The Idiotic #Superhero (creative writing/sci-fi/humor)

A silly sci-fi/super hero story about a super powered alien who constantly thinks he is doing more good than the actual harm that he produces. You can READ THE FULL STORY HERE ON ASSOCIATED CONTENT

 

And again, thanks so much for everyone who clicks on my stuff so that I can get some revenue off of my writing

How to be a Sidekick: A how-to guide in the world of super heroes

How to Be a Sidekick: A Fictitious Pamphlet on Helping the World of Super Heroes
This is a funny little "how to" guide on the world of being a side kick for a super hero. There are a lot of inside jokes on the world of super heroes.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/1892960/how_to_be_a_sidekick_a_fictitious_pamphlet.html

Judge Dredd, the most under rated super hero film of all time (movie review)

James "Bo" Gorcesky

Judge Dredd movie review

December 22, 2007

The Most Underrated Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Comic Book Film

Of All Time: Judge Dredd

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Why Judge Dredd is considered such an underrated cult comic book film to me? Well, first off let me stack it up against other cult comic book inspired films out there that can come to my mind: Flash Gordon, Conan the Barbarian, Daredevil, The Fantastic Four (the unreleased 1994 version), Howard the Duck, Superman III – what is one thing they all have in common? They primarily all had mixed reviews by the critics and the common fan base, they all had fairly weak box office sales, but most importantly, there were just a small element or two that caused the true die hard fans to create a cult following of that film. I am surprised to talk to some fans and would dare to utter such words as, "Oh c'mon, Daredevil wasn't that bad." Or, "Man, I can't wait for the unrated special collector's edition of Howard the Duck on high-def DVD!" But as these fans grow older, they are gathering in numbers on the internet and creating petitions to get their favorite films back out of film limbo, or are actually making the decisions in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Hollywood to turn their favorite properties into movie franchises.

With that being said, and some of our other favorite cult films out of the way, I'd like the rest of this article to focus on the 1995's Judge Dredd directed by Danny Cannon and starring Sylvester Stallone, Diane Lane, Rob Schnieder and the legendary Max "please stop calling me Ming the Merciless" Von Sydow. Considering that this film was released by Walt Disney pictures, and was rated R (for what I am guessing is extremely ridiculous scenes of violence,) which probably hurt it's initial release. More often than not, you try to find a happy medium with the comic book fans with a PG-13 rating, so that way you can have some sexy stuff and some violence, but with some fun stuff for the kiddies as well. But Dredd, much like it's action packed Von Sydow predecessor Conan the Barbarian (which was also rated R and also brought to the screen thanks to Edward R. Pressman) will doom it's box office sales as too risqué.

The film did stir up enough excitement and reviews amongst the Sci-Fi fan base, as it was nominated for several Saturn Awards for it's excellent costume and makeup work. Which, I must say, I really like comic book films that make it look like they took a panel from a book and made it come to life like an Alex Ross painting. The Judge Dredd costume looks highly authentic to the pictures in the books, and you could almost feel the cheesy plastic on their helmets. But only using some eye catchy makeup and costume design work (that sometimes makes some of the costumes look like it came out of Masters of the Universe mixed with a Imperial Storm trooper) does not gratify enough success. Some might feel a similar connection to another cult Von Sydow film, Flash Gordon which was also praised for it's set and costume design, but hugely failed in the writing and acting department. But aside from the eye candy featurettes, the post apocalyptic city is just enough to get a few ooh's and aah's out of people and will shortly thereafter begin to chuckle at Stallone's cheesy one liners (I knew you'd say dat.)

