Vendetta

Even though I just wrote an exhaustively lengthy review on The Dark Knight Rises, I'm still fresh enough to do some more Batman writing. Today is "Vendetta," the 23rd-produced and 21st-aired episode of Batman: The Animated Series. This is one of my favorite episodes in that it is the first appearance of Killer Croc and heavily features Harvey Bullock.

Now, this show really doesn't have that great of animation by today's standards. The characters are sometimes off model and don't always move as smoothly as you'd see in most cartoons today. But what makes this show still enjoyable to watch is its sophisticated animation. In this episode, it really stood out with little moments like Jim Gordon pouring out the rest of coffee on the street, Bullock chewing on a toothpick, and realistic wind, rain and lightning. All these little details really make the show come to life and earn a point from me.

I'll raise the score to a 7 for a really fun scene of Batman interrogating Rupert Thorne. He breaks into Thorne's greenhouse, where he's pruning flowers and wearing an apron — a look that makes him seem less masculine and is kinda funny. But just so we didn't forget this is Rupert Thorne, about ten armed men came very quickly to his aid. Of course, that didn't faze Batman, who just walked backwards off the building with Thorne. Lots of fun.

I'll add another point for Killer Croc. He is a rather difficult character in the Batman universe, as the tendency is to make him a mindless beast that strongly resembles Spider-Man's Lizard. Even Jim Lee's wonderful Hush made him green and everything. But I don't like having Batman fight random monster (I don't like having him fight monsters at all, if it can be avoided). What Batman needs is villains who are smart, strong and realistic. This Croc was all three. I love this design — no snout, no tail, and gray skin instead of green. You could almost see him as a big guy who just had a strange skin condition that kind of gave him scales. I also liked how smart he was. Croc spent a lot of time setting up a plan to get back at the guys who ratted him out and frame the cop who booked him — Bullock. Croc even did a good job of impersonating Bullock, which was a really well-done scene with the plot, voice-work and animation.

One really weird part of this episode is when Batman's examining one of Croc's scales and Alfred brings him soup in a microwavable crock, which sends Batman over to the zoo to learn about crocodiles. Think about this for a moment. He had to change out of his bat suit and drive over to the zoo to learn that crocodiles lived in underwater caves. He couldn't look this information up on his computer? He didn't have a single encyclopedia in Wayne manor? Kind of lame. I would take a point off, but later we see Batman scanning through a bunch of newspapers to figure out who the Killer Croc is. For once, it was actually kind of nice to see a villain that Batman didn't immediately know everything about. I mean, he's a busy guy. He can't possibly know everything about every criminal out there. So I'll keep the score at an 8.

Final score: 8

The Dark Knight Rises

Perfection.

Is Kevin O'Connor a Good GM? Part 8

After the Bulls won their sixth championship in 1998, Michael Jordan retired for the second time, Phil Jackson retired for the first time and Scottie Pippen asked to be traded to the Houston Rockets. The Bulls spent the next six years out of the playoffs and near the bottom of the league. During that period, they had the No. 1 pick, the No. 2 pick, the No. 3, the No. 4 twice and the No. 7 pick twice. They finally returned to the playoffs in 2004, but they really didn't become a competitor again until 2008 when they drafted Derrick Rose (another No. 1 pick).

In 2007, the Jazz not only returned to the playoffs, but they began to look like championship contenders again. After Stockton and Malone left, they only had three seasons out of the playoffs. Of course, Jerry Sloan was still around, but that doesn't change the fact that the Jazz didn't take as long as Chicago to rebuild, nor did they bottom out as bad. As tough as the 26-win season was, it was nothing compared to  the five sub-26-win seasons the Bulls fans had to suffer through, including an abysmal 15-67 year in 2000-01.

Now how much credit does Kevin O'Connor deserve for this? I'm not quite sure, but I'd wager he deserves a fairly big chunk. While I definitely believe the Jazz could have started rebuilding before the Stockton-Malone era officially ended, I do think it was impressive how O'Connor was able to quickly rebound from the Lopez-Borchardt debacle and send the Jazz into what was a promising Williams-Boozer era. However, this is where my review becomes tricky because I left for the MTC shortly after the 2006 draft, so I don't have any personal memories to rely on for the next couple of seasons. Hopefully my research and second-hand anecdotes will suffice.

