Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

... or the reason why I'm sorry that I've been too picky with "Baby Driver" one week ago - how can you qualify the 2nd reboot in a 15 year interval when we had 5 movies from the first one in 2002? Well, I decided to ignore my mean answer of something like "the sheep is milked so often at Marvel that the shepherd doesn't know what type of cheese to do from the milk", and following the ratings above 7.5 out of 10 on 3 sites I decided to give it a chance... I kept however my expectations low for this latest Spiderman, hoping for the John Wick effect = that I'll be so pleasantly surprised that my feedback will be 180 degrees different from what I'm thinking. Reverse psychology self-applied = fail ...

I'm not in the mood of writing about Spiderman. It felt so bland that I decided to watch quickly another movie for having a blog entry this week. Since in less than 10 hours I must leave to somewhere on the northern coast of Germany (yep, I'm writing on the run again) I decided to try rewatching "Das Leben der Anderen" = 2 in 1 = a couple extra words besides "Guten Tag/Auf Wiedersehen" will come back to me and I'll also have a subject. Fail again... I don't know how much Deutsch I remembered but not that much. What's certain is that the movie, as good as it might be, felt even more depressing than 10-11 years ago, so I'm not in the mood of writing about this either... Ergo, back to Spiderman...

What's to be said? The only, unique, and way too single scene worth mentioning in this movie comes about two hours after start, and surprises us about a family relative of "the main villain", Which I have to admit I didn't expect. Everything's in the Marvel typical line of super-hero stories, but more mild than usual, with more educational purpose than usual, small jokes and violence within the PG-13 limit, very politically correct. A clear target on the 13-16 years old public. I have problems here and there with getting over the line in some movies, but the sensation it went through a censorship office is much worse (I think I prefer the other extreme of excess sex & violence). Even the negative character here has a social motivation, gets locked up and has issues with the impact on his own family. Besides that, Spiderman, at least in the first part, is quite close to become a sort of Robin for Iron Man = there's lots in the suit - web throwing modes, combat modes, etc. So the spider power is actually in the updated version a sort of electronically assisted super-power. I had some other view on this, but well.. gadgets are trendy...

To conclude, I don't know if the professional critics have any contracts with Marvel, but I didn't see anything here. Maybe I'm a bit subjective based on the image formed through the years on Marvel, but there are exceptions: GotG and Dr. Strange + I have some hopes after seeing the trailer for the latest Thor. For Spiderman, I don't know... another reboot? ;)...

Rating: 2 out of 5

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

I'm gonna continue the last entry "trend" of sequels that I thought will waste my time, and eventually didn't :), with the 2nd part of the rebooted Spiderman franchise. ( Besides that, is Halloween anyway so I needed something with a mask ;) ).

I've seen when this was released plenty opinions on being the worst Spiderman movie to date. Also, there are plenty opinions saying that the tandem Alex Kurtzman/Roberto Orci is a real plague among the Hollywood screenwriters = after "destroying" Star Trek now the started doing it with other franchises, as the current one. I can agree with their scripts "quality" for "Transformers" without any doubt, but leaving that aside, things are far from being so bad. Yes, the script is superficial, has holes, there are 12 minute YouTube videos mocking smth like 100 scenes in the movie, it's in a word "Hollywoodish" with a big H, but ... it has a story, it's catchy, the jokes are becoming more natural + it has that something that you want from a two hours+ movie when all you need is to let your brain "fly away". I know, I'm repeating myself :) I said that before, but honestly I'm glad that I see movies giving me the opportunity to do it.

I didn't watch it in 3D, and I think it's one of the few cases when I regret it. The effects are superb even in 2D. But what's top notch in this movie is the sound & music area. Hans Zimmer's score boosted again my hopes after "Lone Ranger" that the guy is not yet left without ideas. Thing that happens at some point for most of the composers. Besides that we also have the sound editing & mixing. If this movie doesn't get an Oscar nod for this next year it means that my ears start failing ( or that the year is not over yet and something better will show up :) ).

I've skipped the story. I'll keep it spoiler free this time. And not necessarily because the story is simple. Some actually say that this movie has too many secondary threads, and too many villains. It's perfect, it doesn't get boring. And most important, it's fun ;) despite not ending the romance in a very happy note (well .. I couldn't keep it :P)