Ah yes, Stallone. How fitting that the crooked lipped action hero should play a cop in the future – he has played a cop in nearly every other genre so far. How many films can you think of where Stallone has played a cop? I'll give you a few seconds then I'll just shoot off from memory………

Nighthawks

Cop Land

Demolition Man

Tango & Cash

Cobra

D-Tox

Daylight

Stop! Or my mom will shoot

Talk about being type cast right? Actually, Stallone's acting and tight lipped one liners and total devoid of humanity in his role as Judge Dredd earned him a Razzi Award for worst actor (a rather prestigious account since he was simultaneously nominated for worst actor in Assassins for the same year). But where Stallone fails, he has his much more sympathetic partner and romance Judge Hershey (played by Diane Lane) and Dredd's kooky and streetwise sidekick and comedy relief Rob Schneider. Oh, but do we need to mention that the villain in the film is the psychotic (and also a cloned twin brother) of Judge Dredd – RICO! Just hearing Stallone say "Rico" in his crooked lipped way is hilarious. With the aid of some dazzling sparkling blue matching contacts and oozing super Italian charm, Hollywood decided that Armand Assante would be the best choice for a Bizarro Judge Dredd.

Now that the acting is out of the way, let us try to focus on the story. The film itself underwent several changes. Stallone was such a spoiled little brat that kept demanding changes; supposedly the original shooting script and the finished product are two entirely separate entities. But to get to his roots, Judge Dredd is based on a late 70's action hero that was initially published in Britain in the book 2000 AD. In a desolate world, there is too much violence and crime, so society created "Judges" members that upheld THE LAW as Judge, Jury and rarely as Executioner. Their world is in a post apocalyptic setting, as much has been destroyed from nuclear bombings and Judgment day. Most of the world is covered in desolate wastelands, while others have come together to create huge towering mega-oplis called Mega City 1 (which stretches from about Baltimore to Charlotte). In a land without law, only the few represent the law – like Judge Joseph Dredd.

SO that is the world as to what the comic book showcases, and the film is pretty close adaptation to it as well. The film is also pretty accurate on visualizing a 3-D world that is based from a 2-D medium. Many of the supporting characters have been brought to the screen, and I personally feel that the art department did an OUTSTANDING job of bringing some of those things to life to look just like the comic book. I feel that too often when there is a film adaptation of a comic book, costume designers and the rest of the art department try to go for this plush leather or art nouveux look (think of your initial response to the costume work in X-Men).

But what they did do successfully adapting was the visuals, but not the methodology of the world or the personalities of many of the characters. For example, in the comic book, Judge Dredd has only removed his helmet twice (within thirty years of comic book continuity), and in the book, his face is still censored. And from the look of people that see "old stony face's" appearance, are normally appalled with disgust. In the film, we see Dredd's face for a huge chunk of the film. Which is a constant dispute and cause of disruptions in Hollywood with, "but we need to see the actor's face to convey emotions to the audience. They can't think for themselves! We need to tell them what to think and how to feel based on the portrayal of our leads." Okay, my tirade is over. Actually, did you know that the role of Judge Dredd was initially offered to Arnold Schwarzenegger but he turned it down because he didn't like the idea that his face would be covered through out the whole film. Which would then cause Stallone to step in, demand all of the numerous changes to the script, and that is probably why you see Dredd "helmetless" throughout a majority of the film.

Secondly, it is FORBIDDEN for Judges to embrace a romantic relationship. Figure, this way they could focus solely on their work, not on the lives of others. Judges are also conditioned to be devoid of romance at an early age and also of corruption. Which also helps to play into the universal irony on our own government which the Dredd books frequently poke at. Yes, there is a lot of ironic humor abound in the Dredd books, and if you are a political weirdo, then it may be the book for you. So, when Dredd starts up with this lovely relationship with Hershey, they again break the rules of the Dredd mythos. What he shoulda done after he saved her was pull a lil Jack Burton on her and ride off into the sunset.

Well, I guess I have nothing else to offer for this film review. Again, like I said, I feel that Judge Dredd is an under rated action/sci-fi/comic book film. There have been a LOT worse (cough cough, the Hulk cough cough Fantastic Four series) but don't let Stallone's tight faced expressions and cheesy one liners bring ya down – embrace them! "I knew you'd say dat" Stallone is pretty bad ass in this movie, and it is probably my favorite of his cop portrayals. And just imagine if we could all ban together, we could get a petition together and get a special edition of this DVD out to the world of the underground cult comic book fans! So…who's with me?!

