REVIEW: The Spectacular Spider-Man

Everyone has experienced the kind of pain I'm about to share with you all. That hopeless longing for the one that got away; that one perfect show that was mercilessly struck down in its prime. Plotlines left unresolved, questions left unanswered, so much potential gone right down the drain. And even though it hurts to remember that such a great story is left without an ending, you keep coming back, again and again, because even though it's unfinished, it's just that good. Everyone has that one show; so what was her name? For me, it was a little cartoon by the name of The Spectacular Spider-Man. It premiered back in March of 2008, on the CW's Kids' WB block before moving to Disney XD after the Marvel acquisition of 2009 (more on that later).

It had been five years since the last animated Spider-Man show (MTV's more teen-oriented take, starring Neil Patrick Harris) and nearly a decade since the classic "spider blood, spider blood, radioactive spider blood" Spider-Man of the late 90's; the webhead was due for a return. Enter Greg Weisman, of Disney's Gargoyles fame. Together with his crew, they set out to make the definitive Spider-Man cartoon, blending elements from classic Lee/Romita/Ditko storylines with the contemporary works of the Ultimate universe. The end result is exactly what they were going for; this is, unquestionably, the best Spider-Man adaptation of all time. If you'll allow me to gush further, I'll be happy to explain why.

Internally, the series was referred to as "the education of Peter Parker", with episodes taking the name of subjects from highschool classes (the first arc, comprised of the episodes Survival of the Fittest, Interactions, and Natural Selection all fall under Biology 101, for example). This approach had a dual meaning, however, as the series not only follows Peter trying to learn and grow as a human being, but as a superhero as well. This is a Spider-Man who, despite his inherent cleverness and upstanding nature, still makes mistakes from time to time, some as simple as missing curfew, others as severe as indirectly giving rise to villains such as Electro and Venom. He's flawed, but he's not hopeless, we sympathize with Peter because he has more on his plate than anyone his age should be expected to handle. It's a classic element of the Spider-Man character and the show goes out of its way to throw us one emotional curveball after another, to the point that the more reserved character drama of Peter's highschool life can at times become more engaging than the slickly-animated action sequences.

The show manages to strike the perfect balance between fresh and innovative and the kind of classic storytelling one might expect from a Spider-Man show. There's a clear reverence for the source material, namely the old-school Amazing Spider-Man comics of the 60's and 70's, yet certain elements (such as the roles, personalities, and ethnicities of the supporting cast) are updated for the modern era, all while keeping the spirit of those classic comics very much alive. As the show's producers put it, "we tried to follow what we came to call "The Five Cs": Contemporary, Cohesive, Coherent, Classic and iConic." Through the benefit of hindsight, the showrunners were able to look back on the decades of Spider-Man stories and determine what was truly essential, boiling down the myriad interpretations of each and every character into their base essence. The result is a concentrated bomb of spider-goodness; despite the modern approach to these classic characters and scenarios, everything feels exactly as it should be. Seldom does an adaptation truly "get" its source material as well as with Spectacular; it's a show that prioritized understanding the tone and characterization of what it was working with, and the result is, well, spectacular.

That said, the show's strengths don't exclusively lie in the realm of engaging characters and plotlines. The art direction (care of Sean "Cheeks" Galloway) lends the show a very smooth, stylized art style that animates superbly well. Spider-Man feels far more lithe and flexible than he ever has before, so the moments where the action ramps up truly feel (as clichéd as this comparison is) like the panels of a comic book brought to life, full of energy and excitement. This is helped along by a superb vocal cast, namely Josh Keaton as Peter Parker. I may alienate some people when I say that Keaton is, without a doubt, the superior Spider-Man. As Kevin Conroy is to Batman, so is Josh Keaton to the webhead. His is a voice that will invade your head whenever you read a Spider-Man comic (or at the very least, one set during Peter's high school years). The rest of the cast is a veritable who's-who of voice acting talent; Clancy Brown, John DiMaggio, Lacey Chabert, Kevin Michael Richardson, Daran Norris, Ben Diskin, Steve Blum, and even the likes of Peter MacNicol, Robert Englund, Keith David, and Ed Asner. Each voice is utterly perfect, further cementing that original vision of making the definitive Spider-Man show. There's also the show's habit of constantly tossing hints and teasers at more comic-savvy viewers; frequently, villains will appear ahead of time in their civilian guise, doing whatever it is they do before the horrible accident that condemns them to a life of villainy. It's touches like these that really make the show feel alive, as though episodes don't necessarily start and end with the supremely catchy theme song. Even aside from being an amazing Spider-Man show, Spectacular ends up being an amazing show, period.

