SPIDER-MAN 2

Just watched it yesterday, overall I thought it was pretty good if extremely slow in a few talky parts. Alfred Molina was outstanding as Doc Ock, he thankfully managed to avoid the leering, scenery-chewing postmodernism that characterizes so many big budget villain performances. Gene Hackman as Luthor was the first and last time anyone carried that off, people. So stop trying. CG Spider-Man looked a lot more real this time. The fight scenes were consistently amazing, some of the best I've seen. Raimi and his FX guys really managed to translate the stylized kineticism of the comics (especially Todd McFarlane's stuff) onto the screen. The hospital-slaughter scene was pure Evil Dead. And Bruce Campbell's cameo as the anal-retentive usher was, of course, brilliant.

I have to give special mention to J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. He is fawking hilarious. I love every minute he's on screen. Bill Nunn is also great as Robbie Robertson, and I'm glad their sort of work-husband/wife relationship made it into the films intact.

The film's ending obviously set up Harry Osborn to come back as Green Goblin II in the sequel, which I'm not too happy about. First, it means that James Franco will likely be playing the villain, which in turn means they might as well draw eyes and a mouth on a 2x4 and save their money (the 2x4 will be hidden by that stupid, stupid costume, anyway). Second, they've got a few more excellent Spidey villains to run through before they go back to Gobby.

Here are my choices, in reverse order of preference:

-Sandman
-Venom
-Electro
-Mysterio (Come on, the guy's a Hollywood FX whiz gone bad! The script writes itself!)
-Kingpin (Yes, I know Kingpin was in the Daredevil movie, but that movie, how do you say, sucked. Bring Michael Clarke Duncan back and let him play Kingpin in a good movie this time.)

P.S. Much as I liked Molina's performance, for me his greatest role will always be his first, as Satipo in Raiders of the Lost Ark: "Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip!" How I hated him for doing Indy dirty like that. He sure got what was coming to him, though, didn't he? That's right. Shoulda stayed out of the light. Shoulda stayed out of the light.

Adios, Satipo.

UPDATE: Upon further reflection, there is maybe one other scenery-chewing postmodern villain performance that worked. No, not Jack Nicholson as the Joker, that was Jack doing Jack (in more ways than one). I'm thinking of Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (I'm not even going to link to it), a film which I've largely blocked from my memory because I was so disappointed in it. I've been a major fan of the Robin Hood legend since I was a kid, and I was psyched beyond psyched for that movie, and they screwed it up in so many ways that I'm starting to tremble with rage just thinking about ita;nas;lna'a &&& [0w-svk\ \ q=0in k knkk'auans ; !!!

Anyway, Rickman was about the film's only redeeming feature. By the middle of the film, I was rooting for him.