Friday: Lil’ shouldn’t be allowed into Best Buy unsupervised. I don’t count, as I’m not a very good supervisor. Then again, I did get the BSG miniseries DVD out of it (since she doesn’t need it anymore). I’m also a couple of books into the Eric Flint “1632″ franchise; it’s not too shabby, all things considered, though I imagine that my interest will wane after another massive volume or so.

Saturday (daytime): Erica and I watched Alex do improv theater games in a park in the rain for an hour or so. Amusing it was, but eventually it got cold and we got bored so off to Burgerville we went. It’s appalling how much BV charges for a “large” cup of orange juice. Oy.

Saturday (night IRON MAN): Kyla and I decided to do the dinner-and-a-movie thing. Oh, what an excellent movie! I’ll spare you the full review (since, let’s see, nearly everyone on the Internet has reviewed the thing already) but suffice to say that it’s a solid, entertaining, surprisingly restrained, well acted, beautifully produced superhero movie which benefits from a touch of gritty realism but without the bloody mayhem or out-of-place sex scenes (the only one in the movie is very short and played entirely for laughs). Even the scenery chewing is kept to reasonable limits. The funny bits were genuinely funny! I know, I’m as amazed as you are. Robert Downey, Jr completely owns the role of Tony Stark. The other actors range from “quite good” to “better than expected,” though it’s not a movie with a large main cast. I think the worst special effect in the movie is Jeff Bridges’ skullcap. (Turns out that it wasn’t a skullcap after all; his head somehow managed to look wrong nonetheless. Oh well, minor quibble.) In short: Unless you hate action movies, you should see Iron Man. (As for the “after-credits” thing… all I can say is, better Sam The Man than David Hasselhoff.)

Saturday (late night): “Doctor Who,” end of the first two-parter in the 4th series of the “new Who.” We love Donna, we love Martha Version 2.0, we don’t necessarily love setting the atmosphere on fire, and the next-episode preview left me wondering what new kinds of drugs the “Who” producers have got their grubby hands on now. The love child of a Timelord and Baby Spice? Really, now.

Sunday: Game day. Well, after we foraged for grub, anyway. In the “City Of” world, my lead villain dinged 40 and opened up her patron powers while my top Defender finally became a “real” Kin by acquiring Fulcrum Shift. Hellooooo, massive buff/debuff! Later, with “the boys,” I snuck in a win at Power Grid followed by a modest but respectable showing at Quiddler. Not bad for competing against five smart blokes, wot?

I’ll wait.

There’s a danger in reading reviews before watching the movie, especially when the reviews are generally full of pure vitriol. Between the nitpicking and the hyperbole one can become so jaded as to enter the theater already hating a movie one hasn’t yet watched. In some cases the angry reviewers are right (X-Men 3), in some cases they’re dead wrong (TMNT). What about Spidey The Third?

The most common complaints I read in the reviews were that there were too many villains and that the plot was held together by coincidence after coincidence. I disagree with the first assertion, mainly because of how the writers worked the Peter-and-Harry situation into the villain-busting antics. Mind you, I’m not impressed with the grand finale combat sequence, but I can at least understand the reasoning behind the tag-team setup. A movie with Sandman alone would have been like watching The Mummy Takes Manhattan, and we’d have been subjected to even more Uncle Ben Angst. (More on that in a minute.) Focusing entirely on Venom might have worked better except that there’s only so much arachnid-on-arachnid action you can really come up with to run down the movie’s clock. In that version of the movie there’d have been no real use for the Peter-and-Harry drama, as it’s not like you want Goblin Junior getting the last licks on the movie’s sole villain. (More on that, later.)

My actual complaints with the movie are twofold: Coincidences and camp. Let’s run down the list of just what I can remember two days later…

• The Venom-symbiote meteorite lands meters away from Our Titular Hero. Just think about that for a moment.
• Sandman just happens to be the guy who really killed Uncle Ben. Sure, because Spidey was short on angst triggers this week. Puh-leeze.
• Harry gets (temporary) amnesia which just happens to blank out the precise period of time covering the events which made him hate Spider-Man and/or Peter. Lucky break, wot?
• Eddie Brock just happens to be in church (praying for Spidey’s death, which shows how firm a grasp on “Thou Shalt Not Kill” he has) at the precise moment Peter is shedding the symbiote.

Those are just the really big co-inky-dinks. It’s positively Rube-Goldberg-ian the way this plot operates.