So what happened?

In December of 2009, the Walt Disney Company purchased Marvel Entertainment for the whopping sum of $4.24 billion. Given Marvel's (still to this day) tricky web of broadcasting and distribution rights among its myriad properties, the film and television rights for Spider-Man remained in the hands of Sony. Although Spectacular Spider-Man was critically-acclaimed and saw financial success through the sale of toys and home video releases, Sony relinquished the television rights to Spidey back to Marvel, in exchange for a hefty cash settlement. However, the specific rights to Spectacular remained with Sony, leaving either company unable to continue the series in any way, shape, or form. Disney would eventually go on to create their own Spider-Man cartoon in the form of Disney's Marvel's Ultimate Spider-Man, a disgustingly low-effort 20-minute toy commercial that served to do nothing but remind us what we had lost with Spectacular. 

As it stands, it seems as though the show will never again see any kind of continuation. Despite a strong cult following and the support of an enthusiastic crew, it's unlikely we'll see the likes of Spectacular Spider-Man ever again. Then again, Samurai Jack just wrapped up its fifth season after a twelve-year hiatus, and Young Justice (also from Weisman) is poised to return in 2018 on a new DC streaming platform; anything is possible. In the meantime, I highly recommend picking up the Blu-Ray box set of the complete series; unless a revival is seen as profitable, there's no reason for anyone, whether it be Sony or Disney, to go through the trouble of giving us a continuation. At the end of the day, we got less than half of what we were supposed to with Spectacular Spider-Man; the only upside of having so little time with this series is that 100% of it is pure quality. Some have compared this to Batman The Animated Series, saying it's nearly as good; I'd go as far to say it's even better, seeing as how Spectacular doesn't have a single episode like I've Got Batman in My Basement. The show starts out solid, but truly picks up once the Green Goblin is introduced in episode 7. From that point on, it's nothing but pure, unadulterated nirvana for Spider-Man fanatics like myself. Take it from me, if you consider yourself a fan of the wall-crawler in any capacity, there's exactly zero reasons not to seek this show out immediately. 'Nuff said!

REVIEW: Baby Driver

It's no secret that I'm a tremendous fan of the works of Edgar Wright. I'm rarely ever not in the mood to watch Shaun of the Dead and I consider Hot Fuzz to be one of the finest comedy films ever made. Even films of his that I'm comparatively lukewarm on like Scott Pilgrim and The World's End are still pretty spectacularly well-constructed films. The man is a true auteur, with a distinct visual style and a real knack for details. I hadn't heard much of Baby Driver leading up to its release, but once I heard that Edgar Wright was at the helm, I knew it was something I would have to check out.

The plot focuses on the titular Baby (Ansel Elgort), a teenage getaway driver who's something of a prodigy behind the wheel. Hoping to get out of the world of organized crime after repaying his debt to an enigmatic kingpin played by Kevin Spacey, Baby finds himself dragged back in for one last big score. While trying to bury his criminal past, he ends up romantically involved with a young waitress named Deborah (Lily James); this complicates matters, as Baby tries to balance both sides of his life while making sure no one he cares about gets caught in the crossfire.

In many ways, this is a by-the-numbers heist story; we've all heard "one last job, and then I'm out" before, but it's that unique Edgar Wright flair that makes this movie stand out among the rest. We learn at one point that Baby was in a deadly car accident as a child; not only did this accident kill his parents, it also cursed him with a chronic case of tinnitus. In order to drown out the ringing, Baby is never without one of several iPods, all jam-packed with classic songs from every genre imaginable. Much like Guardians of the Galaxy, Baby Driver features several sequences choreographed to popular music. That said, it's worth remembering that this is Edgar Wright in the director's chair, so this goes a bit farther than simply playing a pop song during an action scene.

