Spider-Man: No Way Home

If You Break the Universe, You Have to Buy It

or

"It Looks Like We Have Some Competition" (Pete, Re-Pete and Amazing Re-Pete)

I've seen every Spider-Man movie—the 3 Tobey Maguires and the 2 Andrew Garfields and the 2 Tom Hollands (and that helps if you're going to enjoy Spider-Man: No Way Home and appreciate its cleverness). A couple of them have been good. My personal favorites were 2004's Spider-Man 2—the one with Dr. Octopus (Alfred Molina) and the best of them, the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse.

 

So, even though I thought the first Spider-Man movie was only sub-par, the third a mess, and the Andrew Garfield ones slight improvements, and the Tom Holland ones enjoyable, No Way Home is aimed right at my tingling spider-sense. It plays deep into my nostalgia for what was good about the various series and manages to improve on what I thought were their deficiencies. It's enough to make me think that No Way Home is a fun, great movie.

 

I'm not so sure that anyone without my slavish history (despite reservations) will come away with so unequivocal an evaluation. Without the back-story (or stories) a lot of things are going to fall a little flat—will anyone but a Marvel reader "get" what's going on with Peter's lawyer (for instance)?**

Fortunately, there's not a lot of catching up to do since Spider-Man: Far From Home: The Daily Bugle vlogger J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons...again) had just revealed the taped message left by Mysterio exposing Peter Parker (Tom Holland) as Spider-Man and labeling him as "Public Enemy #1". This makes things uncomfortable in Parker's life, including girlfriend Michelle "MJ" Jones-Watson (Zendaya), pal Ned (Jacob Batalon), and his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). Soon, news helicopters are hovering outside their windows and the Department of Damage Control has everybody hauled in for questioning. Stark Industries' Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) moves then to an ultra-secure Stark property to escape the scrutiny. Things finally become intolerable when Peter, MJ, and Ned all are not accepted to MIT because of the "recent controversy."

Peter seeks the help of fellow Avenger Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast some spell that will make people forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. "Can do," says the magician and starts casting—except Peter has some hedges because Aunt May needs to know, and MJ and Ned...and ultimately it gets changed six times, which makes for a messy spell, which isn't very stable and might have some consequences. "The problem isn't Mysterio," says a piqued Strange. "It's you living two lives." Off into the messy Universe, Peter goes to try to convince an MIT official to reconsider, but he's stopped by Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina, again) who stops Peter only to discover...it's not a Peter Parker he recognizes. Spidey is able to defeat Doc Ock using nano-technology in his suit, when suddenly they're transported back to Strange's Sanctum Santorum. The mage tells him that the forget-me spell has caused a rift in the multi-verse and is letting in anybody who might know that Peter is Spider-Man. Octavius and the Lizard (Rhys Ifans from Amazing Spider-Man 1) are imprisoned, but there are others out there, including Electro (Jamie Foxx from Amazing Spiderman 2), The Sandman (Thomas Haden Church from Spider-Man 3) and Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe from Spider-Man 1 and 3). They set about capturing the villains from other worlds and finding a way to send them back. The moral quandary is that all these villains died fighting Spider-Man (in their movies); if they send them back, they'll be sending them back to their doom.

Okay. Enough with the story-line. Just the number of links in that much description tells you that things are getting complicated—they'll get even more complicated. It also tells you that all these villains were in past Spider-Man movies and they're being played by the original actors (Makes you think). The surprise is they're all doing a better job of it, especially Dafoe...or they're being written better. Whichever solution, it works. As over-stuffing the movies with villains was a problem with the past series, that's rather interesting, plus they're squeezing Dr. Strange into the scenario, so it's even more crowded. It's no wonder the movie is 2 hours 28 minutes.

But, it never feels like it. Director Jon Watts (and the series writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommars) keep the film fast and loose, constantly moving and the characters perpetually speaking in Marvel-snark. There are 3½ action set-pieces (the ½ being that fight on the bridge). There's another trippy one with Strange and Spidey fighting over a doo-hickey in Strange's "Mirror Universe," a fight between Spidey and the villains in that security building—it doesn't stay secure for long—and the big final brouhaha with the kids fighting the villains with an assist by Strange and a couple of guest heroes. I'll say nothing else except that it's the best part of the movie. 

There are two guys missing in this shot...*

 

It's just plain fun. And satisfying. And as "gee-whizzy" as reading a good comic book as a teen-ager. The title of the movie is No Way Home and, as they say, you can't go home again. But, this feels close to it, and, against all sense, it might just leave your spidey-sense tingling.

Hellboy (2019)

"Aw, Crap!" (The Once and Future Hellboy)
or
"You Should Have Quit...When You Were a Head."

