spiderman 3
Just finished watching spiderman 3. Despite rave reviews from friends who've watched it, I don't really stand with them on this one. But this' not to say spiderman 3 is not worthy of the $890 million US$ it brought in.
It has an intended drive to the story, very apparent and obvious, great ideas in this story. Spiderman meets the next 2 nemeses, Harry and Sandman. From this, S3 is one of the most intense action films I've watched.
Aside the webs and surfboards, the blackie and the beach, this episode lets us further explore the character of S3, and the main theme of: choice, put forth clearly and successfully in this movie. There are constant efforts by the director to create emotional upheavals, and to some extent, successful, to some extent, with doubt. The fights are, again, terrifically fantastic, unrivaled, and extremely engaging, just as S1 and S2 are. But a little bit more.
However, the script was, in my opinion, unqualified, and I'm really quite surprised that it's the same scriptwriter in S1 and S2, in some places, was unconvincing. The direction was sufficient, but not fantastic, artistic elements are few, most told to you in the face. Maybe this is what's expected of action movies. Although I found the script loose, it's nothing compare with the likes of DOA (you should watch that and get a laugh).
Well, the acting was fine, not so much of acting is required in an action movie. What's fine is I mean, just enough. Tobey, Kirsten, James doing good jobs on normal sequences. But one thing to note is that when it's time for tears, all were great, Tobey, definitely was the best at doing tearful scenes. His double-portrayal as the black Pete and normal Pete was, good. Yea, good to be convincing enough. Come on, it's an action movie, acting is not as important as they are in dramas, biographies, thrillers, love stories, but having good ones are definitely better.
Efforts for character development is fine, but could have been better. The sound was OK. But not fantastic and stuff. Well in general this movie is OK, or a little more than OK. So, here it is:
Cinematography: the choice of camera angles, lighting, is unrivaled. Unarguable, period.
Portrayal: As I've said, acting was OK, but script is not, acting was like a 7/10, script is like a 6/10
Directing: Artistic aspects (fights and stuff) are great, but storytelling through artistic creative aspects are abit of a letdown. I mean, more could be done. Like, the setting of mood and atmosphere isn't very good. They are very important in storytelling. The story was sadly unengaging to me noticeably in some parts. The sequence of events is not really there.
Story: Simple theme of choice told in a bombastic manner. Well there's bit of digression, the ok-but-not-excellent development of central character obviates the full potential of story's development.
Cinematography: 10/10Portrayal: 9/15Directing: 12/20Story: 10.5/15All in all: 69.2%.Now let's see what rotten tomatoes, and imdb say:Rotten: 61%Imdb: 66%The next movie I'll be reviewing is
the dark knight, oh and it's a time to check out my favorite actor Christian Bale! I heard that there's not one single negative review yet.. I'll shun myself from other reviews, but grab a copy of new paper to see it's ratings. Cos I've realized this about new paper: they seldom get adventurous and give 5 star, or 4 star reviews, just like the typical Singaporean. Sometimes I find the ratings too conservative, around the 2.5-3.5 star range. It's always easier to be skeptical and find faults than to appraise something in front of the masses, as it would review your professional skeptical eye, instead of the (even more professional ability to praise) dangerous thing about accepting and appraising everything you see. To some extent, it's true about skeptics and pessimists who find fault in others. Well, true isn't it. Oh I'm not saying that new paper reviewers are like that, that's nothing of my intention to find fault and attack them (though I don't like the lack of variety), but in general, I theorize this about skeptics and true believers.
Labels: reviews