Season 8: 2006-07

Before the draft, O'Connor traded Kris Humphries and Robert Whaley to Toronto for former BYU star Rafael Araujo. Araujo had the grave misfortune of being drafted about ten (or twenty) spots higher than he should have been and was caught in the middle of a feud between the Raptors head coach and GM. So although his numbers during his first two years were horrendous, I was excited to have a former Cougar on the team, and I hoped he'd have something of a revival in Utah. Now, I didn't see any of these games, but apparently Araujo was pretty awful. I guess beating up on Mountain West opponents is not an adequate preparation for the NBA, and poor Haffa just couldn't figure out his place in pros, even after a couple of seasons. He only played 28 games with the Jazz, which turned out to be his last in the NBA.

So was Humphries and Whaley worth the price for 28 games of a washed-up BYU star? Well, getting rid of Whaley was a must. He had a bad habit of getting arrested and seemed like a bad influence on his teammates. (His one incident with Deron Williams could have easily turned out a lot worse than it did.) Humphries, though, is a little more complicated. It was pretty apparent that he wasn't contributing much and wasn't really needed with Boozer around. I still kind of felt like the Jazz gave up fairly quickly on him. I mean, how come he only got two years while C.J. Miles got seven? But then again, Kris has only recently begun to contribute for an NBA team. After doing very little for the Raptors and even less for the Mavericks, he finally found a home with the Nets, where he's been averaging a double-double for the past two seasons. But I kind of feel like those numbers are somewhat inflated because of New Jersey's terrible roster. I mean, in every NBA game there is a certain amount of rebounds naturally available and someone has to get them, regardless of skill level. Ultimately, I say if the cost for getting rid of Whaley was skipping out on a few disappointing and Kardashian-filled years with Humphries, then I guess I'd have to say it was a good trade. Despite Araujo's performance (or lack thereof).

With the 14th pick of the 2006 draft, O'Connor chose the athletic defender Ronnie Brewer, who really was the best player available, with the possible exception of Rajon Rondo, who fell to No. 21. But I don't blame the Jazz for passing up on Rondo. They already had D-Will and Brewer really did fill a legitimate need. He didn't do much his rookie year (only appearing in 56 games) but he later had a couple of really good seasons with the Jazz until he was inexplicably traded, much to my (and D-Will's) anger. True, Brewer was a pretty pathetic shooter, and a liability at the foul line, but I always thought he made up for it with his defense and ability to finish under the basket. He always shot 50 percent from the field because he got a ton of dunks. But he was apparently too expensive to keep around, and after helping the Bulls finish with the best regular season record the past two years, he's now one of the top available free agents this summer, being courted by the Lakers, Knicks and Timberwolves (just to name three teams).

The Jazz's own 2nd round pick was No. 47, but they also had the 46th pick, which was a leftover from the John Amaechi trade with Houston. With their first 2nd-round pick, the Jazz selected Dee Brown, Deron Williams' former Illinois teammate. In his junior year, Brown helped lead the Fighting Illini to a 37-2 record, but then he broke his foot during the pre-draft workouts and was never really the same. He stayed for his senior year then showed exactly why he fell to the 2nd round. He only played in 49 games his rookie year, didn't make the team the next year, played overseas before appearing in just a handful of games for the Wizards. It is a shame he didn't work out with the Jazz, but most 2nd-rounders don't contribute much ... except for the guy who got picked right after him.

The 47th pick of the 2006 draft was probably O'Connor's best ever — an undersized power forward named Paul Millsap. While it was rather redundant to back up the short Boozer with another short guy, Millsap quickly showed why he was the leading rebounder in college. He played in all 82 games his rookie year, only started once, and still averaged 6.8 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. But more importantly, he demonstrated an incredible work effort, probably more than any Jazz player since Matt Harpring. Today, that effort has made him Utah's best player. Yes, he is a little short for his position, but he is strong, athletic, a good defender, rebounder and has turned into one of the best scorers for the Jazz. More often than not, he's the one taking the big shots in close games, even the occasional 3-pointer. Basically he was the biggest steal of 2006.

So I was pretty happy with Utah's draft picks when I went into the MTC. I was only there for a week when I heard they traded Keith McLeod, Devin Brown and Andre Owens for Derek Fisher. I was kind of sad to lose McLeod and Brown, especially, but then I realized that Fisher had won three championships with the Lakers and could provide the veteran experience the Jazz sorely needed. Turns out, that was exactly what he did. He played all 82 games, started 61, and averaged 10.1 ppg and provided one of the most memorable playoff moments of all time (more on that later). Seeing as neither McLeod or Brown had any significant moments after leaving Utah, I'd have to say this was one of O'Connor's best trades ever, even if we only got one year of Fisher. Now, I was in Europe when all this happened, so I can't really judge Fisher's departure, but it was rather painful to see him win two more titles with the Lakers while the Williams-Boozer era began to collapse in Utah. I know you're not supposed to be mad at someone for making decisions they feel are best for their family, but I don't know why he couldn't receive adequate medical treatment for his daughter in Salt Lake. Isn't the Huntsman Cancer Institute one of the best in the world? Or is that just Ute propaganda? Anyway, like I said, I wasn't there, so I can't judge.