The Dark Knight (movie review)

Okay so my fiancée and I went to go to see The Dark Knight last night and I was QUITE satisfied and my expectations were met. Y'know, I have only seen about three new movies this summer, but this one definitely takes the cake as far as the acting, the action, the explosions, the story and maintaining the Batman mythos. Before I go on any further, I will end up talking a little bit about the earlier Batman films over the years, some of the comics that drew inspiration in the Dark Knight and the spoilers in the film. So you have been warned Batfans – I will spoil this film for you if you keep on reading……

So as some of you might already know, this film is a sequel to Batman Begins which is a reboot of the Batman franchise and pretty much throws out the previous "classic Batman films" that were predominate in the 90's including Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. Whereas the classic films were just ridiculed for the most part as getting progressively campy and silly and at sometimes totally ridiculous (like Penguins with rocket launchers), the Nolan brothers' films continue to show this gritty dark side to Batman that he deserves and they have created this universe where having a "Batman" looks like it could happen. They don't throw any "well he does it because he's a supervillian," schtick that you would find in comics in the old days, now they practically provide a science and/or methodology on how or why certain things happen in these films. What I like about these newer films is the believability this is represented in a comic book film. Instead of me getting lost into my criticizing tirades as I have traditionally done in the past, I will instead list my pro's and con's in a detailed and bulleted list that way you can just jump to the info that you would like to see. BUT, what I can tell you is that you need to watch this film, but be prepared to take out a good chunk of your day out to view it, as it is 2 ½ hours long.

What I liked about in this movie:

• Heath Ledger was amazing. I found him terrifying, mesmerizing and hilarious all rolled into one. He is definitely someone to portray the Joker where you can find the character as absolutely terrifying and then laugh at something dark that he does.
• Explosions and action. This film could satisfy any action genre nut's taste with the amount of gunfire and blazing fury displayed on the screen. There were at times I felt that it was a little excessively violent, and it made me think of my nine year old brother that wanted to see this film. Thinking back to all of the carnage – I would def NOT show this film to a young mind.
• An inspiration from the maxi-series The Long Halloween. Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale do an excellent job on a line of books that are "in the vein" of Frank Miller's Batman Year One. Thinking of this book and the portrayal of Batman / Gordon / Harvey Dent working together to clean up the city AND showing the end of a crime era of organized crime into "super villains" made this film more believable for me that this would happen.
• The introduction of Harvey Dent into the story. They show that he is a determined D.A. and his focus to finally take down the mob's hold of Gotham, but more importantly how a good man could "fall from grace" and turn into Two-Face.
• Lucious Fox is Batman's "Q". I don't know how any can't see an influence from the James Bond series, especially since the pre-dominant crew is from jolly 'ol ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />England.
• Showcasing not just the heroes of Gotham, but the people of Gotham that create a further extension of the character that is Gotham City. I think in previous films we have just gotten a sense of the city by how dark it is, the aroma of crime and the architectural style – but now I felt it was a little bit more personalized. Kind of like the first two Spidey films that we got to see the people of NY pulling together to help Spidey, I saw the people of Gotham loosing their minds and at the same time uniting to make their own choices and not be directed by and fueled by their fear and intimidation from the Joker.
• The scale and scope of this film – I liked how it was not only confined to Gotham, but featured some stuff in Hong Kong.
• The ascension of evil and control from the Joker character. Although they really don't show his origin story, nor do they mention anything that he fell into a bat of acid, I felt like we were just to assume that he was a very articulate and well planned criminal mastermind, deceptive, misleading, highly intelligent and his desire to just "watch the world burn." The film starts off with him bumping off each of his own men during a bank robbery and then he sells his services to the organized crime of Gotham in a promises he would kill the Batman. By starting off a sole criminal he slowly takes over one gang after another until he has a hold of the whole city and even tries to spread his disease to Harvey Dent by turning him into another super villain.
• The symbolism that Harvey Dent is the White Knight and Batman is the Dark Knight (one of the last lines in the film).
• The struggle and a bit of a love triangle between Rachel Dawes, Bruce and Harvey Dent. You really see and can kind of feel all of the extra issues and dilemmas that it takes to be a hero (both in the perspective of Batman and Harvey Dent). But the number one thing that Bruce Wayne sacrifices for the little people of Gotham is a simple life, especially being able to fall in love and have a stable life with a woman. You really feel for his dilemma.
• The film opens up with the Scarecrow's gang being busted – to me this was essential and really makes a smooth transition from one movie to the next by just briefly featuring the last villain. I think connections like this, as in the opening of Rocky films, are what make sequels tight and flowing with one another.
• You get a preview of The Watchmen which comes out in March. Def the next highly anticipated comic movie. But will the ambition of the Graphic Novel be just too much for the silver screen? Only time will tell. The images look great, especially down to the detail of The Comedian's smiley face button.
• Setting up the Batman series for more continuing tales. The film ends on an extremely dark note (no pun intended) but within the last five minutes or so we have the following bad events: 1) Batman takes the blame for Harvey Dent's murders so that his good image is maintained. 2) Lucious Fox quits Wayne Enterprises because he doesn't like the idea of spying on people with their cell phones (but he has to type in his name first) 3) Rachel Dawes' final message that she was going to tell Bruce she was going to stick with Harvey and not wait for Bruce to give up the Batman mantle as burned up by Alfred. HONESTLY, I felt like the ending of the film was like in the same vein as The Empire Strikes Back, by having your characters/hero and their loneliest point in the middle act to pull them up into greatness for the grand finale.

