28 Weeks Later Spiderman 3 will still be boring

Yesterday I went and saw both 28 Weeks Later and Spiderman 3. Here's the scoop.

28 Weeks Later:

Sequel to 28 Days Later, which is one of my favorite films. I think I saw it 4 times in the theaters, maybe 5. I was excited about the sequel because it was going to be directed by the guy who did Intacto, which I really liked. Plus, the director was hand chosen by the director of the original. So far so good.

Sadly, the film turns out to be a bit of a let down. It started out well enough. One of my fave actors (another plus) Robert Carlyle plays a survivor who is hiding out in a cottage with his wife and 4 others. They are quietly eating dinner in a dark room lit only by candles. A loud banging comes from the door and they can hear a young boy on the other side begging to be let in. They rip away the planks securing the door and let him in. He's being followed by a crap load of "infected" and all hell breaks loose. Robert ends up abandoning his wife to the ickies and is the only one who gets out alive. The scene is really creepy and intense and had me feeling good for how the rest of the film was gonna go.

SPOLIER ALERT

The films ends up being a bunch of horror moments tossed together without giving us time to feel any sort of connection with the characters. Robert's character is reunited with his son and daughter who were away on a school trip during the outbreak. He doesn't tell them the whole story about their mom's death because he's ashamed. Not long after, we find out Mom survived. She apparently has a gene mutation that makes her a carrier for the Rage virus, but not a true infected. Because the virus is spread through bodily fluids and Robert doesn't know his wife is a carrier, when he kisses her he goes all rage-y pretty quickly. Meet your new "bad" guy.

Here's where the film seems to lose itself. I could sort of work with the idea that maybe Robert's character held onto a part of himself and would recognize his family. That didn't happen in the original, but I'm willing to let a virus spread from a carrier be a slightly different thing. What I didn't like was Robert's constant persual of the kids. Seriously, it was like seeing Jason or Michael Meyers in this flick. The kids were running all over the place with the help of a couple of adults. They had no knowable plan for where they were going. Yet, bam, everytime we needed some sort of new threat, there was dad! Arrghhhh.

Oh, I was also a bit annoyed that the infected seemed to survive a napalm-esque firebombing of the streets of London and a chemical weapons attack. But, ya smack 'em in the head hard enough they are freakin' toast.

There were enjoyable gore moments and the actors were all fine in their roles. Robert's performance really sells the opening sequence. But the movie just didn't seem to have it's own identity or voice--quite literally, as they used a ton of music from the original, which the first time I heard it brought back a fond chill, but then it just got tiresome.

Still, I think I liked 28 Weeks Later better than Spiderman 3.

Oh, Spiderman, what the hell happened? 2 1/2 hours and nothing really seems to happen. Sure there are plenty of action sequences and many sad looks, but nothing actually happens.

SPOLIER TIME AGAIN

Don't get me wrong, I love Sam Raimi. I love Tobey Maguire. I am not such a hard core fan of the Spiderman comic that I can't allow some creative storytelling. But come on people. You know the whole initial emotional crux of the first movie? The big moment that sent Peter full on into his quest to be Spiderman? Guess what--didn't happen like that 'cuz we need a plot for the third movie. Oh, but we can't let the bad guy be a truely bad guy so we make him a thief who stole to get money for his sick kid.

Then we have MJ making her Broadway debut, she gets slammed in reviews and is upset that Peter doesn't seem to understand how she feels. And she's mad that he tries to tell her he understands by using references to his experience as Spiderman, which just horks her off.

We have three bad guys, Sandman, New Goblin and Venom. Sandman is the thief, New Goblin is Harry (who has a brief bit of amnesia and a horrid dancing scene with MJ), and Venom is new guy Eddie Brock. The movie is all over the place. Spidey fights Goblin (in a pretty cool sequence). Goblin gets boo-boo, thinks Pete is his friend again, has a hallucination about his dad, remembers everything then ruins Pete's life by making MJ break up with him.

Convoluted enough for you yet?

Wait! There's more. Sandman and Spidey fight. Sandy kicks Spidey's rear until Spidey gets all black suited and becomes an asshole. See, there was this meteor that fell to Earth. Black ooze came out and attached itself to Pete's scooter and snuck it's way into the apartment then it hid in the shadows (I think for a couple of days) until there was a storm and it could dramatically attach itself to Pete and make him Spiderman The Dick.

The Black Spiderman was supposed to be a metaphor showing how too much ego can infect a person. Spiderman is all about metaphor, yet this just became an excuse for Peter to walk down the street like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, brush his bangs in front of his face (which to be honest, was working for me), and then dance provocatively with Gwen Stacy in front of MJ at her new job (she is a singing waitress at a Jazz Club---ughhhh). Now, I will say this for Tobey. He can dance, those years of yoga have made him quite flexible. Had I seen this sequence and the Travolta walk sequence seperate from the film and seperate from each other I would have laughed at the walk (in a good way) and been intrigued by the manipulative nature of the dance.

But, because the film never seems to find the right balance between humor and drama, the first scene felt completely out of place and the second could have been cut down a bit to be more effective.

There was no reason for Gwen Stacy to be in this movie.

The big finale finds Spidey having to ask Goblin for help to save MJ. Pete and Harry make up and Harry gets to redeem himself. Spidey/Pete forgives Sandman for accidently killing his uncle and Venom gets blown up even though Pete tried to save Eddie from the goo. Oh, and MJ and Pete make up too.

They should have skipped the Sandman and Gwen storylines and just stuck with Harry and Venom. Having Harry threaten MJ with Pete's death was enough to get her to break up with him which was enough for him to give in to the powers of the dark Spidey suit. Maybe just Venom at the end wouldn't have been enough of a bad guy for Spidey to need help fighting, but Venom could have been given more attention and thus made a bigger bad guy. I don't know, maybe none of what I've brought up would have mattered.

The score was also disappointing. Danny Elfman didn't work on this one and you can tell. The music for the second Harry/Pete confrontation just seemed too cartoon-y for what we were supposed to be feeling emotionally. And there were a couple of other musical mis-steps as well.

Now I'll tell you what I did like:

Newspaper boss JJ's riff with his secretary over the taking of his blood pressure pills.

Bruce Campbell's cameo.

The second fight between Harry and Pete, as far as the action goes that is.

Tobey's bangs and his dancing. Oh, and the shower scene (what can I say, I'm a chick).

Damn, that's about 30 minutes worth of stuff. No wonder this film felt like it went on forever.

I can't think of what comes out this weekend so it looks like Pirates 3 is going to be the next big one to check out. I'm going to say a little prayer before going in to the theater.