![]() Hot on the heels of 'X-Men', I think a lot of us can remember seeing the first teaser for an upcoming 'Spider-Man' movie. After 'X-Men', Spidey was probably the next logical step, and this was when the superhero genre was really coming to fruition. Sadly, after this, almost every Marvel film up to 'Iron Man' was pretty mediocre, with the exceptions of a few sequels, which I'll get to another time. Of course, I don't need to get into how Spidey has gone through the motions when it comes to his movies. It's kinda crazy to think that since the release of this, back in 2002, Spidey is already in his third incarnation. But the character has finally seemingly found his footing with Tom Holland in the role. But that's not to say that the older 'Spider-Man' movies should just be ignored, either. In fact, the first two are still among my favorite superhero movies. Being that Tom Holland's Spider-Man skipped over the origin story, which was frankly a great decision on the studios' part, one might be curious as to the most accurate portrayal of his origin in film. Well, 'The Amazing Spider-Man' didn't do a bad job with things, necessarily, but 2002's 'Spider-Man', with Tobey Maguire in the lead, is probably the better option of the two. If for no other reason, he faces the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) right away, who is probably considered his arch nemesis. It depends on what you wanna see, but I also consider this to be closer to giving out the comic book vibe than 'Amazing' did. That said, 'Amazing' has accuracies like his web shooters (they just kinda come from his wrists here), and a much, MUCH more likable love interest in Gwen Stacey, who is useful, as opposed to Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) here, who is pretty much just someone to be saved who screams a lot. Those things aside though, I'd say this is the superior origin film. Now that I'm on my fifth paragraph, maybe I'll get into the actual movie. Well, Peter Parker (Maguire) gets bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip, gains superpowers, and uses them to stop crime after the important lesson his uncle gives him - "with great power, comes great responsibility". Meanwhile, Norman Osbourn (Dafoe) becomes the Green Goblin after rushing a lab experiment and having it go wrong. It kinda brings out the evil within him, makes him stronger, and has him going up against his authorities. The catch - he's Peter's best friend Harry's (James Franco) father. Unfortunately, due to time and changing Spider-Man up twice, this one has started to feel kinda old. Where watching 'X-Men' meant watching the first title of a series that just wrapped up last year, watching 'Spider-Man' was more like a nice piece of nostalgia. The movie's still a lot of fun, but it's kinda just the old version of something now. It doesn't help that Holland has become my definitive Spider-Man, and is in the driver's seat now. But Maguire is at least still in the passenger seat while Andrew Garfield is stuck in the back seat - he's a great Spidey, but a lousy Parker. So, if you're looking to see what many consider the definitive Spider-Man origin story, I'd say go for this one. 'The Amazing Spider-Man' works pretty well too, but as I said, it all depends on what kind of 'Spider-Man' movie you wanna see. Personally, I enjoy this one more, but it IS perfectly debatable. Watch for yourself, and find out what Spidey works for you.
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![]() Let's hit that rewind button again, and go back to 2000. Largely, this was an era in which movies were trying to find some footing. This was just coming off that era of disaster movies, and the biggest name in movies was pretty much 'Star Wars Episode I', so... yeah. There were a few gems in between it all, but for the most part, there weren't a lot of great movies during this time. But the superhero era would soon find it's place, following on the heals of R-rated 'Blade', with PG-13-rated and far more popular 'X-Men'. The story here is that mutants are among us, and feared for what they could be capable of. Senator Kelly (Bruce Davidson) tries to pass a "Mutant Registration Act" in congress which would make mutants have to reveal what they can do to the world, taking away their basic freedoms. On one side of the mutant coin is Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), a mutant on the side of peace who has the ability to enter, read and manipulate people's minds. He runs a school for mutants who don't fully understand their abilities, and can learn how to use them to their advantage. They can also get their basic education here, and feel safe among others who are much like them. On the other side of that coin is Eric Lensherr/Magneto (Ian McKellen), a mutant who sees a war in the making based on his experiences in Nazi concentration camps as a child. He understands hatred toward race all too well, and is willing to go to extremes to put an end to things. The main plot, however, revolves around Rogue (Anna Paquin), who has an ability she fears as it doesn't allow her to touch anyone without seemingly sucking the life out of them. But of course, she's only half of it. The obviously more important half being Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), who has since been in every single 'X-Men' movie (except technically 'Deadpool'). Xavier promises to help him to understand his foggy past if he helps out. Truth