Whenever a new super hero movie comes out, I always try to compare it to what I personally believe is the best super hero movie to date: Spider-Man 2. In my opinion, no subsequent super hero movie has come close, with the exception of The Dark Knight. I want to discuss a lot of the things that Spider-Man 2 gets right and what I believe other super hero movies are lacking.
First off, the villain has an arc. There are several scenes where the audience is allowed the opportunity to get to know his character and to understand his motivations. The reason why Doctor Octopus wants to rebuild his device is clear: it's his life's work and he can't admit that he was wrong. He's also being manipulated by the mechanical arms AI into acting on his worst instincts (to operate selfishly which highlights the story's overall theme about the difference between doing what you want and doing what's right). He isn't some random alien that's obsessed with power or wants to blow up the Earth for god knows what reason. He's a broken man who eventually achieves redemption.
Secondly, the movie allows itself time to breathe. Nowadays it seems like every action movie is constantly rushing to get to the next big action sequence. This does not allow for the audience to connect with the characters in the story and ends up leaving them uninterested and not invested in the story's outcome/hero's victory. Spider-Man 2 doesn't do this. There are multiple scenes where the premise is just character interaction, like when Peter tries to tell Mary-Jane that he's a changed person or when Peter and Aunt May talk about the value of a hero, or even when Mr. Ditkovich's daughter comes over to give Peter a slice of chocolate cake. There's no rush to get to a big fight. Instead you gain insight into what Peter is thinking, how he feels, how other characters feel and you start to root for them. You begin to care. In Spider-Man: Homecoming, what do you learn about Aunt May? Is there any reason to care about her other than that she's Peter Parker's aunt? It seems like her only function is to allow other characters to crack jokes about how hot she is. Now compare her to Aunt May in Spider-Man 2. This version of Aunt May is facing foreclosure. She can't pay her bills, yet she still gives Peter money. She gives him an inspiring speech about what it means to be a hero ("there's a hero in all of us") that changes Peter's way of thinking and leads to/foreshadows Doc Ock's redemption in the end. There are scenes where she just sits down and talks to Peter, like when he tells her that he feels responsible for Uncle Ben's death, that help you gain insight into not just her character, but Peter's as well. These moments where the movie is allowed to breathe are crucial in developing character and equally as important (if not more so) in keeping the audience engaged as action sequences and humor.
There isn't a single wasted scene in Spider-Man 2. Each scene has a purpose, whether it be to develop its characters (ALL its characters, including its villain), to advance the movie's story logically, or to provide some much needed, albeit cheesy, comic relief (that's used sparingly and not in your-face).
It's also a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously. It knows that it's a cheesy comic book movie and it doesn't try to be anything but that. It hones in on one or two themes (identity and the difference between what is right and what you want), fleshes them out well, and doesn't cram in random philosophical ideas that feel out of place in a movie about comic book heroes.
So that's what I think Spider-Man 2 does well (one might also add in the fact that the movie also features several outstanding performances, Alfred Molina and JK Simmons in particular) and what I think are the problems with today's super hero movies. Either they lack a worthwhile arc for their villain, (a common, almost cliché complaint for Marvel movies now), lack development for any of their characters that is necessary in order to make us care about them (see any character in Justice League, Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, anyone in Thor or Thor 2 besides the title character and Loki, anyone in the first Captain America besides the title character), leave very little time to let their characters simply interact with each other (the only important relationship between characters in Spider-Man: Homecoming is the one between Tony Stark and Peter, and even then, there's only one important scene between them that holds any real weight - the one on the rooftop right after the ferry attack), or they take themselves too seriously and end up seeming convoluted and silly because of it (see Batman v Superman).
They don't all do this, but I still think that if they were to follow the example of Spider-Man 2 more closely, we could be getting so much more from the genre that evidently dominates popular cinema today.
Submitted November 24, 2017 at 02:35PM by PvtJebbers http://ift.tt/2zjQv5g