What I didn't like in this movie:

• This film was primarily shot during the day. I sure it might have been an angle to save a little cash on the production but I have always felt Gotham should be primarily dark to continue with that creepy/grimey atmosphere. But I always like to think about legendary Batman writer/editor Denny O'Neil who likes to say something along the line of "Metropolis is New York city in the spring, during the day in a rather rich and prosperous part of time. Gotham is in New York City during the fall, at night in one of the poorest parts of town." SO based off of that summarized quote from Denny, I felt this film was showing too much "Metropolis" and not enough "Gotham"
• Introducing and bumping off the Harvey Dent character waaaay too fast. I really wish they took about a film or two to showcase Harvey, his tackling of organized crime, building of the relationships between Batman, Gordon and himself and perhaps hinting about his mental issues. I really liked how they treated the Harvey Dent character in the Batman the Animated Series that showed a strong friendly relationship between Harvey and Bruce Wayne, but that he also had a dark side that could snap into a violent mood swing at any time AND that he had a history of some psychological issues. In this film, we see Dent is a bit of a bad ass, but taking a guy's gun from him that tries to shoot him in the court room, he hints about his dad's "lucky coin" and then he really goes off the deep end after his girlfriend dies. I mean, I can kind of understand loosing your girlfriend in an explosion is a terrible thing – but then denying the use of skin graphs on yourself because "you want to be truly seen for what you are….Two Faced." It is nice when the Joker talks to him and basically manipulates the situation by telling Two Face that it was the police department's fault that his Rachel was murdered and then "pushing their White Knight" into darkness. But Hell, at least it is A LOT better than Tommy Lee Jones' interpretation in Batman Forever that treats him more like a third rate Joker.
• I know this is totally out of everyone's control, but the Joker character lives in the end – but now unfortunately Heath Ledger is dead. SO, I feel some fans might want to see a return of this character, but probably others that will be resentful of someone trying to fill Heath Ledger's shoes (especially if he wins an Oscar for this role). But then again, I'm sure fans said the same thing about Jack Nicholson that "Cesar Romero is the only Joker" and other fans of modern time might have said "Jack Nicholson and/or Mark Hamill are the only Jokers for me – screw this gay cowboy – he can't pull off the legendary clown price of Crime."
• Maggie Gyllenhall (yeah, Jake's sister who actually screws the Joker in Brokeback) replaces the rather cute Katie Holmes. I feel like Maggie's got a pretty damn saggy face that the Joker should have sliced on the corners to give her a prettier smile.
• Batman's gruffy voice starts to get a little annoying. I wonder if Christian Bale couldn't talk normally after shooting his Batman scenes. I liked in the last film when he would throw in a few lines that will creep you the Hell out – now he is in these extended scenes of dialogue when you are like "Dude, take a throat lozenge or something – you sound like you just ate a carton of cigarettes."
• Finally, the overall length of this film. Sure it might have helped that I saw this film at midnight and might have been a little tired but this film is 2 ½ hours long. What happened to the days when you can tell a story on the screen in 90 minutes. Now everyone in Hollywood needs to make Epics. I wish Hollywood would try to slim down their tales and stretch out storylines further so that they can focus more on the characters and details. I felt like this film COULD HAVE been just a focus on the end of the mob, the rise of the Joker and the friendship/camaraderie between Batman, Gordon and Dent. They could have done the whole Two Face thing in another film or two and focus more on the tension of friendships. But, we'll have to see what the Batman film has in store – cause I can't wait.