The camp is more subtle. It’s not that the movie becomes actually painful to watch (despite the complaints about “emo-Peter,” I found those sequences more amusing than expected), but rather that the attempts at humor are so obvious that you end up rolling your eyes while chuckling. There’s very little of the genuine feel to the lighter moments such as we enjoyed in the previous two franchise entries. I won’t say that it all falls flat (and Spidey 3′s now-required Bruce Campbell cameo is actually a damned hoot) but I felt myself missing the cheerful joy of the earlier movies.

Speaking of which, while I’m no aficionado of Spider-Man canon, isn’t it true that one of the webslinger’s defining characteristics is his wisecracking during combat? There’s only a bit of that in the first movie (makes sense, he’s just starting out) and quite a bit more in the second (welcome, and delightful), but it’s nearly absent here. What happened? No idea.

So after all of this ripping and ragging on the movie, it probably behooves me to point out that it’s not nearly as unenjoyable as you might suspect. There’s drama, and humor, and butt-kicking, and screw-ups, and redemption, and all of the stuff we want to see in a better-than-average superhero flick. That said, there are a few things I’d have changed (in addition to some simple fixes for those stupid coincidences I mentioned earlier):

• Peter’s romantic interests need to be portrayed as having more than a thimbleful of common sense. For instance, he’s trying to give MJ a cheer-up when she comes to his apartment after reading her first dreadful review. If she’d actually listened, she’d have noticed that what he was saying was completely relevant to her situation. Instead, all she heard was “blah blah blah Spider-man blee” and tuned out the content. A great deal of pointless drama could’ve been avoided. And, the less said about her visit to Harry’s place, the better.
• Sandman needed to be a generic villain. I’m not knocking the actor (who did a fine job, really) but his sensitive backstory coupled with the “revelation” that he was on the grassy knoll responsible for Uncle Ben’s death took up considerable screen time that could’ve been used to a) shorten the movie a tad and b) let the writers provide more plausible scenarios which wouldn’t rely upon absurd coincidences. Keep the tag-team, lose the angst-and-woe.
• The tag-team should’ve gone differently: Let Harry have his dream of “killing Spider-man” by letting him finish off Venom. He has all of those wonderful toys, I’m sure that a sonic resonance device isn’t beyond his ability to manufacture or procure. I mean, what the hell? A couple of low-yield incendiary rockets was enough to take Sandman out of the battle? Sure, sure. (The less said about the “implosion bomb,” the better.)

I’ve probably rambled just about long enough, so let’s sum up.

Spider-Man 3 is not a bad superhero movie… unless you compare it directly to its predecessors, in which case it’s a bit of a disappointment. While the notion of “detach your brain and enjoy the ride” still applies here as it does in many other genre experiences, it’s really hard to overlook some of the glaring, painful problems with this franchise installment. That said, it’s still far better than the average film of its type and not quite as bad as the scathing reviews would have you believe.

It’s also far better than X-Men 3, another trilogy-ending flick which left fans more than ready for its franchise to be given a rest…

What interests me most about the movie, looking back on it, is that on one level it’s the story of a man’s search for a replacement father-figure or mentor. Bruce finds what he needs halfway around the world… or does he? He learns many valuable lessons, but “Ducard” isn’t really the right fit. No, that would be Alfred, the man he actually rejects any number of times previously. Maybe I’m reading too much into this aspect, but hey, I’m just amazed that the movie manages to have this thread without it being obnoxious or blatant.

So, the cast. I liked seeing Gary Oldman in a fairly low-key role, and he does solid work here. His Jim Gordon is sensitive, somewhat harried, but unerringly devoted to the way things should be.

Morgan Freeman, for all that it looks like he’s mostly gliding his way through his part, is so damned enjoyable that I really didn’t care that he wasn’t trying all that hard. It’s not like he had a lot to do, and he did get a couple of sly, understated moments. “Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in that,” he says with a twinkle in his eye…

Michael Caine is a joy to watch, and while his Alfred isn’t quite the cooly composed and dry-witted butler we’ve seen in other renditions, he brings a heart to the role that works perfectly given the structure of this particular plot. He serves as the true mentor to Bruce, even after being rejected any number of times, and he is believable as the able and brilliant collaborator.

As for Bruce’s first mentor, the false one, Liam Neeson dips into his Qui-Gon Jinn bag of tricks pretty heavily, but manages to be dark and menacing in the right ways at the right time, and he’s never over-the-top.