I guess you have to mention it because this one's a re-boot (even though one should give the devil his due), but Guillermo del Toro made two middling movies out of Mike Mignola's well-read and well-praised indie comic "Hellboy," a weird occultish comic character that combined the artist's bizarre design instincts with a dead-pan sense of humor, mixed with healthy doses of steam-punk and Lovecraftian monster-conspiracies.

And Nazi's. Lots and lots of Nazi's.

And as good as del Toro is and can be, his Hellboy movies were a little watered-down from Mignola's concept. For example, his Hellboy talked too much, and the director kept insisting on shoe-horning a love story into the Hellboy mix (which was complicated enough). Del Toro kept the origin story with Mignola's concept of a demon-spawn brought from the depths of Hell by by the Nazi's during the waning days of WWII—a plan thwarted by American G.I.'s under the command of paranormal investigators.

He also kept the idea that Hellboy is an indispensable paranormal investigator—often cited as the foremost and greatest—for the B.P.R.D. (The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense and no, it doesn't exist, but I'm pretty sure Trump would want one), whose operations explore spooky phenomenon of a negative nature throughout the world. 

So Hellboy has been re-booted with a new actor starring—the versatile and ubiquitous David Harbour*—and a new attitude, but not a new title (Let's call it Hellboy 2019, for clarity's sake). But, with twelve—count 'em—twelve producers, you have the very definition of two many cooks in the kitchen and one's expectations for an over-baked Royal Cluster run very high.

They did one thing right: this version hews very closely to Mignola's storylines from the books "The Wild Hunt" and "The Storm and the Fury." In them, Hellboy along with a clairevoyent he saved as a child, Alice Monaghan—the "g" is silent—(Sasha Lane) team up with a M11 operative named Major Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) to battle the evil sorceress Nimue (Milla Jovovich), the so-called "Queen of Blood" who, in olden times, was killed by King Arthur with the sword Excalibur. At that time she was cut into six pieces and buried in various places around the island so that she could never threaten England again, but...the best laid-and-buried plans and all...

After a brief sojourn to Mexico to find a missing BPRD agent, Hellboy is invited to England by the ancient Order of the Osiris Group to dispose of three giants, but things go badly for him and he is rescued by Alice, when it is discovered that the plans of Nimue...and parts of Nimue...are coming together and that isn't good. The last piece of the Queen is, coincidentally, at the Osiris Club and when a raid is staged it is found that everyone there has been slaughtered. Blimey. Hell to the Queen.

The story is very streamlined—whole chunks of it have been sliced and diced to give the film-story more flow and make it less complicated**...and costly. What separates this adaptation, though, from its source or from the other two movies is its tone, which is arch and gigglingly nihilistic. It's odd, and probably a little early, to say that this re-boot adheres to the "Deadpool" school of film-making where you can't take anything very seriously, except that "school" may have already had its shark jumped—the first Deadpool movie was fine, but the second one kinda stunk up the place. It also reminds of those Rob Zombie movies where any action has to be backed by heavy-metal music..and be a bit incomprehensible in strategy and artistry. It's designed to merely by visceral.

And there's a lot of viscera on display.

This Hellboy, the re-booted, has a lot of gore to it—not something one associates with the comics—and if one is expecting something along the lines of the first two movies, they will likely be surprised and shocked by this "R"-version. More carnage, more "F"-bombs and general nastiness are on display. Gosh, Hellboy even says "shit" a few times when previously the worst you'd get out of him was "Aw, crap!!"...which I always found charming coming from a spawn of Satan. This approach is far less charming.

This one is more like the WWF produced Hellboy with a grungier representation of the character. Oh, he's still a good guy (in danger of being bad), just more of a slob, although it might actually be fun to see him sweat, if he could do so through all the make-up and yak-fur. And one can't the actor under all that goo; Harbour does a fine job, playing the role the way you'd think John Goodman would play it—a good choice, that. Hellboy shouldn't be cuddly, but he should be blunt and loud whenever he gets around to saying something, which he shouldn't do too much.

One also gets a whiff of producer-tinkering; some of the edited transitions are a little dicey. Marshall has done a few horror films and a lot of television work, but one suspects there is material left on the cutting room floor from his original intentions. There might have been some grace-notes deemed expendable from the producing squad. Too bad. Because this Hellboy could have used a bit more grace.

Nimue: You are a king. We belong together, you and I.

Hellboy: We do. But it's not going to work, you know, 

'cause I'm a Capricorn and you're fucking nuts!

(Actually, it should be pointed out that Hellboy's birthday is October 5th, making him a Libra)

The first appearance by "Hellboy" (above) and page samples (below)

* Here's the guy in Black Mass and Quantum of Solace. Yeah, you know him.

** Kudo's to whoever left the scenes with "Lobster" Johnson, Mignola's 1930's era "Mystery-Man" adventurer from the series. You have to "be there" to appreciate it. But, as portrayed by Thomas Haden Church, it was the most enjoyable part of the movie for me.