One good sign that this was a stable Jazz team is that O'Connor had very few holes to fill before training camp. The only last-minute addition was another Illinois guy, Roger Powell. I think O'Connor just brought him in because it sounded fun to have three former college teammates together. But Powell really wasn't suited for the NBA. He only played in three games with the Jazz before they waived him and he never sniffed the NBA again. Later, O'Connor replaced him with Louis Amundson, who only played one game for Utah. He is still in the NBA, but he's never really been a significant player anywhere, so it's not like the Jazz let a good opportunity pass them by.

The only other transaction O'Connor made in the 2006-07 season was a rather confusing trade deadline deal with the 76ers. The Jazz traded the rights to swap 2nd-round draft picks for Alan Henderson, who was immediately waived by Utah. This seemed to me like O'Connor was doing a favor for his former team. "Oh, you need to clear some cap space? Just send this guy over here and we'll cut him for you." I'm rather perplexed by this. But, it's not like the Jazz really gave up anything for this, nor was the roster hurting any at the time.

Carlos Boozer finally started living up to his potential this season, playing 74 games and leading the Jazz with 20.9 ppg and 11.7 rpg. Memo Okur was right behind him with 17.6 ppg and 7.2 rpg. Deron Williams, having paid his dues as a rookie, now ran the Jazz offense, averaging 16.2 ppg and 9.3 apg. And Matt Harpring became the team's sixth man, putting up 11.6 ppg off the bench. But the starting small forward somehow disappeared.

I really need someone to explain to me what happened to Andrei Kirilenko. Before I left, he was averaging about 16 points per game and was among the league leaders in blocks and steals. But in this season, his productivity was basically cut in half. He only averaged 8.3 ppg this season, which is inexcusable for someone making $12 million a year. Did the emergence of Boozer and Williams cost him his confidence? I even heard stories that he broke down in tears after a loss in the playoffs and his wife complained that he needed a translator with him during the games. What on Earth happened to him?

Speaking of lost confidence, I saw Gordan Giricek lose his confidence when Raja Bell took his starting job a couple of seasons ago. But he still managed to put up a helpful 7.8 ppg off the bench for this Jazz team. I don't judge him as harshly because he only made $4 million that year, not a team-high $12 million like a certain other European. Rounding out the Jazz roster was C.J. Miles, who played in only 37 games under the I'm-just-19 excuse card, and the stat-less Jarron Collins, who played all 82 games and took a bunch of charges and set a bunch of screens.

For the first time since 2000, the Jazz won their division with a 51-31 record. And despite an emotionally distraught Kirilenko, they were able to beat Houston in Game 7 on the road. I really wish I could have been there just to watch Tracy McGrady lose. I love'd how he was never able to take his team past the first round of the playoffs. Then, the best thing possible happened for the Jazz, the league-leading Dallas Mavericks and MVP Dirk Nowitzki got kicked out of the first round by the Warriors. And even though Baron Davis had one amazing dunk over Kirilenko, the Jazz were able to beat them in five games, thanks to Derek Fisher's heroics. My first Mother's Day phone call involved a lengthy explanation from my dad about how no one knew where Fisher was and D-Will got in early foul trouble and Kirilenko had to play point guard for a little bit. Then at the end of the game, Fisher came out of nowhere and made a big defensive stop and a huge 3-pointer to lead the Jazz to an overtime win. Then we all found out he was only gone because he was getting treatment for his daughter who had eye cancer. He was so beloved, it's no wonder Larry H. Miller let him leave after the season ended.

Even though the Jazz got crushed by the eventual-champion Spurs in five games, the fact that they returned to the conference finals for the first time since 1998 showed me the Jazz were back. Williams was the new Stockton, Boozer the new Malone, and Fisher would have been the new Hornacek had he stayed.