I'm tempted to outright call this a musical, as everything, literally everything, from gunshots to graffiti to the editing itself, is synced in tune to the music. This is the kind of movie you can watch again and again, noticing some new bit of visual artistry each and every time. There's tons of blink-and-you'll-miss-it details and long, unbroken shots, to say nothing of the pulse-pounding car chases. This movie has some of the best car chase sequences I've ever seen, and I say this having watched The Blues Brothers. There's an abundance of practical special effects at work here, lots of tricky camera angles and real stunt drivers working on large, impressive sets. Combined with the sublime cinematography of DoP Bill Pope, Edgar Wright manages to give us something that is the very definition of the phrase "a feast for the eyes". Baby Driver is, technically speaking, a work of art. Which is a shame that the other, more narrative-based elements of the film pale in comparison.

For as good as the film looks, elements such as story and characterization feel a little half-baked; there's nothing out and out bad here, per say, but at some points it can distract from the rest of the film. The romance comes off as very under-written for how much focus it receives; we're supposed to care most of all about Baby and Deborah's relationship, yet they don't really have any reason to be interested in each other. They have fairly good chemistry and they both enjoy music, but that's more or less where their similarities end. They aren't given a chance to grow and develop as a couple before they're both ready to drop everything and drive into the sunset towards mystery and adventure. Deborah in particular is far too forgiving in regards to what she has to endure in the latter half of the film, killing any and all tension as to how their relationship will end up; she's with Baby till the end of the line, even though it's not really explained why. 

The story also dips considerably in the middle, struggling to maintain the sheer energy and excitement brought on by the first and final acts. There are also some plot elements that feel more than a little rushed for convenience's sake; this is a movie that keeps a fairly brisk pace, but every now and again something will change just a tad too quickly, to the point that the emotion the filmmakers seem to be going for doesn't feel entirely earned. There's one moment in particular during the climax involving Kevin Spacey's character, Doc, that left me scratching my head. I won't go into it for sake of spoilers, but his sudden shift in character development felt completely out of left field and really took a lot of focus away from what was otherwise an exciting and thoroughly engaging finale.

I think that one definitely has to be in the proper mindset to fully appreciate this movie. Despite its trendy, modern flair, this is a very old-school story in terms of the way the narrative and characters work. The romance is simple, the plot moves quickly, and if you stop to ask questions you're going to miss all the beautiful scenery. Things like half-baked subplots and under-developed characters are problems, yes, but the rest of the movie works so well that it's very easy to overlook these problems, so long as you watch from the proper point of view. True, I didn't really feel anything for the romance between Baby and Deborah. But at the same time, literally everything else about their story and the way it was told commanded my attention. This is a movie that understands that film is very much a visual medium; it favors style over substance, but that doesn't mean there's no substance to be found. By the end of it, I was very much rooting for Baby to make it out okay and I really wanted to see the villains get what was coming to them. This is thanks, not only to the engrossing visual style, but to the stellar performances of everyone headlining the cast, ESPECIALLY Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx. These two completely stole every scene they were in, especially if they happened to be on-screen together. 

Baby Driver is not a perfect film, but like most of Edgar Wright's work, it's close enough. There wasn't a moment during this movie that I wasn't enjoying myself and this is definitely the kind of thing you want to see in a movie theater. Not just because it's very visually engaging, not just because it's a blast with a good sound system, but because, at this point in 2017, Baby Driver is literally the only movie I've seen in theaters that wasn't a superhero film, sequel, reboot, or remake. It's an entirely original, standalone R-rated film with more love and care than the vast majority of summertime releases, and that's definitely something worth supporting.

