen-time. That's going to be some marathon endurance test to sit through. I'm up for it, but they've really got to step up the action scenes to make it work. Personally, I'd like to see them include Kraven the Hunter,  just for the high camp factor involved and the surrealism of wild beasts running around the city. It's not going to happen but that's where we are with this franchise. It's more exciting to think about what the villains might be, how they might look, who will play them than it is to actually see it all play out. Very strange.

Maybe it suffers from coming out just after 'The Winter Soldier'. Maybe I'm just too familiar with the material and superhero cliches. Maybe it's just disheartening to see the mistakes of the past repeated so soon. Maybe it's just that I have zero interest in the Richard Parker thread and all that Oscorp intrigue. Maybe I miss the Daily Bugle and J. Jonah Jameson. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man but I can't hand on heart say I enjoyed this. I didn't hate it by any means but because it is so obviously just a part of a greater whole it never satisfies in it's own right. In this era of trilogies that shouldn't be as big a problem, but it is. It's on target,like Spider-Man's shooting web, but it's all slow motion, reaching out like a grasping hand, almost closing, almost there, but ultimately failing to connect.

Friday night double bill - The Long Good Friday / Scum

The Mafia? I've shit 'em.

Who's the Daddy Now!?

For A Few Rupiah More. The Raid 2.

It may be called 'The Raid 2' and it may pick up the story moments after the end of the first one ...but be clear on this...this is not simply The Raid part 2. The confidence of Welsh born director Gareth Evans and actor  Iko Uwais is such that their ambition takes this sequel to a whole new level. This is setting the bar beyond the reach of everyone else in the action genre. The easy route would have been to repeat the formula (Die Hard/Dredd/Assault On Precinct 13 siege movie template) and move it to another location with more numbers to fight against. Instead, this goes for telling an epic gangster tale that just happens to also be the most violent non-stop action story yet filmed. It's the same sophomore quantum leap that you see in For A Few Dollars More, Mad Max II, Desperado, Evil Dead II, Pulp Fiction. It's hard to imagine anything bettering it. It's an instant genre masterpiece.

The wonder of The Raid 2 is that the action comes naturally out of plot. It never feels like the team sat down, wrote some set pieces and then tried to design a story around it. It always feels like your watching a class act, something like 'The Departed/ Internal Affairs'. It exercises your brain as much as it flexes muscle. You have to stay alert. There's feuding families and undercover cops to track. There's treachery, deception and surprises. You have to keep up between the action scenes.

But...it's the action scenes you're gagging for and my God does it deliver. There's an exhilarating prison-yard fight early on that you think takes things as far as they can go but each subsequent explosion of violence ratchets it up a notch.  There's a car chase that throws down the gauntlet for car chases, a subway fight with hammers and knives that throws down the gauntlet for inventiveness, a fight in a cell that does the same for close quarters action, the aforementioned prison-yard scene for spectacle...all without your CGI, wire-work, fast editing, shaky-cam nonsense.

And then there's the kitchen scene. My God, how will anyone top that? Just watching it leaves you breathless, battered and bruised. It's a stunning piece of choreography, film-making and swagger.

Gareth Evans is demonstrably the best action director in the world at this moment.  He's in his early thirties and from Wales. 'The Raid 2' is an immense achievement. If this is his 'For A Few Dollars More, then I can't wait to see his 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'.

Friday night double bill - Visiting Hours / Escape From New York

Tonight, 'Visiting Hours', a slasher film with William Shatner and John Carpenter's seminal sci-fi action movie 'Escape From New York'.

Don't look up, because It's 'A Long Way Down'.

Pierce Brosnan plays a disgraced TV host who attempts to commit suicide on New Years's Eve but, would you believe it, there are three other unhappy people who also want to hurl themselves from the top of the same London skyscraper. After learning a little bit about each other they come up with a plan to stay alive and stick together until at least Valentine's Day. Two men. Two women. Valentine's Day. What could possibly happen? How will this resolve itself?

Jeez....

A feel good black comedy without any laughs is bad enough, but a feel good British black comedy starring Pierce Brosnan based on a Nick Hornby book without any laughs and a mildly offensive tone of casually dismissing mental health issues is something that may just push you over the edge. It's awful.

I don't mind the set-up. I mind that it unfolds in such a predictable, unfunny and condescending fashion. There's no comedy in this; no fun at all. There's no ear for dialogue, or any sense that the writers' have any sense of the way people really talk or behave. It would be poor as a one hour tv special. As a feature it doesn't have anything going for it at all.

The message of this movie seems to be: "Feeling suicidal? Go on holiday and forget about it." Be selfish, talk your problems through with some strangers, continue to be selfish, meet some great people, maybe get off with one of them and maybe get to enjoy your next Christmas.

Awful.

Thief of Hearts. The Book Thief.

'The Book Thief' is a film that tries to make some sense of Nazi Germany through the eyes of a child.
 
It's not a masterpiece, but it's not the saccharine soft centered fable that the broadsheet critics would have you believe.

It made me well up and cry. That puts it beyond criticism in my book.

What We Talk About When We Talk About 'We Need To Talk About Kevin.'

'We Need To Talk About Kevin' joins that elite group of films under the heading: 'Brilliant, But I Never Want To See It Again'

Some idiot at the BBC programmed this at 22:30 just before Mother's Day. I can't think of a more inappropriate choice.

It's a compelling drama, brilliantly acted and masterfully crafted. But, my God, it's hard to sit through, even though I would recommend everybody to do so.

It's one of the best non-horror movie horror movies out there. Imagine 'Michael Myers - The Early Years' directed by Dario Argento but without any shocks and scares. It exposes the everyday nightmares of the American suburbs, but with the cool unflinching eye of Kubrick rather than the amused surreal headgames of Lynch. The red motif is overplayed but undeniably powerful; the sound design unsettling and every scene hums with an uneasy foreshadowing of the terrible event or the wake of living with it afterwards

So, is Kevin the embodiment of evil, a devil child, a calculating monster from the moment he leaves the womb? Or is it Eva that's the monster? Has her bitterness and detachment nurtured a psychopath? There are no easy answers, there's no pat psychological profiling, no blame is assigned, no tidy catharsis. There is only the uncomfortable truth of what we are witnessing. Eva's hollow eyes and devastated life will haunt you. Kevin's knowing smile and polite maliciousness will haunt you. The connection that binds them as mother and son will haunt you. The inevitability of the event itself will haunt you.

It's an astonishing cinematic meditation on the most troubling of material. It's absolutely terrifying. I will watch it again. But I may need to give it at least a couple of years.