be told, I haven't gone back and rewatched the 'X-Men' films in quite some time, so one might wonder how it all holds up. I think the funny part of it is that the uniforms are the black leather 'cause it looked cooler than "yellow spandex" at the time, which is an actual joke quote from the movie in which Cyclops references Wolverine's comic/cartoon costume. But nowadays, that's what we want to see. We wanna see what we see in the comics brought to life in a much more physical sense. While the 'X-Men' films have grown that way to some degree, they still seem to like slapping that leather on them for some reason, save maybe 'First Class' and the end of 'Apocalypse'. Costume accuracy aside, however, this movie hasn't dated itself really at all. The effects hold up pretty well, and the roles are nearly perfect casting, but besides the basics, it's a great idea to bring to the screen. The 'X-Men' are mostly compared as a metaphor for homosexuality, how things are confusing, few understand what it means to be in those shoes, and yeah, some of the more ignorant people may even fear you. But I tend to consider it more about prejudices of all sorts, and that's what makes the 'X-Men' so incredibly relatable. You can understand what these mutants are going though if you've ever experienced any kind of prejudice first hand, really. In this particular day and age where movies about that sort of thing are praised ('The Shape of Water'), this is a pretty solid title to go back and check out again. ![]() Back in '97, something terrible happened to the superhero movie, and it's name was 'Batman & Robin'. Still considered one of the worst movies of all time, let alone superhero movies, it pretty much killed any further 'Batman' films, and most studios seemed to think the superhero movie couldn't quite be done to full advantage quite yet. So the question was, what now? The answer was to introduce a hero that people may have been familiar with, but they could easily do their own thing with. On top of that, give it an R-rating, because you can get away with more of a dark take on things that way. The final product was 'Blade', and at the time, it blew us all away. Being that it was released in '98, and R-rated, I didn't manage to catch it in theaters, having just turned 16. This was also back when the theater actually cracked down on underage people who sneaked their way in to R-rating. Nowadays, I'm never surprised to see a group of 5-year-olds wandering in. But upon renting it once it came out, I remember loving it, and wishing I had gotten the chance to see it on the big screen. It was dark, action packed, Blade was a badass, and I even considered the special effects good for the time. That said, they are now so painfully dated, it looks cartoonish, but the rest of what I enjoy about it is certainly still there. The film starts with a very brief backstory in which a woman, freshly bitten by a vampire, gives birth to Blade. 30 years later, Blade is known as the "Day Walker", as somehow when the infection carried over to him as a baby, he managed to absorb all of a vampire's strength with none of the weaknesses. However, the blood thirst was one thing that he managed to inherit, which he staves off, using a consistent injection of special syrum. Blade's villain in this is a young, turned vampire (in other words, not pure-blood) named Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) who has big plans for the vampire world, wishing for them to take it over, and essentially wiping out all humans. I like to refer to this as "Magneto Style". Anyway, it's the basic story of the race between hero, who wants to prevent, and villain, who wants to destroy. It's not entirely a new concept. For it's time, 'Blade' was considered something very special, and is often claimed to be the spark of the new superhero movie. For the most part, people seem to give that title to 'X-Men'. Personally, I tend to side with this one a bit more as the "spark", where 'X-Men' more just got the ball rolling. Of course, 'X-Men' also wasn't R-rated, so there were still some limitations with this and a younger audience. Watching it now, there's a lot more one can nitpick about, not the least of which being the laughable CG effects. I'd even say they were actually pretty bad for the time, but that's CG in the late 90s for you - not quite developed to perfection yet. The villain, Deacon Frost also comes across as a little weak. I remembered him being a total badass the first few times I watched this, but nowadays I guess I just see the douchebag shining through a bit more. Other ideas they have here are silly, like the vampires using sunscreen to get around in the sunlight without dying. But I mean, the sun is as strong as it is, so that's just confusing. It's just not quite as great as I remembered it, and by today's standards, there's cheesiness spilling out of it's seriousness. That said, it's still a fun movie, and it marks an R-rated superhero movie that came along, and succeeded, way before 'Deadpool' did it's thing. 'Deadpool' wasn't really a first, it was just resurrecting an idea that studios seemed to forget about - likely because PG and PG-13 offers itself to a wider audience. But isn't it strange that they seemed to have something special here, and never even made a string of R-rated superhero movies? It's not perfect by any means, but it's kind of a gem for it's era. |
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