REVIEW: Spider-Man Homecoming

Okay, I should probably make one thing clear before we begin; I'm not exactly the most unbiased source for an opinion on anything involving Spider-Man. Spidey's been a part of my childhood for about as long as I can remember and to this day remains my absolute favorite superhero of all time (sorry, Aquaman). Whenever I'm met with something Spider-Man related, my reaction is either immensely positive or resoundingly negative, very rarely does anything fall into that middle ground of "it was okay". It's a property I hold near and dear to my heart, which explains why I find myself so frequently enraged at Sony Pictures' shabby treatment of the web-slinger; as if pitching a standalone Venom movie (which wouldn't feature Spider-Man in any capacity) as a Zombieland-esque comedy wasn't enough, there was that bevy of leaked Sony emails not too long ago, in which we learned that the studio at one point toyed with the idea of reinventing Peter Parker as an EDM vegan who posts about hot power yoga on his Snapchat. Suffice to say, the character would be far safer in the loving hands of Marvel Studios and Disney, far away from Amy Pascal and her terrible, terrible ideas. Which is why I was both hopeful and ambivalent towards the cheekily-named Spider-Man Homecoming for some time. On one hand, my favorite comic book hero was finally joining the MCU in a way that appeared to stick closer to the source material than any previous iteration. On the other hand, this is the third attempt at a Spider-Man series in the past decade (Spider-Man 3 released ten years ago in 2007, in case you didn't feel needlessly old yet today); as much as I love the ol' webhead, I too began to feel the pangs of Spider-Man fatigue. The Marvel formula was becoming more and more noticeable as time went on, Sony was still involved, and (as with Wonder Woman), I was forced to endure a load of tiresome and embarrassing outrage and controversy leading up to the film's release. I expected this to be a perfectly inoffensive, by-the-numbers superhero flick; to my surprise, I not only liked Spider-Man Homecoming, I really liked it.

Set a few months after the events of Civil War, the plot follows Peter Parker (Tom Holland) struggling to live the life of an ordinary teenage kid, despite being able to do whatever a spider can. Under the guise of an internship for Tony Stark (Robert Downy Jr, who is thankfully in far less of this movie than the advertising would have you believe), Peter takes to the streets as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, hoping to impress Mr. Stark with his do-gooding enough to land a spot on the recently-splintered Avengers. While his heart is in the right place, Pete's overzealousness leads to a run in with an underground weapons ring led by Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton, insert Birdman joke here), otherwise known as the Vulture. Faced with a job too small in scale to attract the heavy-hitters at Avengers Tower, it's up to Spider-Man to keep these advanced weapons off the streets, foil the Vulture's plans, and find a date to his high school's homecoming dance. 

Considering Spider-Man is my favorite hero of all time, it's pretty amazing how soundly the marketing campaign killed what hype I had stored up for this movie. The trailers seemed to divulge the entire plot and the posters painted the whole thing as "Iron Man 3.5: featuring Spider-Boy"; it's no small feat to make the third Thor film look leagues better than Spider-Man, but damned if Marvel's (or more likely Sony's) marketing department didn't pull it off. I was glad to find, however, that all of my concerns were for nothing. Iron Man appears for about a collective ten minutes and the plot still managed to throw me for a few loops here and there; this is very much Peter Parker's story, and that's something that's tremendously important considering this is the character's true standalone debut in the MCU. If there's one thing you don't want to screw up, it's the introduction of Spider-Man, of all characters, into your shared cinematic universe. Luckily, director Jon Watts and company pull it off with aplomb; it's been said that it felt as though someone made a checklist of things we'd seen before in a Spider-Man movie and then deliberately left those aspects out of Homecoming. I couldn't agree more. Despite being reboot number three, this manages to feel like a fresh and original take on the character, all while staying true to what we've come to expect from Spider-Man thus far. There are plenty of moments where Peter has to hide his identity from his friends and family, yet nothing that feels overly trite or done-before. It feels like its own movie, its own take on this property, and that's hugely important considering everything this movie has going against it, just by virtue of existing when it does.

It's also worth mentioning that I wouldn't necessarily consider this an action movie, so much as it is a coming-of-age comedy with some action bits in it. The characters take precedent over web-swinging, wall-crawling fisticuffs, and for as much as the fanboy in me loves to see Spider-Man beat up some bad guys, this is honestly how a proper Spidey film should be done; characters first, action second. The entire thing is very down-to-earth in tone, which compliments Spider-Man's role in the MCU perfectly. Part of me was afraid that the inclusion of details such as Iron Man meant that this film was merely a formality, a prologue to fast-tracking Peter Parker onto the Avengers where he'd face world-wide threats rather than petty crooks and bank robbers. Instead, the movie goes for a decidedly street-level, working-class tone, both with its story, hero, and villain. There's no massive blue beam firing into the sky and no major city is destroyed during the climax; the primary conflict involves Spider-Man trying to stop the Vulture and his cronies from selling high-tech guns on the black market. That's it. It's simple and refreshing and exactly the kind of thing Spider-Man should be dealing with.