By the time I got home from my mission, most fans were upset with Fisher, feeling he could have stayed in Utah and only left because he wanted to play with Kobe. They booed Fish profusely when the Jazz played the Lakers in the playoffs and some fans even wore shirts that said, "Fisher lied," which led to some harsh criticism from the national media. "How can boo someone who was only doing what was best for his family?" But I think those media guys have forgotten what it's like to be a fan and they forgot that while in Utah, Fisher's preferred doctor was in New York. So going to the Lakers, who won two more titles and kicked the Jazz out of the playoffs three years in a row, did not sit well with most fans. Again, I wasn't there, so I can't judge. But I was there in 2011 when Fisher, the president of the player's association, was a major player in the awful and unnecessary lockout that didn't seem to really solve any problems facing the NBA. I was also there in 2012 when the Lakers traded Fisher to the Rockets, but he never showed up in Houston, forcing them to buy out his contract so he could sign with the contending Oklahoma City Thunder. That seemed like a pretty jerky move to me.

Come back next time to see how O'Connor filled the veteran hole left by Fisher for the suddenly competitive Jazz.

Joker's Favor

In honor of the latest and greatest Batman movie, I've decided to get back to reviewing some classic Batman episodes. Today is "Joker's Favor," the 22nd-produced episode of Batman: The Animated Series, but it was the 7th one aired on Sept. 11, 1992, which made this the first aired episode with the Joker. Personally, I would've chosen "The Last Laugh," but this wasn't a bad choice to introduce the world to Mark Hamill's Joker.

One thing I really like about this episode is it shows what it's like to be an ordinary citizen in Gotham. You're driving home from work, they announce on the radio that some freak's escaped the insane asylum, and you have to pull over to let the Batmobile speed past you. And if someone cuts you off, look at who it is before you start yelling at them, or you might end up like poor Charlie, "I cussed out the Joker!" I'll add a point for that.

The score will rise to a 7 for another classic Joker performance. In this episode, he delivers one of my favorite Joker lines of all time: "We can't have people cursing at each other on the highway — it's simply not polite!"

This episode is also significant for being the first appearance of Harley Quinn — not just in this show, but the entire DC Universe, as well. She was great in this episode and has become a very important character. She adds a fun level of depth to the Joker and can even be interesting on her own in small doses. The creation of this character also demonstrates how big of an impact this show had on the comic book world. Not only did the comics start adjusting origin stories of some characters like Mr. Freeze, but they also started incorporating completely new characters created by this show. Creating something with such a lasting impact definitely deserves a point.

As much as I liked Harley, I didn't care too much for the Joker's other goons, Rocko and Henshaw. They're not bad in other episodes, but this one had a really annoying scene where Joker insisted on having them applaud him for no reason. It just lasted way too long and wasn't funny at all. I have to take a point off.

But I will raise the score back to an 8 for the Joker's fun, elaborate plan. He hid in a giant birthday cake while Harley used a whistle to set off special candles that released a paralyzing gas. He also gave Charlie a seemingly simple task — open a door — but he glued him to the handle and left him to die in the explosion. This is the kind of Joker plot I love to see!

Sadly, I have to take one point off for what really felt like filler toward the end of the episode. After Batman beat Joker's goons, he chased the Joker into an exact replica of an ancient Egyptian temple, complete with poison-tipped darts. What kind of a museum would re-create a temple with active booby traps and real poison? I want to see this evil museum curator who insisted on using real poison. Anyway, it was a really random, over-the-top moment that the episode could have done without.

Final score: 7

Spider-Man 3

Before my mission, I saw the most amazing teaser trailer ever. It was basically this poster — Spider-Man talking about the battle within and showing a brief glimpse of the black costume. I headed off to the Czech Republic knowing two things: Spider-Man 3 was going to be all about Venom, and it would be the best superhero movie ever. How wrong I was.

Spider-Man 3 came out in 2007, returning all the familiar names: director Sam Raimi and actors Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco. So far a good recipe for success, but something bad happened with the script. According to rumor, Sam Raimi wanted to include several more villains in Spider-Man 2, including Black Cat and the Vulture, but wiser heads stepped in and kept Doctor Octopus as the only villain. Unfortunately, those wiser heads were nowhere to be found when Raimi decided to include Venom (because he's popular), a new Green Goblin (because the Harry Osborn story needed to be wrapped up) and Sandman (because he had good special effect potential). Not only is three villains too many for a major film, but Venom should be considered two villains because Spider-Man has to fight him as the black suit and as an external being fused with Eddie Brock.

Anyway, once I heard Sandman was on board, I feared the movie would be a disaster, and I was right. After watching the movie all the way through for only the second time, I realized this was not only a really bad movie, but it's Batman & Robin bad. So just like Batman & Robin, I'm not going to worry about points so much during my review, and will focus mainly on the high and low points. But mostly the low points.

