First off, I say all of this with the caveat that, increasingly, basically all superhero films not made by Marvel these days come across as the sputterings of enthusiastic studio heads who ultimately know or care little about the comic source texts. I don't mean to sound absurdly biased, but I wouldn't be so pro-Marvel if the competition could step it up a bit. I'm even getting more leery of X-Men: Days of Future Past than I'd like. And it's always the same two complaints: trying to do/include too much, and not enough reverence for the comics source material.
I know I sound like a puffed-chest fanboy here, but hear me out.
First off, ASM2 was by no means unenjoyable. It was generally a pleasant, albeit predictable, and overly-spoiled, watch, and I don't regret seeing it. There was an ample sprinkling of interesting bits - I was initially a bit thrown by the 'Electro Dubstep' music, but it quickly grew on me. There was one crucial moment in particular - which is hardly a spoiler, but I won't fully ruin here - which, although anyone even remotely versed in the comics lore would expect, still managed to be unexpected and take my breath away in its execution, so props. Sally Field is generally adorable, Emma Stone is perfection, and Andrew Garfield, although he is still far from the definitive Peter for me, is without question the best cinematic incarnation of Parker and - especially - Spider-Man, to date. What a superb physical actor, and he handles small emotional moments with surprising finesse. Bravo.
The biggest boon to the film were its few genuinely elating moments, like this'un:
There were, of course, innumerable complaints. Jamie Foxx's performance was kind of a shame, ranging from yawn-worthy and one note to his earlier "I'm a reclusive nerd who just wants to be noticed!" mugging actually making me cringe and be embarrassed on his behalf. It's a bummer, because the further I go in life, the more I realize there actually are a surplus of people who are entirely functional yet still perilously close to tumbling off the deep end, and it's worth tapping into the obsessiveness of dangerously ignored and marginalized people in a villainous capacity. That said, doing it correctly takes a particularly deft touch, and that would necessitate both careful handling and judicious character development, neither of which the screenplay allowed Foxx's Mr. Dillon...
Wub wub wubbbbbooooooring.
And yes, he does suffer from similarities to too many other blue super-characters as well.
(Da ba dee, da ba dah)
Not to mention he also regenerates himself from dispersed energy, while floating, Dr. Manhattan style.
(D'oh)
Still a step up from this lame-ass, though.
...probably because it was too busy developing the billion other subplots, most of which felt tiresomely misguided. Harry Osborn is dying of an inherited genetic disease? Sheesh. Way to cave to the "How to punch up the scope of a supporting character 101" curse. Dane DeHaan is a spectacular actor, but I think it would take meshing him with the characterization of the James Franco Osborn - never thought I'd willingly bring him up again - to get the definitive Harry. At least it led to a pretty badass Chris Cooper cameo, though if his Norman never gets the chance to stomp around and steal scenery I will be mighty pissed.
Also, the shit with Peter's parents? Almost cool, but should have been much more of the focus, or excluded entirely. It aaaaaaaalmost works as a narrative motivation here, but it feels too cumbersome and too much of a downer.
A downer? you ask? But aren't all these films supposed to be about how dark and terribly serious the lives of superheroes are, thereby validating their being taken seriously culturally... yet still somehow also being really enjoyable?
Well, that does seem to be the double-bind most superhero movies are stuck in these days. Somehow being darker and yet more fun than ever before. It certainly resulted in the particularly clumsy tonal fluctuations in ASM2 (and, yes, they almost made it work, but, no, they didn't succeed). There are, of course, several examples of good balance - *coughbutallofthemareMarvelcoughalsomaybeX2*. But, seeing as all the superhero films that proliferate in cinemas these days are all still trying to hit the same such notes, but also distinguish themselves from each other? Sheeeeeesh! Good luck.
And this, true believers, is where the Rhino and Mr. Giamatti come in.
First off, Paul Giamatti in this movie is ri-fucking-diculous. Seriously. His overacting slides into Jim Carrey territory, his Russian accent couldn't have been more caricatured if his name was Boris Vodkaswiller Borishnikov, and he takes his character name somewhat literally, as his every line sounds like a rhino grunting in satisfaction at letting out a particularly overdue poop. There has never been a cinematic superhero character as hammy as him shy of the 1990s Batman villains (ha! Two Mr. Freeze cracks in one blog post! As Arnie would quip, "Ice!"). In fact, the only one who rivals him and his Looney Tunes accent is Martin Czokas as the "Europeeank" Dr. Kafka in the same film. But Czokas is an incidental character and way more over the top and way less a) fun, and b) good at it. Fuck that guy.
Back to Giamatti. Ri-fucking-diculous. Just look at him!
(walking around, grabbing his you know what, flipping the you know who [yeah, but he's so cute though] - whoops, another Eminem tangent. I would learn to control those, if they didn't add such spice to these ramblings. Also, if you're still reading all my blathering, you deserve to follow my train of thought).
