not a jury, but I'll decide
Apr. 18th, 2014 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe Amazing Spider-Man 2
My reaction as a pro/con list.
PRO: The casting, which for me was the main thing in favour of the reboot of this franchise. (Maybe Raimi’s trilogy caught me at a more impressionable age, but I thought the last movie didn’t have the iconic style to set it apart.) Garfield is still great to watch, has oodles of chemistry with Stone and DeHaan made for a really interesting Harry, his performance helping to illuminate the journey into the Peter Pan of your nightmares of the Goblin.
ASIDE: This isn’t actually a film for under-twelve year old boys. It thinks it is, but even little boys who want to dress up in a Spider-Man costume may come out with nightmares. This aside was brought to you by someone who still has massive issues with the 12A certificate.
CON: Although Spidey guides the kid who ‘bravely’ went to stand in front of Rhino and his assault weapons away, I was wondering what his mother and the other New Yorkers were thinking: it was a guy in, essentially, an armed vehicle, all guns blazing, not a parade. Don’t stand there watching, RUN!
CON: If that’s what I’m thinking, the action isn’t engaging me.
PRO: Lots of Gwen’s story arc was about her agency, her right to make her choices, not dictated by her dead dad or Peter’s. She wanted to go to Oxford, she wanted a relationship where her boyfriend wasn’t so hung up on keeping her safe that most of their conversations were ‘You were late’ ‘I was being ansgty. I can’t be with you’ and she got to save her city and her kind-of boyfriend because she was the smartest.
CON: But they killed her off. I’d suspected it was coming then shoved it to the back of my mind, because Gwen Stacy as played by Emma Stone was adorable. (After seeing the film, maybe Shailene Woodley will get over them cutting Mary-Jane, because I don’t see how MJ being introduced at this point would have come off well.)
CON: They never addressed the fact that Peter was basically stalking Gwen after they were broken up.
CON: Gwen's death made for a downer of an ending, really. We had the montage of grieving (MOAR angst for Peter) and then the return of wisecracking Spidey, but watching Gwen die had made my breath whoosh out of me and nothing made it come back until I realised something I’ll get to.
ASIDE: Marvel really owe us that announcement about a superheroine film after this.
CON: This film was so tonally uneven: dead dad angst from Peter and Harry and seeing ghosts and then cracking wise while going whee through the city. Epitomised by the ending.
CON: Electro. Jamie Foxx did his best, but this was the least involving aspect of the film for me. I felt I’d seen it before (Iron Man 3, Batman Returns) and some moments went too far and reminded me of Mr Freeze from Batman and Robin (the overuse of theme tunes).
CON: The sense that they hadn't locked down the script much before they started filming. Maybe I'm wrong on that.
PRO: It still made better use of its supervillains than Spider-Man 3, which bodes well for what I think they’re setting up.
PRO: I waited to check that that was Felicity Jones under that fringe. I walked quite far from the cinema mentally grumbling that that was a waste of Jones and Paul Giamatti until I remembered Felicia (Hardy) was the name of Black Cat. Now what I knew about Black Cat boiled down to a Marvel top trump and the idea that she predated Catwoman, with whom she shares some similarities. Fifteen-minutes of internet research hasn’t brought up much, except Felicity Jones playing an ambiguous possible supervillain with catlike powers and a development of Felicia’s relationship with Harry is intriguing.
PRO: The scene where Peter presses his Aunt May for more information about his parents and drops the title Aunt in trying to reach her, while it was all respectful about her feelings and grief, was also adamant that he deserved the whole story as she knew it. I liked that scene.
PRO/CON: Richard Parker hogged the attention, but Mary Parker seemed really competent and together and I would have loved to have found out more about her.
CON: Dr Kafka.
VERDICT: Not amazing.
The Good Wife 5.12 We, The Juries
No pro con list here. It’s all thumbs up.
I was entertained by the case of the week. The poor judge (Spy Daddy) and juries. Having their lawyers refusing to work in concert did hurt the defendants and slowed both teams down from trying the obvious tactic instead of using them as fodder for Will and Alicia's running war of attrition.
Cary stepped up for Alicia as much as he could, and then seemed to handle Kalinda, for once. I agree that what's going to happen next is a bad idea, but it’s Kalinda...And she probably is feeling sore with all that’s been going on with her, not to mention the firm, so she's probably sincere. (Plus Robin did better at investigating this week.)
And Will’s lie about the jury foremen was a nice bit of foreshadowing, but everything about Marilyn’s investigation was great. I barely remembered the intricacies of what had happened, but Alicia’s response, especially WRT Zack, resonated, showing how fragile her trust in Peter is, and then we had the Will versus Peter encounter.