Raimi (and the other filmmakers) felt obligated to turn Harry into another Green Goblin but didn't really know what to do with him, it felt like. Harry very quickly found/built another special chamber that made him the Green Goblin and created a new glider that looked more like a skateboard because that's "cooler." He had a mask, but took it off whenever he did anything, starting a trend of heroes fighting without their masks in this movie. Seriously, anytime anybody fought, they either took off their mask or had it ripped off. For being a movie about masked heroes and villains, it sure hated masks. Anyway, he got into a really quick fight with Peter in his street clothes, which should have been epic, but just felt rushed. Lamely, the fight ended with Harry getting amnesia so he could return to the nice, happy Harry of most of the first movie. It just felt like a cop-out.

I heard that Sam Raimi did consider splitting this movie into two, but couldn't figure out where to cut it off. I really wish he would have spent a bit more time figuring this out because cramming this many new characters into one movie made everything feel rushed. One great example is the origin of Sandman. Not only did we never get to feel sympathetic for him (having a sick daughter does not justify participating in an armed robbery), but the way he transformed into the Sandman was never fully explained. We see him run into a fenced off area with a sign that says something about particle testing, but the camera passed by too quickly for us to really read it. And for some reason, this experiment is being conducted in the middle of night by scientists who are in such a rush to perform this vague, yet important and dangerous experiment, that they don't even care/fully realize that a large man has fallen into the center of their experiment. Seriously, how could you confuse a 200-pound man with a bird? We didn't ask for Sandman. We didn't need Sandman. And this movie would have been a lot better without him.

Having just said that, I do have to give credit to the best thing about this movie — the special effects. Sandman really did look like sand and the scene where he first put himself together was incredible, even by today's standards. Sadly, you can easily see that this is where all the budget, time and effort of the movie went, and any movie that focuses more on the special effects than everything else usually crumbles like a big heap of sand.

Getting back to rushed introductions, there is one especially awkward scene where we're introduced to Gwen Stacey, her dad the police captain, and Edward Brock Jr., who was briefly mentioned in the first movie, but here was introduced as completely new. Anyway, having Gwen falling from a skyscraper was intense and exciting, but what kills this scene is the sloppy conversation between Eddie and Gwen's dad. He basically says, "My name is Eddie Brock, the new photographer for the Daily Bugle, and I'm dating Gwen Stacey, your daughter, who also happens to be falling off that skyscraper." That's how a high schooler would introduce three characters in a crappy story. I expect better for a $200 million movie.

One of the best things of Spider-Man 2 was the quiet, subtle humor that didn't call attention to itself or completely pull the audience away from the movie. In Spider-Man 3, they seemed to forget how to do that. There were too many painfully unfunny moments in this movie that really felt like a slap in the face. There was the annoying scene in the French restaurant with the waiters repeatedly thinking Peter was signaling to them when he wasn't, there was the little boy disgusted by Spider-Man kissing Gwen, and then there was J. Jonah Jameson. He was one of my favorite characters and this movie ruined him. It seems like late during the production phase, they realized they didn't have enough humor and, knowing JJJ could be funny, decided to make him the comedy relief. So here, we have the Daily Bugle's editor with high blood pressure, which he has counter with bottles and bottles of pills and an overly aggressive intercom buzzer that violently shakes his whole desk any time his secretary feels he's getting a little too angry or when he reaches for the wrong bottle of pills. You think that new buzzer is going to help with his blood pressure? And please, just tell him which bottle to open, stop saying, "Not that one, not that one ..." I also hated having JJJ stiffed by an 8-year-old girl at the end of the movie. Is Peter Parker really the only photographer at the Daily Bugle? And why doesn't the editor-in-chief have his own camera. Just a really disappointing grasp for cheap laughs.

As much as I appreciated the Sandman effects and enjoyed watching him slowly pull himself together, I was really annoyed with powers as a whole. He was just too versatile and powerful. The first time we see him fight, he turns into a big monster (that can't talk or have clothes for some reason) and into very thin sand that can fly away to where he wants to go, regardless of which way the wind's blowing. Ultimately, he was invincible. Therefore, I was not appalled (like I should have been) when Spider-Man "killed" him. Sandman is a known killer and robber, and now that he's made of sand, someone has to put the monster down. No prison could hold him. But then, as we all knew would happen, Sandman survived his sewer water bath and seemed, if possible, even stronger at the end of the movie. Yes, Spider-Man needs powerful villains, but this guy was just ridiculous.