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the Vulture, played by the immortal Michael Keaton. There's a host of good performances here (Tom Holland is, as I said in my Civil War Review, the most accurate Spider-Man to ever grace the big screen), but Keaton is by far the best of the bunch. If you'd have told me a few years ago that the absolute best villain the MCU had to offer was the Vulture, I'd have laughed in your face. But the fact still stands that this take on the character is engaging and refreshing, while still staying true to the character's comic book roots. Adrian Toomes is a man who was cheated by the system and is simply looking to provide for his family. While he's by no means a hero (attempting to murder a child is pretty low, no matter how noble your motivation may be), he's far more sympathetic and relatable than I think anyone could have expected. The best kind of villians are the ones who not only believe they're doing the right thing, but whose motivations make perfect logical sense to the viewer. We don't necessarily root for the Vulture, but we completely get where he's coming from. There's a series of very strong-yet-subtle parallels between Peter and Toomes that makes for a genuinely compelling hero/villain relationship, to the point that the best scene in the movie involves Michael Keaton simply sitting at a traffic light. This is exactly the kind of fleshed-out antagonist the MCU is in desperate need of.

Unfortunately, not everything here is ideal. Leading up to its release, a great deal of controversy surrounded the mysterious character of Michelle, played by Zendaya. I won't spoil anything here, but this character just felt utterly pointless. For all the promotion Michelle got leading up to the film's release, I'm fairly certain she ends up having less screen time than the Shocker (and I'll bet you didn't even know Shocker was in this movie). Zendaya gives a poor performance, delivering some of the few jokes in the movie that fall utterly flat; in the end, the plot would be exactly the same (I'd even argue that it would be marginally better) had she been cut out entirely. Her inclusion feels like the result of an executive mandate, either from someone at Sony who wanted to drum up pointless controversy (because clearly that worked so well for last year's Ghostbusters remake) or from someone at Disney who wanted some brand synergy with one of their up and coming Disney Channel starlets. In the end, it just feels like a half-baked cop-out of an idea (and Kevin Feige's statements on the subject all but confirm this character had no other purpose than to serve as a litmus test as to what the studio could get away with).

I also wasn't a fan of the overly-comedic tone at times; don't get me wrong, this is a very funny, sharply-written movie with a number of laugh out loud moments. However, in erring on the side of outright comedy, it feels almost like the film sacrifices some of the heart that is so central to the Spider-Man character. The film gives us a nice, snappy pace that occasionally slows to allow for a quieter moment or two. However, these moments (such as Peter's interactions with his Aunt May, played here by Marissa Tomei) feel somewhat glossed over compared to the more offbeat comedy, so the drama we're clearly meant to feel comes off as not entirely earned. It's easy to make me feel things for Spider-Man, considering what a key role he played in my childhood (and I'm sure in countless others), but Homecoming never really had that Guardians of the Galaxy moment where we're made to realize just how much we actually care about the characters on-screen. Key aspects of the Spider-Man character like his deep-rooted feelings of guilt and dedication to upholding his great responsibility are all but replaced with "impressing Mr. Stark" and, while this does serve a larger character arc for Peter Parker over the course of the film, it still feels like something of an oversight at the end of the day. This film had every opportunity to really hit me where I live, and while one scene near the end came close (thanks entirely to the performance of Tom Holland), I still left the theater feeling very emotionally un-challenged. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing; not every movie has to be Logan, but some of my favorite Spider-Man moments (in both the comics, movies, and cartoons) are when things get real and boil down to simple, raw emotion, rather than just upbeat thwips and quips.

Spider-Man Homecoming isn't perfect, but it just might be the best Spider-Man film of all time; keep in mind, I say this as a nostalgia-addled fanboy for the Raimi trilogy of the mid-2000's. There's a few hiccups here and there (some of the CGI is a little garish, the action isn't anything special, and the cinematography ranges from genuinely great to outright confusing), but I still found this to be a refreshing take on a classic franchise that many assumed was done to death. It innovates where it needs to and shows us some things we've never seen before, totally justifying its existence as the most recent attempt at getting Spider-Man to work on the big screen, even considering the dismal Amazing Spider-Man 2 came out merely three years ago. If you're a fan of the comics like I am, I can't really think of a reason you'd have for disliking Spider-Man Homecoming. I look forward to seeing what Spidey's got in store for us next time, not even counting his appearance in next year's Avengers: Infinity War.