I published a new column at The Escapist yesterday. With the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the film.
No Way Home is technically Tom Holland’s sixth film the role of Peter Parker. So it’s interesting that No Way Home effectively puts his version of the character through the standard narrative beats of a Spider-Man origin story. In many ways, No Way Home feels like it’s a movie that is aiming for a clean start and fresh break. It also feels like something of a divorce movie between Sony and Marvel Studios. The movie opens with Aunt May dumping the director of Iron Man, and the film seems eager to announce that it is living its best life. The first thing that it does is to hit up some of its exes.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With reports that Sony have plans for another trilogy of movies built around Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, it felt like a good time to reflect on what that might mean.
After all, most Marvel Cinematic Universe properties seem to be content with trilogies. Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans tapped out after three films. There is some suggestion that directors James Gunn and Peyton Reed may be done with their properties after completing their third films. So it’s interesting to imagine a world where Tom Holland has headlined six solo Spider-Man movies. What challenges might this pose for the Marvel Cinematic Universe? What opportunities?
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and with special guests Graham Day, Luke Dunne and Bríd Martin, This Just In is a subset of The 250 podcast, looking at notable new arrivals on the list of the 250 best movies of all-time, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.
This time, Peter Ramsey, Robert Persichetti Jr. and Rodney Rothman’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
At time of recording, it was ranked the 26th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Escape Plan doesn’t demand too much. It doesn’t demand too much from its lead actors, and it doesn’t demand too much from its audience. A film about watching two of the biggest action stars of the eighties teaming up should be a celebratory occasion – a trip down memory lane, one last go-around for old time’s sake as we watch this dynamic duo escape a mysterious “off the grid” prison which seems quite like the place I imagined all eighties action stars go in the end.
Instead, Escape Plan feels like the middle section of John Woo’s Face/Off extended out to a two-hour feature film, the story of a man who shouldn’t be in prison forced to escape from a futuristic science-fiction gulag through a series of overly-elaborate action set-pieces. There is, quite frankly, not enough here to support the movie’s extended runtime, with the script never daring to swerve sharply away from expectations or clichés. Escape Plan delivers exactly what the premise promises, but nothing more and never with anything approaching enthusiasm.
Apparently Sony is pressing full speed ahead with this Spider-Man license. I suspect they looked at the massive success that Marvel, Paramount and ultimately Disney have had with their series of Avengers films. Releasing a series of relatively independent superhero films that all tied together proved to be quite the financial success, becoming one of the biggest earners of all time. It’s easy enough to understand why other studios might want to follow the business model. The problem? Sony only really has the license to Spidey and his supporting cast. How do you build a multi-character franchise when you only own the rights to one admittedly iconic? You spin-off his supporting characters, of course. In this case, it’s the villain Venom, who is reportedly getting a film from director Josh Trank, who made quite the impression with his début directing Chronicle, and possibly tying into the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man.
A lot has been made of the argument that The Amazing Spider-Man is a superhero movie for girls. Indeed, comparisons have been made to Twilight of all things, suggesting that The Amazing Spider-Man has been constructed in such a way as to appeal to younger female audience members. I think that’s a fair point, even if mentioning the “T-word” inevitably provokes fanboys to foam at the mouth. Gwen Stacy, as brilliantly portrayed by Emma Stone, feels like a much more central and important part of this film than any female character in any major superhero blockbuster produced over the past few years. However, there’s also a sense that while there are some quite conscious and deliberate similarities between the Twilight franchise and this “new and improved” superhero reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man manages to fulfil all these tropes and conventions without resorting to the uncomfortable sexism and stilted emotional responses that have prompted a lot of critics and viewers to so loudly criticise Stephenie Meyers’ vampire franchise.
Hey. With about a week to go until the release of The Amazing Spider-Man, we thought we’d publish a quick introductory guide to the latest adventure featuring the webcrawler, for those looking for a bit more trivia on the latest pending superhero release. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing it and, while reviews are embargoed until Friday (unless you’re a major publisher like The Guardian or The Hollywood Reporter apparently), here’s the skinny.
I’m a big Bond fan, so any bit of news about Skyfall is going to be of interest. Sony have released the teaser, which seems like the one that debuted at Cinema Con a little while back. I have to admit, I like the look of it. It looks to retain the same psychological complexity of the better recent Bond films (Casino Royale or GoldenEye) but with sacrificing any of the class or sophistication (like Quantum of Solace did, arguably). Featuring a stunning cast, an amazing director and released to celebrate the franchise’s fiftieth birthday, this is definitely one to watch. Check out the teaser below. It looks beautiful, featuring wonderful saturation in places – almost like one of the sixties films but with the character work from more modern instalments.
We still have a few months to wait before Marc Webb reboots Sony’s Spider-Man franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man. Despite some tonal worries, I’ll admit Webb has quite a talented crew assembled – Andrew Garfield is on the cusp of stardom, and Emma Stone is a bit ahead of him. However, I can’t help but wonder if Webb’s film might be a few months too late. After all, haven’t Kick-Ass and Chronicle offered a fairly solid deconstruction of the iconic web-slinging superhero? Is there really enough left to be said in the Spider-Man origin story when we’ve already seen it picked apart and subverted so often and skilfully?
Well, this is certainly going to be challenging in the modern world, threading the impossibly thin line between sup… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…...around... 4 hours ago
It’s fascinating how Tom Wambsgans completely and immediately changed Matthew Macfadyen’s screen persona.
It’s ins… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…...around... 4 hours ago
RT @DannyDutch: “Dental Phantoms” from the 1950s the “dental phantom is a model that dentists use to practice their techniques. https://t.c…...around... 4 hours ago
the m0vie blog 