5 posts tagged “comics”
My husband says that I am besmirching Spiderman with this review.
We watched Spiderman 3 last night, and I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed. The other two movies had great action scenes with tight stories, but this one was all over the place. The action scenes were good - particularly the first fight between Spiderman and the Goblin - but the drama just dragged on and on. Worse of all, they rewrote parts of the story. I also felt they changed one of the key character's personality a bit.
The Sandman looked cool and had nice special effects but he didn't add much to the story. I wish they had more Goblin scenes, and I suppose Venom was necessary although they needed more.
I did like all the side characters who returned though, but they weren't enough. I tried to like the movie but half way through I just got tired and annoyed.
It is Sunday morning and alas I am not able to visit the floor for those last minute discounts and deals made by tired vendors very, very anxious not to carry inventory home... so I blog because I cannot do.
I don't have the time to write a full entry so I will just list some of the highlights.
- The (Big) Fantasy Book panel is very anglo....
- My husband got me a sketch of Daisy Kutter.
- Stan Sakai teased my husband in a crowded room.
- Robert Kirkman is a very silly guy but smart - as well as acknowledged as a zombie expert by the public high school in his area.
- I now own a (small) set of Copic markers.
- Watching bad but fun anime to get away from the crowds.
- Snakes on a Plane!
After barreling down I-5 in a large white 15 person van dubbed the Behemoth and in whose belly we happily loaded a beer and soda filled cooler, half empty suitcases, and a small fleet of Nintendo DS Lites which we used for an impromptu Tetris tournament, we are now lounging in a 1 bedroom condo in downtown San Diego, leafing through the Comic-con programs and deciding upon which panels and stalls we'll be hitting tomorrow morning. We have found a corner market for groceries and a restaurant that will be open 24 hours over the weekend. So far, we seem pretty well set up for the con, and Comic-con is huge and fun and surprisingly physically demanding in a way that creeps up on one and smacks you in the head, so it's important to have your sleeping quarters and food planned out.
Tonight was Preview Night at the con, which is great for grabbing our badges to avoid the long lines in the morning and scoping out the floor. Preview night is supposed to be the night that pre-registered attendees can browse the floor in comfort - without the hassle of crowds, but it was pretty packed tonight and we found ourselves weaving through attendees, booth babes, and even camera crews who were clogging the aisles. One vendor told me that the con administrators had warned them to be prepared for about 25,000 people on Preview night alone.
But so far the con has been good.
And now for the loot:
- Nintendo DS Lite stylus with monsters on the end
- Captain Amazing book by Scott Kurtz of PvP fame
- 3 prints from Dan Brereton
- The first issue of a new Red Star story arc
- 2 trades from Zander Cannon
Superman Returns was a pretty movie with lovely special effects but it blithly ignores any consideration as frivolous as characterization or story. It is a pretty movie but unsatisfying. It could have been good but wasn't.
I suggest you stop reading if you don't want spoilers.
I'm a little disturbed that Superman remains fairly unaffected by his pilgrimage to his dead home world (he had 5 years to mull over the experience) and I'm a bit peeved that the scriptwriter could not come up with a better excuse for his abrupt departure than that it was "too hard" for the man of steel to say goodbye to Lois. *bleck*
It would have been interesting to explore how Superman's voyage home would have changed Superman and how Earth might have reacted to his abandonment and then his return or how it would have changed in those 5 years he was away. The movie batters us with all that Christ imagery - I felt a bit bruised from the experience - but there wasn't any point to the imagery. They just used it to make the movie pretty. If Superman is Christ or even just hope, the movie didn't show that people were changed or inspired by this. At least in the Spider-Man movies, New Yorkers are inspired to act. The people of Metropolis just look on at Superman's feats in awe, mouths gaping. They are never more than just spectators.
I also wish that Lex had come up with some type of coherent evil plan - how was that uninhabitable crystal island useful to anyone human? How did he plan to protect the crystal island from conventional, non-Kryptonian forces?
A minor point but Lois Lane is fairly awful as a mother. Not only does Lois drag her kid back to the green kryptonite island, but her constant smothering hasn't been too good for him either. The movie also never deals with the fact that after their little tryst in Superman 2, Superman erases her memory. Unless her character is very different from what I had thought it was, then you'd wonder why she doesn't wonder about how she got pregnant in the first place.
There were some funny moments and nice touches here and there - I liked
the flying, the plane rescue, I liked how Lois took her shoes off before flying with
Superman, the two dogs, the piano duet was cute, James Marsden was surprisingly convincing as the good boyfriend, the overall prettiness to the flick - but overall, I didn't think it was worth all the hype.
A good movie though for pretty visuals and special effects if that's all you want.