Anyway, my fanboy beef is that the Rhino mech suit looks fucking stupid. Him walking around on two legs with that surplus of guns and missiles is almost farcical Iron Man/Transformers-theft overkill. Him walking on four legs is arguably worse. There, I said it.
THAT SAID, as with everything else about this silly movie, I knew I would think that all along. And yet, as I was lying in bed earlier, I found myself unable to fall asleep. Why? Because I kept thinking about the Rhino.
Now, I've written before about the power of decades of vested interest in reading comics and connecting with characters translating into over-evaluating their cinematic incarnations. I won't argue that that was the case here - Giamatti's Rhino was grotesquely over the top, and the film's treatment of him was stupid. Did I mention you don't even get to see the fight scene that the trailers all hinted at? Yeah, the entirety of that not-fight scene... is in the trailers. Its inclusion at all is, at most, a tenuous means of demonstrating Peter re-accepting his identity as Spider-Man (in a way that was done waaaaaayyy better in Spider-Man 2), and, at worst, a clumsy, callous Sinister Six plug. Womp womp.
And yet. I'm going to go out on a limb here and argue that, in many ways, Giamatti was more on the nose than most others involved. And here's why.
I enjoy this picture because a) he looks so happy and calm reading his comic, and b) I own that comic. NERD CRED.
Ahem.
There is a moment in the midst of Giamatti's scene-masticating coda scene where he bellows "I am the Rhino!" slamming his mechanical fist into the pavement for emphasis. Or, as he would garble it, "Ayy hyam Rchyno!" This stood out to me. It stood out to me because villains boastfully articulating their own villainous surnames almost never happens in superhero movies, with the exception of Magneto and the whole subtext of re-naming one's self in a gay nightlife kind of way. Sure, Foxx's Dillon also brands himself Electro in ASM2, but he's a nerd and a wannabe Spider-Man, so that makes more narrative sense. But there was something about the way Giamatti brayed "I am the Rhino!" that struck me as a moment that was profoundly comic book-y, and fundamentally unlike your average contemporary superhero movie. Both of the film's Rhino sequences were bombastic, way over the top, extremely cartoonish, and: felt like they belonged in a 1960s comic book, and were all the more unabashedly fun for it.
And here's where Sony and Columbia could (maybesortakinda) jot down a note or two.
My crazy thought is this is how, tonally, Spider-Man could stand out amidst the slew of superhero competition these days. As much as his recent crop of cinematic offerings have been fairly shit, Spider-Man is so near and dear to me that I'll always keep seeing them, like a cheerfully obedient kicked spider-puppy. If you'd told me when I was growing up that a year would come that I'd enjoy a Guardians of the Galaxy movie more than a Spider-Man movie, I would have laughed you out of the room. Yet that seems almost inevitable now. And as much as I have a perpetual Marvel boner, that seems uncool.
So, my thought is this: Spider-Man has always been a little bit campy, and a lot bit silly. He's tackled some pretty serious stuff - which the movies have tried, and largely failed, to convey - but is mostly known for either his intense, maudlin, melodramatic moping, and sense of humour. The secret to cinematically saving Spider-Man (say that five times fast), I contest, is not to cram him full of more darkness and supervillains, Sinister Six style. The secret is to tap into the 1960s style of fun, a-la Rhino. It would have to be consistent to fly, though. If ASM2 had picked a tone and stuck with it, it probably would have improved substantially as a film. Personally, I was most at the edge of my seat when Garfield's Spidey was firing off lame dad joke after lame dad joke, while Giamatti roared, spittle flying left and right, in the background. There may not have been much complexity at play, but these sequences were fun. And that kind of unchecked fun is - ironically - kind of rare in superhero films these days.
So, what I'd love to see is an entire film pitched at levels of 1960s Spider-Man wackiness. We would need J.K. Simmons' J. Jonah Jameson - who is notably never depicted onscreen because no one could ever be as good as Simmons in that part - back, of course. Now there was a man who knew how to chew a scene with gleeful aplomb.
But seriously. Think about it. A judicious and carefully handled return to the silliness and sheer fun of old superhero movies. It seems like the only natural way for the genre to come full circle, and they'd actually corner the market on it at this rate. Anyway, this may be nuts, but it's an idea that's got me all excited at this point, so I found it to be worth sharing, gosh darn it!
And look! I even found a thematically consistent fact AGAIN! Lookee me go!
#61: Rhinoceroses make their own sunscreen out of mud.
Lots of animals - pigs among others - are notorious for rolling in the mud to cool them down, but the rhino is somewhat unique in that it rolls in the mud to create a protective covering that staves insects away and stops it from getting sunburnt, as I learned here. So that's pretty groovy! Good ol' rhinos.
Anyway, it is now officially insanely late, and time for me to lay these ramblings, and myself, to bed. So, for your concluding grace note (and mine)...
Goodnight, y'all.
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