Mary Jane was also horribly unreasonable in this movie, to the point of acting completely out of character, even. In the second movie, she is the top billed actress of a Broadway play with giant posters and billboards of her face plastered all across New York. Suddenly, in this movie, she's a failing singer with scores of negative reviews about her in the papers. She's so bad that the directors don't even bother telling her she's fired. Distraught by this, she has to take a job as a singing waitress because she couldn't fall back on her successful acting career from what, two months ago? I was also thoroughly bugged when she refused to let Peter comfort her. She brings home a bad review and Peter says, "I know exactly how that feels. The papers have been printing bad stuff about Spider-Man forever." To which she pleads, "Why can't you understand how I feel?!" Weren't you listening, MJ? He does! Peter can't help you if you don't let him!

It's a good thing I didn't see this movie in the theater because if I did, I probably would have stood up and left when it was revealed that Sandman was Uncle Ben's true killer. I hate revisionist history! Imagine what would happen if we find out in The Dark Knight Rises that it was Bane who killed Bruce's parents instead of Joe Chill. That was basically how this felt. I also hated how the police told Peter that they basically knew Marko Flint had killed Ben Parker all along for the past two years, but didn't bother telling him until he broke out of jail. What kind of a police force is this? Oh yeah, it's one led by a guy who doesn't care when his daughter falls out of a skyscraper.

Now on to the other villain, who should have had this whole movie to himself, Venom. Sadly, Venom's origin is never explained. Instead of utilizing the astronaut from Spider-Man 2, we just see a little meteorite land close to Peter and a small glob of sticky black stuff follows him around for half the movie until it bonds with him and becomes his infamous black suit. Peter takes the goo (which is never called Venom in the movie, by the way) to Dr. Connors, who admits he's not qualified to study it, but later calls Peter and tells him it enhances the hosts abilities, especially aggression. How'd he figure that out? I'm getting real sick of this movie just throwing stuff at us and expecting us to accept it. Yes, we realize this is a fictional movie with lots of impossible things going on, but we would like a little more explanation for some things.

There was one nice little scene with Peter's landlord seeing that something bad is happening to Peter and understanding that he really is a good boy. Whereas Spider-Man 2 was filled with poignant scenes like this, in Spider-Man 3, these were extremely rare. Good Spider-Man stories need lots of heart and emotion, which this movie severely lacked.

Quick question: what's worse than having Harry conveniently lose his memory? Randomly regaining it and turning evil again! And what was with his master plan? He made Mary Jane break up with Peter. Big deal. They were going to break up anyway because MJ wouldn't give Peter a chance.

So this traumatic experience is the trigger that sends Spidey into full Venom mode. But unfortunately, he didn't really start to act evil like he should have. Instead, he just turned into a punk, and not a really bad one at that. Oh no, he broke Eddie's camera! So what? He deserved it! Cover your eyes, he killed Sandman! Like I said before, Sandman was a monster that needed to be destroyed. By the way, what was with Aunt May's reaction when Peter told her Spidey killed Sandman? If she knew he was Spider-Man, then she should have been more upset by this news. But if she doesn't know he's Spider-Man, then is she the most oblivious woman in the world or what?

Later, we see a Venom-induced Peter visit MJ's jazz club, where he starts playing the piano very well. So Venom makes people play the piano well ... ? OK ... Later, Peter gets into a fight and accidentally hits Mary Jane in the face. It was supposed to be a shocking and appalling scene, showing us how far our hero had fallen. Instead, it was my favorite part of the whole movie. Mary Jane had been the biggest jerk this whole movie and she didn't have any weird alien goo to blame it on. Come to think of it, she had been kind of a skank through all the movies. Here's the list of her boyfriends as far as I can recall: She may have always had a little crush on Peter since they were little kids, but her main boyfriend in high school was Flash Thompson. After graduation, she got in a serious relationship with Harry Osborn, but ended that after a disastrous (and annoying) Thanksgiving dinner. She then fell in love with Spider-Man and even started to slide back to Peter, but he broke it off for her safety. So in the second movie, she got engaged to an astronaut, who was a really nice guy, by the way, but she kept having doubts and repeatedly asked Peter if he really loved her while pushing him away at the same time by saying she's engaged. Why does Peter still like her? Anyway, Spider-Man 2 ended with Mary Jane realizing that Peter was Spider-Man and waiting until her wedding day to decide she really did love him. But in this movie, she gets fired from her play, doesn't tell Peter, but still gets mad at him for not being sympathetic. How is he supposed to know you got fired if you don't tell him? So she falls in love with Harry again, who's conveniently nice again, then she wonders why Peter gets mad at her. If you ask me, she really deserved that punch and everything else that came her way.