Spider Man 3 movie review

Spider Man 3 Movie Review.

By James S. Gorcesky

May 5, 2007



Image:Spider-Man 3, International Poster.jpg

Spider Man 3 or

"A Series of Fortunate Coincidences"

Yeah, that's right I said it super hero fans, I feel that Spider Man 3 was a hack job. A film where we were force fed waaay too much information and eye candy and not enough character or story development. Once again, Hollywood has killed off a franchise due to the fact that they want to make the MOST amount of bucks off of their product. Following the Daredevil film model, Sony Pictures has literally blown their load on the Spidey franchise by introducing waaay too many characters (especially villains), squeezing waaay too much story line into a two and half hour movie without fully developing the events and leaving quite a few plot holes along the way and killing off/ending such high points of drama that certain events could have CERTAINLY been milked and used for many more Spidey films to come – instead Hollywood has twisted the arm of Sam Raimi into making this film.

You really can't blame Sam Raimi whatsoever for the failure of this production. Granted, he is the director and one of the co-writers of the film and holds the most amount of responsibility for the success or failure on a project – but I feel there were higher powers at work behind the scenes of this film. I.E. – the evil doings of the Sony Corporation only hoping to make this film SO much more of a financial success than it's two previous. They figured that following the formula of adding more villains to a film and raising the stakes against Spidey was the way too go. So in this film we are dealing with Venom, the Sandman and the second Green Goblin – along with the introduction of Gwen Stacy and a love triangle between Mary Jane, Peter and Harry which is soon to be squished before the end of the second Act. All without much development. If the films follow this trend, we will see more villains and Spidey teaming up with secondary characters like the Black Cat and Morbius to combat evil. BAH!

See, the problem is Sony – you are fucking greedy. You are force feeding waaaaay too much down our throats without us being able to digest it all. Think small and this franchise will be stretched out for YEARS! Instead, you are taking villains and storylines from different eras and squeezing them all together with a love story inter-twined just to bring in the largest amount of cross categorical marketing techniques for viewers that are young, old and use it like a date movie. To say that this film could all be Raimi's fault is more than likely half false. He is an EXCELLENT film maker, as he has brought you success from the past two films amongst many other great pieces of his work: (the Evil Dead trilogy, Darkman, A Simple Plan, The Quick and the Dead –just to name a few) but I have heard rumours that Sony practically twisted his arm into getting Venom in this film. SO with this desire to have Venom, you need to combine it with the pathway the films were heading by using the older storylines and villains. After a while, it becomes a cluster fuck of too much in too little time.