So this episode was both entertaining and exciting.
My reaction as a pro/con list.
PRO: The casting, which for me was the main thing in favour of the reboot of this franchise. (Maybe Raimi’s trilogy caught me at a more impressionable age, but I thought the last movie didn’t have the iconic style to set it apart.) Garfield is still great to watch, has oodles of chemistry with Stone and DeHaan made for a really interesting Harry, his performance helping to illuminate the journey into the Peter Pan of your nightmares of the Goblin.
ASIDE: This isn’t actually a film for under-twelve year old boys. It thinks it is, but even little boys who want to dress up in a Spider-Man costume may come out with nightmares. This aside was brought to you by someone who still has massive issues with the 12A certificate.
CON: Although Spidey guides the kid who ‘bravely’ went to stand in front of Rhino and his assault weapons away, I was wondering what his mother and the other New Yorkers were thinking: it was a guy in, essentially, an armed vehicle, all guns blazing, not a parade. Don’t stand there watching, RUN!
CON: If that’s what I’m thinking, the action isn’t engaging me.
PRO: Lots of Gwen’s story arc was about her agency, her right to make her choices, not dictated by her dead dad or Peter’s. She wanted to go to Oxford, she wanted a relationship where her boyfriend wasn’t so hung up on keeping her safe that most of their conversations were ‘You were late’ ‘I was being ansgty. I can’t be with you’ and she got to save her city and her kind-of boyfriend because she was the smartest.
CON: But they killed her off. I’d suspected it was coming then shoved it to the back of my mind, because Gwen Stacy as played by Emma Stone was adorable. (After seeing the film, maybe Shailene Woodley will get over them cutting Mary-Jane, because I don’t see how MJ being introduced at this point would have come off well.)
CON: They never addressed the fact that Peter was basically stalking Gwen after they were broken up.
CON: Gwen's death made for a downer of an ending, really. We had the montage of grieving (MOAR angst for Peter) and then the return of wisecracking Spidey, but watching Gwen die had made my breath whoosh out of me and nothing made it come back until I realised something I’ll get to.
ASIDE: Marvel really owe us that announcement about a superheroine film after this.
CON: This film was so tonally uneven: dead dad angst from Peter and Harry and seeing ghosts and then cracking wise while going whee through the city. Epitomised by the ending.
CON: Electro. Jamie Foxx did his best, but this was the least involving aspect of the film for me. I felt I’d seen it before (Iron Man 3, Batman Returns) and some moments went too far and reminded me of Mr Freeze from Batman and Robin (the overuse of theme tunes).
CON: The sense that they hadn't locked down the script much before they started filming. Maybe I'm wrong on that.
PRO: It still made better use of its supervillains than Spider-Man 3, which bodes well for what I think they’re setting up.
PRO: I waited to check that that was Felicity Jones under that fringe. I walked quite far from the cinema mentally grumbling that that was a waste of Jones and Paul Giamatti until I remembered Felicia (Hardy) was the name of Black Cat. Now what I knew about Black Cat boiled down to a Marvel top trump and the idea that she predated Catwoman, with whom she shares some similarities. Fifteen-minutes of internet research hasn’t brought up much, except Felicity Jones playing an ambiguous possible supervillain with catlike powers and a development of Felicia’s relationship with Harry is intriguing.
PRO: The scene where Peter presses his Aunt May for more information about his parents and drops the title Aunt in trying to reach her, while it was all respectful about her feelings and grief, was also adamant that he deserved the whole story as she knew it. I liked that scene.
PRO/CON: Richard Parker hogged the attention, but Mary Parker seemed really competent and together and I would have loved to have found out more about her.
CON: Dr Kafka.
VERDICT: Not amazing.
The Good Wife 5.12 We, The Juries
No pro con list here. It’s all thumbs up.
I was entertained by the case of the week. The poor judge (Spy Daddy) and juries. Having their lawyers refusing to work in concert did hurt the defendants and slowed both teams down from trying the obvious tactic instead of using them as fodder for Will and Alicia's running war of attrition.
Cary stepped up for Alicia as much as he could, and then seemed to handle Kalinda, for once. I agree that what's going to happen next is a bad idea, but it’s Kalinda...And she probably is feeling sore with all that’s been going on with her, not to mention the firm, so she's probably sincere. (Plus Robin did better at investigating this week.)
And Will’s lie about the jury foremen was a nice bit of foreshadowing, but everything about Marilyn’s investigation was great. I barely remembered the intricacies of what had happened, but Alicia’s response, especially WRT Zack, resonated, showing how fragile her trust in Peter is, and then we had the Will versus Peter encounter.
So this episode was both entertaining and exciting.