Sadly, that punch woke Peter up and enabled him to finally ditch Venom, which conveniently fell onto Eddie Brock who was in a church praying for Peter Parker to be killed. Uh, Eddie, have you ever been to church before? You can't pray for God to kill somebody for you. Also, you can't blame Peter for exposing your picture as a fake. You committed the cardinal sin of journalism by forging the front page photo of a major newspaper, so you completely deserved to be fired and disgraced. Wanting to kill Peter Parker is a rather extreme conclusion to jump to.

So Eddie becomes Venom and very quickly runs into Sandman, having the obligatory (and horrible) "let's team up" scene we see in so many Batman films. This is why having multiple villains is not a good idea. Super-powerful insane criminals don't automatically want to team up to defeat a common foe. It shouldn't work that easily. I also hated Eddie telling Sandman he'd been looking for him, when we didn't see any of that searching, and that he knew all about Sandman's sick daughter without any explanation for having acquired that knowledge. Maybe you justify it by saying Venom shares memories from all its hosts, but they never said that. It was just sloppy story telling, that's all.

Speaking of sloppy story telling, it's now time for more revisionist history! It turns out the Osborn butler knew about Green Goblin all along and that Spider-Man didn't kill him. But he didn't tell Harry this until after he destroyed his company and nearly killed his two best friends in his fruitless quest for vengeance. So now Harry went from being bad to good to bad to back to good all in the same movie. What fun!

I remember when I saw who would be playing Venom that I was worried he'd be too skinny for the part. You see, Venom is supposed to be huge, like three times bigger than Spider-Man, but they cast a rather small guy to play the part. But everyone said he'd work out and get bigger, but it wasn't enough. We ended up with a rather wimpy-looking Venom with a slightly-scary face. But I couldn't really form an opinion of it because he peeled it back to show his human face so much. When we went into the final fight scene with Harry's mask off, Venom's face peeled back, and half of Spider-Man's mask ripped off, it stopped being artistically stylistic and just became insulting.

It really felt like the filmmakers didn't trust the audience to understand what was going on in the final fight, so they had a boring anchorman and a British reporter explaining everything for us. Maybe that wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't a British reporter. Seriously, we're in New York! Reporters don't talk like that! But we had to suffer through her accent telling us that it looked like Spider-Man was losing because we couldn't tell for ourselves. Then Harry flew in and saved him and we saw two little boys (probably the director's kids) telling us how we were supposed to react: "Wow, cool! Wicked awesome!"

At the end, I only had strength for one more complaint: Harry's grenades. Earlier, Spider-Man threw a grenade back at Harry, which exploded two inches in front of his face. All he got was a little scar on one side of his face that really didn't look too bad. But at the end of the movie, one of his grenades completely evaporates Venom and Eddie Brock. There's not even a shoelace left behind or anything. How come his grenades looked so weak in one scene, but super powerful at the end?

I feel like I should be complaining more about Sandman or something, but I'm exhausted. It really is astonishing how quickly a movie can fall apart. I just remembered that we were all surprised to see they didn't choose the Lizard, but in hindsight, he probably would have been too similar to Dr. Octopus, so it's good they left him out. Sadly, they did insist on cramming too many villains in anyway, which led to the destruction of this movie. This movie in turn destroyed a great franchise and led to a five-year stretch where everybody pretty much forgot about one of Marvel's most popular characters. Luckily he is back now, and he's not half bad in The Amazing Spider-Man. (He's not half-good, either, but at least he's back.) With Spider-Man 3, I took off enough points to make it a negative-9, but I'll be kind and give it an official score of 0.

Final score: 0

Spider-Man 2

Finally I get to review the greatest Spider-Man movie ever! Spider-Man 2 came out in 2004, returning director Sam Raimi and actors Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco. This was a highly-anticipated blockbuster that didn't disappoint. However, it wasn't quite perfect.

One of the best things about Spider-Man is that he is a real-life superhero who must deal with real-life problems, and this movie perfectly captured that aspect. We saw Peter Parker struggling to pay his rent, falling behind in his school work, worrying about his family and having plenty of problems with his awkward love life. Even though he has the proportional strength of a spider, he's still a nerd when he's not wearing his mask, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I'll add one point for this.

But now I have to take a point off for the tiring subplot of Harry Osborn swearing revenge on Spider-Man for "killing" his dad. I still don't see how he can really think that's true (especially after Spider-Man directly saved his life). I also didn't appreciate his contradictory attitude of being buddy-buddy with Peter, then randomly hating him for not revealing Spider-Man's identity. Why is Peter supposed to know who Spider-Man is? Did you ever think he just might be a talented photographer? Unfortunately, this would lead to an even worse subplot in the next movie.