Sam is one of the writers on the film along with his brother Ivan – who last worked together on the rather hilarious Army of Darkness Image:Army of Darkness poster.jpgand they also wrote with Alvin Sargent who worked on the Spidey 2 screenplay – so you'd think between all of them they could make a little bit more sense of all of these stories inter-twining. ON the upside, we still get that typical Raimi style in the film that was rather apparent in the previous two: Cameos by Stan Lee and Bruce Campbell (who, the Great Chin plays a rather ridiculous sounding Maitre D' with a terrible French accent) as do we have the cameo of the Olds 88 which is found in every Raimi film except for the Quick and Dead (since it's a western). There is some fun tongue-in-cheek slap stick with Jameson and his pills and watching people getting terribly hurt and flying through buildings as reminiscent of the cartoon like violence found in the Three Stooges shorts. Unfortunately though, Danny Elfman is not around to score this film, as it's duties are now turned over to Christopher Young (who JUST got done scoring Ghost Rider –blah!) I find that most of Young's music sounds quite reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz soundtrack here and there – but he is surely no Elfman.

There is also some rather EXCELLENT special effects done in the film (even though Star Wars' master John Dykstra wasn't around)– in particular the stuff with the Sandman (although not the final rendition of the Sandman) In fact, at that point of the film it feels sooo cliché, that I'm watching the video game version of the film. That I know I need to run around Venom with steel tubes and use the sonic vibrations to destroy the beast. There are also times when the film becomes very clichéd – like you are watching a super hero movie – not a film inspired by the super hero genre. Please allow me to explain.

There comes a time in Hollywood when certain film makers becomes soooo passionate about a film project, that they want to take a product they grew up with as a child and bring that timeless love and joy to the screen in the form of the inspiration they felt from the comic book. I truly feel that Spider Man 1 and 2, Batman Begins, Bryan Singer's work and the original two Superman films were also on this same wave length with a few other classics (the 90's version of Captain America anyone?! :D ) Image:Captainamerica2.jpgT

his is where you care about the characters and you are TOTALLY immersed in their world, although you have felt a blending of reality and comic book land that you have totally given in on all of your willing suspension of disbelief. In these excellent pieces of comic inspired cinema – you co-exist in the world of the super hero and you believe that these things truly exist. Whether for a second, a minute or the whole time the film is going on – you are so totally there) PAY YOUR DUES TO THE FRANCHISE!

The other side to this spectrum is the comic book movie, i.e. "the bad comic book movie." Not to say that these comic book movies aren't enjoyable, but they showcase such things that become clichéd on the entire genre, that you watch it with excitement and are enthralled with the utter cheesiness of it all. Here, a film maker is a given a job to a make a product – although some of the writers/actors and others say they are passionate about the project (NICHOLAS CAGE, solely for the sake of making another sequel) they are in it for the money and not for the love of the game. WHERE THE FRANCHISE PAYS YOUR DUES AND SALARY. The big example that comes to my mind is Flash Gordon. Yes – I absolutely LOVE Flash Gordon, but what those film makers did was they took that cheesy look and feel of the original serials of the 30's and intertwined it with the snazzy and sexy appeal of the 70's with Queen's music and the glittering wardrobe from the Kingdom of Mongo.Image:Gordoncast-1980.jpg Or how's about Batman Forever, which was another one of my particular favorites, but director Joel Schumacher was SO inspired from the cheesy 60's television series of Batman and tried to intertwine it with some sexy/popular stars of today and a very marketable soundtrack– that never truly got into the Batman mythos and pyschodramatic babble within the world of the dark knight. He is a crazy guy who had his parents shot down, dresses as a bat and combats villains as insane and paranoid as he (and sometimes far worse) but lives by a certain code of honor and justice. The hoakiness, the comedy and the ridiculousness all add up to the effect of a bad comic movie – many of which you will find in the detailed story elements of Spidey 3.



SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Story: Things have been going great for Spidey as far as his public image is concerned. NY loves him and he has even become quite a marketable tourist attraction for the beautiful city of New York. Then we are introduced to Flint Marko,aka the Sandman (is it just me, or does anyone else notice that the Sandman has the same last name as Marvel's other supervillain, The Juggernaut (aka Kane Marko, "I'm the Juggernaut Bitch," Image:Juggsmovie.PNG– < – Juggernaut I?m>) Marko is played by the very apathetic and sorrowful Thomas Haden Church, who some of you might remember from his sitcoms Ned and Stacey or Wings – but I remember him as the asshole – Roach from Demon Knight. So Marko is constantly on the run from the law. He has a very sick daughter whom he cares very much about and is just trying to steal money to get her healthier. The Sandman is a wholesome character who just ends up making dumb choices and a run of bad luck. No wonder he turns face a few times in the comics. Anyways, he is a convict but just runs into trouble. His ex-wife hates him, it turns out he was the one who accidentally killed Uncle Ben at gun point and somehow or another, as he is escaping from the law – he stumbles upon a random particle accelerator that is doing SOME SORT OF EXPERIMENTS ON SAND FOR SOME REASON. He falls in and his molecules become sand – allowing him become large and powerful.

Meanwhile, Peter Parker is ready to propose to MJ but she (from my own interpretations) is jealous of Spidey's fame and wants her own – unfortunately she is a terrible singer on Broadway and gets fired after a one night showing. From that point, she is down and depressed, Pete is not around to listen to her complain because he is a fucking superhero and needs to save the day – so she ends up looking for love, affection and attention from other venues – Harry Osbourne. Harry is currently battling with his own demons, now donning a new and snazzy Green Goblin suit Image:New Goblin front view.jpgthat makes him look more like a combination of a reject from G.I. Joe and Cannonball from the New Warriors, who is on the course to destroy Spidey with his new toys. Harry and Spidey fight, but Harry bumps his head and has a fit of "temporary amnesia" that has effected his short-term memory.

Okay, then we are introduced to some MORE characters. First we got Eddie Brock, (who is played by that little nerdy kid Eric Forman on the 70's Show for years). Eddie is a little competitive photographer at the Daily Bugle and tries to edge out Peter Parker from that snazzy staff job by doing whatever it takes. Eddie's girlfriend is the VERY beautiful Gwen Stacy Image:Howard in Spider-Man 3.jpgplayed by Bryce Dallas Howard and whose father is Captain Stacy (James Cromwell of Revenge of the Nerds) of the NYPD and helps things fall into play. Peter doesn't like Eddie all too much due to competition, Peter knows of Gwen through Physics class and is also a rising model and Peter is also not too fond of Captain Stacy who just reveals to Peter that they found it who really killed Uncle Ben and he is on the loose.

So, essentially at this point we got a WHOLE lot of little stories and events bouncing all over the place. Sandman is introduced and turned into Sand for some reason,

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Harry is out to kill Spidey but gets amnesia and inadvertently works on seducing MJ, Gwen plays the damsel in distress and is hotter than MJ which causes her again to be jealous, Pete hates her boyfriend Brock who is out to steal his work and Spidey is out to marry MJ but she is too much down on her luck for losing her Broadway job. Through out the film, MJ is the only character you can truly feel for, and she is the least developed and just plays the other damsel in distress. An over encompassing rage begins to fuel Peter Parker with the tension of problems with MJ, problems at work and knowing that Ben's killer is on the lose.

CUE THE FLYING ASTEROID! You are still in your seat at this point in the movie, and you are just wondering – how are all of these various and random elements going to fall into place without you getting bored or say – WHY THAT'S JUST ABSURD! This also begins a series of fortunate consequences that JUST SO HAPPEN to come about when they need to be. Such as the randomn flying chunks of asteroid that is never hinted at and instead just happens to land near Peter and then mold onto him like a parasite. The parasite (or symbiot whichever you prefer) molds onto Peter and begins to feed off of his aggression and turning him into an evil Peter. He becomes very jazzy and absurd; he combs his hair over to the side and ends up looking like an Emo Kid. In fact, the parallels of him becoming darker in nature AND appearance was my instant connection to Superman III when Supes comes in contact with synthetic kryptonite Image:Superman&Gift.jpg(because Richard Pryor added the element of tar to it) which causes him to become darker hue in appearance to his costume and a bit of an asshole. IN FACT, I'm going to make it my goal to insert a randomn Superman III connection in any more of my movie reviews. Because, Superman III is the greatest second sequel of any of the super-hero franchises)

