I hadn't seen this is a very long time, and though I appreciated the memes it has spawned (it's actually what got me to run it back from my ancient Netflix watch progress point so I could watch Willem Dafoe say "You know, I'm something of a scientist myself") I actually ended up watching the whole thing to the end, from that point, laughing and feeling the whole time. It's one of those films that's a lot funnier in middle age, now that I can appreciate the postmodern, flawed-hero goofiness fully. The maniacal glee this film takes is a welcome cold bucket of water, and Dafoe and Simmons fully earn their place in the sparse pantheon of great antagonists. There were several points where both the script, and Dafoe's performance, just sent my sides into orbit—moments that most films of the superhero genre would expect you to take completely seriously (including the MCU proper, which jams its perfunctory jokes ill-fittingly into scenes, while also expecting you to take them seriously) but this film doesn't make jokes. It has humor; and that makes all the difference. I couldn't properly appreciate it as a kid when the films came out, but now I love the self-aware, intentional tonal dissonance; it's playing to two types of audience at once, and is fully aware of what it is, and how ridiculous it is.
There are some awkward edits that I can see what Raimi was going for, but that didn't quite work, but those are mere blemishes, and only last a second or two, but the narrative remains compelling until the end, and makes sure to pull out a left hook just when you were thinking that the story would reach a lull. Great fun, and the touching moments (with May, Ben, and tortured weeb princess Mary Jane) still got to me despite the general bombastic looney tunes nature of the plot. There's also some biting bits of real life dysfunction and hardship (mainly with MJ) and some painfully realistic and relatable situations and scenes with Parker and his gameless dweeb self. Though the film didn't exactly make it as much about Mary Jane as it did Peter, it still went a ways into humanizing and taking the "prettiest girl in school" off of the pedestal and showing that she's just a person, too—with problems, family issues, and insecurities. Not bad for a film with a cackling, glider-riding mad man that throws incinerating pumpkin bombs and terrorizes old ladies in the midst of their nighttime prays.
Review by LNeroBlockedParent2023-08-14T02:40:58Z
I hadn't seen this is a very long time, and though I appreciated the memes it has spawned (it's actually what got me to run it back from my ancient Netflix watch progress point so I could watch Willem Dafoe say "You know, I'm something of a scientist myself") I actually ended up watching the whole thing to the end, from that point, laughing and feeling the whole time. It's one of those films that's a lot funnier in middle age, now that I can appreciate the postmodern, flawed-hero goofiness fully. The maniacal glee this film takes is a welcome cold bucket of water, and Dafoe and Simmons fully earn their place in the sparse pantheon of great antagonists. There were several points where both the script, and Dafoe's performance, just sent my sides into orbit—moments that most films of the superhero genre would expect you to take completely seriously (including the MCU proper, which jams its perfunctory jokes ill-fittingly into scenes, while also expecting you to take them seriously) but this film doesn't make jokes. It has humor; and that makes all the difference. I couldn't properly appreciate it as a kid when the films came out, but now I love the self-aware, intentional tonal dissonance; it's playing to two types of audience at once, and is fully aware of what it is, and how ridiculous it is.
There are some awkward edits that I can see what Raimi was going for, but that didn't quite work, but those are mere blemishes, and only last a second or two, but the narrative remains compelling until the end, and makes sure to pull out a left hook just when you were thinking that the story would reach a lull. Great fun, and the touching moments (with May, Ben, and tortured weeb princess Mary Jane) still got to me despite the general bombastic looney tunes nature of the plot. There's also some biting bits of real life dysfunction and hardship (mainly with MJ) and some painfully realistic and relatable situations and scenes with Parker and his gameless dweeb self. Though the film didn't exactly make it as much about Mary Jane as it did Peter, it still went a ways into humanizing and taking the "prettiest girl in school" off of the pedestal and showing that she's just a person, too—with problems, family issues, and insecurities. Not bad for a film with a cackling, glider-riding mad man that throws incinerating pumpkin bombs and terrorizes old ladies in the midst of their nighttime prays.
"FINISH IT!!"