I'll bring the score back up to a 6 for Alfred Molina's touching performance as Otto Octavius. We didn't get to see much of him before his accident, but it was just enough for me to fall in love with the character. He was not only a brilliant, kind and likable scientist, but this movie added a sweet romantic side to him. He had probably been married for 20-plus years, but was still deeply in love with his wife. This made his accident and transformation into a monster all the more tragic.

I'll add another point for the quiet humor in this movie. There were so many nice, funny moments that didn't call too much attention to themselves, like the broom closet scene, the usher at the theatre and the funniest, the elevator scene. Sometimes action movies have too much or not enough humor, but this one found the perfect balance. Just enough to take off some of the harshness of the intensity, but not too much to overshadow the importance of the storyline.

The score will rise to an 8 for the creation of Dr. Octopus. Not only was the actual accident horrifying and tragic, but the scene in the hospital was captivatingly terrifying. When he violently killed all those doctors, I knew I was watching the best superhero movie of the time. But more importantly, he was a legit super villain for Spider-Man to fight. He was strong, fast, smart and insane. Unlike the Green Goblin (who wanted to eliminate his business competitors and somehow take over the world?), Doc Ock had a much more understandable motive. All he wanted to do was complete his fusion experiment and would stop at nothing to see it happen. I also loved his design — the trench coat and sunglasses with truly cool-looking robotic arms. I have to credit the filmmakers for not relying too much on CGI and using sophisticated puppets that could perform delicate actions like lighting a cigar. I loved this character so much I didn't even care that the "inhibitor chip" thing didn't make any sense.

As cool as Doc Ock was, his first fight was a little flawed. After taking Aunt May hostage to keep Spidey at bay, he threw her up into the air and she all-too-conveniently caught onto a statue with her umbrella handle. Not only did that sequence look fake, but Aunt May held onto that statue far too long for a 70-year-old woman to support her own weight. It was a rather unfortunate moment that took me away from what was a good fight scene and will cost the movie another point.

Luckily, this movie is usually able to redeem itself after each miscue. I'll bring the score back up to an 8 for the re-creation of one of the most iconic Spider-Man comic book covers — "Spider-Man No More!" There are only a few comic book images as haunting as Peter Parker walking away from his Spider-Man costume hanging out of the trash can. It's one thing when a superhero is killed, but it's much worse when he just decides to give up.

Aunt May really was frustrating in this movie. When Peter told her how Uncle Ben died, she got mad and left the room. In my mind, Aunt May would comfort Peter and say, "Don't blame yourself. If you tried to stop that criminal, he probably would've killed you and Ben." But she didn't! However, she did redeem herself later with the hero speech she gave Peter, which ever so slightly hinted at her knowing Spidey's secret identity. I would have liked a stronger indication that she knew who he was — I mean, she'd recognize his voice, right? — but this was good enough to keep the score at 8.

I'll add another point for the amazing and shocking scene of Doc Ock throwing a car at Peter and MJ right after he said he doesn't love her. This was made into an effective trailer, and it still was exciting and unexpected in the movie. This also led directly into the best part of the whole movie.

Spidey and Ock's fight on the train was nothing short of epic. We really got a sense of how powerful these two were. I also loved how casually Doc Ock threw the people around, almost using them as weapons. And then there was the intense and beautiful moment of Spidey collapsing after stopping the train and all the people of New York coming to his aid again. And then the final confrontation and death of Doctor Octopus was really good, too. If the movie would have ended with that, it would have had a perfect score.

But instead, we had to go back to Harry for one more annoying scene. In a drunken stupor, he hallucinates his dad demanding revenge and then accidentally discovered his dad's secret lair, complete with shelves of pumpkin bombs, a spare glider and Green Goblin mask, and extra canisters of the serum that turned him into the Green Goblin in the first place. But if you remember from the first movie, Norman Osborn had to evaporate the serum in a large, expensive machine that he destroyed. So why did he have extra serum lying around? I have to take a point off for this.

I have to take one more point off for Mary Jane running away from her wedding while in her wedding dress. What a jerky thing to do! She already found out the boy she always loved was the superhero she had a crush on, so why did she wait until two minutes before the actual wedding to decide to cancel it? I think that's a little extreme. But the filmmakers all thought it would be good cinema to have the bride running down the street with J. Jonah Jameson making the awful "put away the caviar" joke. I, however, didn't appreciate it and lost all respect for MJ.

Like I said, this wasn't a perfect movie, but it still was pretty darn good, and as it stands, it is still the best Spider-Man movie ever made. Maybe this new one might surpass it, but I highly doubt it. Spider-Man is much more than special effects and classic villains, and when people forget that, bad things happen, as we'll see in Spider-Man 3.

Final score: 8