Anyway – back to my ranting. So this creature feeds off of Parker's dark side and begins to turn him into something bad, and Pete gets what he wants – by any means necessary. Like Vinny Barbarino from Staying Alive, Pete is off seducing women, getting the staff job and being an all around jazzy and cocky asshole. It comes to a point in the film when THE SPIDER MAN SERIES JUMPED THE SHARK when Peter Parker begins to do this whole entire dancing extravaganza trying to impress/embarrass MJ at her new job. I didn't pay fucking money to watching Spider Man dance – I paid money to watch him in his mask and beating up bad guys and getting the crap beat out of him in the process.

And that's another thing, (and I blame Hollywood for this as well) for this being a super hero film (and being a super hero, one should truly protect their secret identity to safe guard their loved ones) many of the heroes and villains in this film have NO problem whatsoever revealing their identities. Yeah, I know – say what you want that you need to see the emotions portrayed by the actors, but that is not what they do in the comics. You can feel it in a panel – and you should be able to feel it on a piece of celluloid as well. Venom frequently has his mask slide off ,Image:Eddie Brock AKA Venom.JPG Harry constantly runs around mask less as the new Goblin, Peter has no problem concealing himself in his initial fight against Harry on the roof tops of Manhattan in the beginning, his big finale on a construction site (with hundreds of people below who are telecasting the news who could easily see his identity) and he even shows off to the Sandman right at the end of the film and even TELLS him who he was and his Uncle Ben lineage. Hogwash I say – keep your characters in check.

So in the end, it becomes a show down of Sandman/Venom vs. Spider-Man/Green Goblin. There are some truly gay scenes of Spidey and Goblin riding a hover board together trying to save MJ and the commradory amongst super folks is just felt shameful at that moment. Venom is defeated and Brock jumps into an explosion with the symbiot via pumpkin bomb. Sandman redeems himself and sails away like Dust in the Wind and Harry redeems himself and the name of Osbourne by helping out Peter and dying in battle. Which is a DAMN shame because you could have done SO much more with the characters of Venom, Brock, Gwen Stacy and Harry Osbourne but they are all too soon dismissed, written out of continuity and gone by the way side for the sake of another sequel which will probably have no continuity with this one. Perhaps it will all be a dream and we will wake up in a shower with Patrick Duffy.

Final Analysis: Although the film has this re-occurring theme of redemption and a lot of internal conflict, I really feel that this film is just telling us waaaay too much in too little time and bringing characters into our lives that mean so much to the entire Spidey series – only to just drop them off once we are done seeing them as eye candy. It was nice to see the direct connection of the feelings of revenge on the Sandman when the symbiot comes about – and serves as a great motivational tool for Pete to turn to the dark side, but it almost feels like we didn't need to deal with everything else in the film. The plot, and most importantly the villains should have been picked more wisely and I think they could have done a lot more with these characters than sticking them ALL into this one movie and being done with them. Harry should continue his on-going hatred of Pete, get with MJ for a while and Pete could get with Gwen Stacy for at least a movie or two – until Harry goes nuts and kills her by dropping her off of a bridge..der-Man_Death-of-Gwen-Stacy.jpg" width=397 border=0>. You also could have kept a bit more tension and tied in J.J Jameson's son (and kept his engagement to MJ), have him fly to outer space and then return with some of that symbiot. An element that could have been introduced in this film and possibly Venom at the end of part 4 or maybe even 5.

Why can't they just continue going in the formula of using the older Spidey villains and story lines and then build up to the more modern stuff – shit they got like 40 years worth of stories to use – why are they cramming it all?! Why can't you begin to hint on some studies that Dr. Curt Connors is doing on his missing limb? Why not the Vulture – or shit even Electro or Mysterio?! Hollywood has definitely bitten off more than they can chew in this film and I hope the other film companies learn from this lesson when they make future super hero films – DON'T BLOW YOUR LOAD!