John Carter

Forewarned is Four-Armed
or
"Men are for Mars, Women, Curvaceous"

Edgar Rice Burroughs not only created Lord Greystoke (otherwise known as Tarzan of the Apes), but he created another hero who commuted between different worlds (albeit across space-time) that being John Carter, a Civil War vet, who managed to mentally displace himself from Earth of the 19th Century to the planet Barsoom—as the natives called it.

We Earthers, however, call it Mars.

 

The "John Carter" books were solid pulp (after the paper it was printed on), but they were (and are) soaring adventures, with lusty Barsoomian princesses, and warring political and tribal factions—including a race of 15 foot four armed insectoid inhabitants who were frequently at odds with the more humanoid Martians. 

 

These stories inspired all sorts of science fiction writers like Bradbury and Clarke (and scientists including Carl Sagan) and film-makers from Lucas and Spielberg to Cameron and any author whose hero leads a Walter Mitty fantasy existence on another continent, planet or Universe. 

It's the 100th Anniversary of JC's creation, and it's about time that somebody made him take the astral projection from book-paper to celluloid...or pixels—not that there haven't been attempts over the years. The books have rarely been out of print—probably inspired by the lurid covers painted by Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo that neatly made Burroughs' vivid descriptions real—and some sort of adaptation has been potentially in the works for the last couple of decades. Now, finally, Disney took a chance with it—although they don't seem to have a clue how to sell it—with director Andrew Stanton, one of Pixar's shining lights (directing both Finding Nemo and WALL·E).

And, hell, if they don't pull it off, making it work and seem fresh (if highly reverberant, as so many others projects in the sci-fi/fantasy field have borrowed liberally from the series for years), while also recalling the straight-faced brio of biblical epics, combined with the cheese-factor of movie serials. It's pulpy, old-fashioned, and definitely of the "white-guy-saves-the-natives" school,* but it has fun with it, playing off the duality of practically everybody in the script, reflecting the "two worlds" concepts inherent in the series.**  And why shouldn't Carter have an exploitable advantage over the Martians? The planet's lesser gravity allows him to bound like a flea across landscapes and from precipitous tower to precipitous tower (although one loses that concept when Carter is shown getting winded climbing up steep hills). 

And the Barsoomian concepts of ERB-dom are in full abundance, gathering details from the series—the white apes, the Therns (the duplicitous Gods of Mars), Carter's ways of dealing with passage between worlds (and covering up his disappearances on Earth), the participation of "Ned" Burroughs in the telling of the tales, and the environmental struggles of the dying Mars (although the canals of Mars are mostly gone, Stanton and co-screenwriters Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon, have created a gargantuan crawling city of Zodanga that sprawls across the planet's surface, leaving decimation in its wake.

Yes, it's pulpy. Sure, it's cheesy. But in the same way that any romance story is, (and Burroughs wrote romance novels for men), and this is boy-hokum space romance fantasy, without much logic to it, but enough momentum and emotion to keep so many of the quibbles at bay, and Stanton has shaped it in a fine, breezy style that kicks the story along at a good clip—check out the economy he uses to make note of Carter's indefatigable fighting instinct in the film's second sequence (the first is a rousing, dis-orientingly brusque Martian air battle) in trying to escape forced re-enlistment at the hands of his former Captain Powell (the now ubiquitous Bryan Cranston), then jumping from Western tropes (filmed in Monument Valley, of course) to Bibical epic trappings, to its own weird amalgamation of the two, with a bizarre twist on familiarity. 

Where the movie roars are in the sword fights and hand-to-hand battles that bring to life Frazetta's "berserker" illustrations, that push the envelope of what can be presented in a PG-13 rating.

It's a grand ride, energetically told, imaginatively realized, with a good cast of fine actors, committed to doing it all with a straight face, and selling the fantasy, without any betrayal of the mechanics that had to go into this thing (a tough job to do that has bested others in the last few years). I've read a few reviews by some critics that strike me as rather cranky about the film being derivative (in a reverse engineering way of looking at things), but, frankly, I don't think they saw the right movie. Kill me if I ever get that sophisticated I can't have fun at something done well. To this kid, who grew up reading the Barsoom books, (as Bradbury once wrote) Mars is Heaven.

First edition depiction of John Carter and Dejah Thoris
from the initial hardcover dust-jacket

Frank Frazetta's iconic cover to "The Princess of Mars"
The production design of John Carter owes a little bit to both.

* It was, after all, written in 1912.  What's Avatar's excuse?

** Even the titular Princess of Mars has a nick-name in the film.  Carter calls her "Perfesser."  Carter's Thark name is Dojahr Sojak, but also "Virginia," after a miscommunication in greetings from Tarkus.