Kat(i)e Holmes? She has very little to do besides look pretty and be Bruce’s other conscience from time to time, whcih she does passing well, but not that well. And while I’m here, can I just take a moment to say that “TomKat” had better damned well be the last of the “celebrity couple monikers” we have to suffer hearing about every single day? “Bennifer” was bad enough, but “TomKat” is just silly. What next? Oh, wait, I don’t want to know.

Anyway. The last actor I want to talk about before I wrap this up is Christian Bale. Is he a good Batman, and is he a good Bruce Wayne? That’s always been the problem, of course, the fact that there are two roles to play. Superman’s a goodie-two-shoes no matter whether he’s in costume or in disguise, but Batman is practically schizophrenic. Previous attempts have been hit-or-miss, with some actors doing the playboy billionaire part well but failing to convince as the Dark Knight, and others wearing the cape-and-cowl fairly well but faceplanting in a tuxedo. I think Mr. Bale does… okay. I’m not the first and won’t be the last to think that his “Batman Rasp” is a bit silly, but in all other respects his Bat-work is fairly decent. I’m not sure he’s the best Bruce Wayne we could’ve gotten, but he’s actually quite good enough to do the job. My biggest complaint with his work was a tendency towards a deer-in-the-headlights stare when surprised by events. That may have been the directing, but there you go.

So what about the story, the plot, the much-touted realism? The grounding in a kind of reality this film gives you is superb. You believe in this world and these characters. Sure, at the end there’s a kind of models-and-set-pieces action-flick feel to things, but until that point the movie is unrelentingly glitz-free. That’s not to say it isn’t stylish and flashy at times, but it doesn’t feel fake. This is the kind of genuinely dramatic, grounded-in-its-world movie that The Hulk tried so hard and failed so completely to be.

I’ll end with an observation that I didn’t make, myself, until the end of the movie. There is no opening credits sequence. The movie just… begins. Only when I saw the end credits roll did I realize this, and it made me love the movie that much more. I’m not knocking what Marvel’s done with its franchises, but having this movie just thrust you into the story from the moment the theater lights go down adds something immeasurable to the realism of the overall picture.

Batman Begins. If all goes well, it will continue with as good of quality as it’s started with. I hope.

For starters, the family Steam (Lloyd, Edward and Ray) are all as nutty as fruitcakes. Okay, so Ray’s a mostly-harmless kind of nutty, but still, you can tell that the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree. When you’ve got Dad and Granddad gesticulating wildly and spouting off about the proper course of scientific progress, well, all that bombast sort of gets in the way of serious thinking. The only other characters who get serious screen time are either shifty or outright annoying (that would be “Miss Scarlett,” the shrill, stupid and annoying supposed-love-interest. Gah.)

Then you have the visuals. Oh, wow, are they pretty! “Steamboy” follows closely on the heels of the also-gorgeous “Metropolis” as a highly detailed, wonderfully lit, lovingly animated piece of art. There are even a few brief tone-poem-style moments reminiscent of that earlier work, but for the most part this film’s about action. Tanks, trains, dirigibles, armor, guns, flying machines, giant articulated appendages and steam valves of all sizes fill the screen. Unfortunately, much of the action seems to be for the sake of giving the audience action sequences to “ooh” and “aah” over. That’s okay, though, ‘cause when you get right down to it, there’s no plot for the action to get in the way of.

There’s also what could be considered a rather nitpicky complaint, though I consider it a highly relevant one considering the tone and direction of the film’s dialog. You see, there’s a lot of blathering about “science” and what it’s supposed to mean for mankind. There’s only one problem: They’re confusing science and technology. What you see on the screen is lots and lots of technology. It’s engineering and applied physics, sure, but is it actually science? Not so much, really.

Maybe I’ve just read too much James Burke. Who knows?

Oh, you want to know about the plot? Let’s see… there’s this bauble. I mean, steamball. Okay, it turns out there are three of them, but you only ever see the one. Ray’s father and grandfather are competing for possession of it, the reasons for which are pontificated upon at length in between chase and mechanical-fight sequences of considerable energy and detail. Things explode, other things fly around, and… no, that’s pretty much it. Two hours of machinery and bombast.

It’s awfully pretty to look at. Some of the sequences will take your breath away if you have any enjoyment of animation whatsoever. But it’s all just so much empty visualization, because you can’t really care about the characters and there’s nothing resembling a compelling plot. Who will end up with the steamball? Who cares? Everyone we meet is nutty, greedy or both. It’s sort of hard to root for anybody, which is odd as well as a damned shame, considering this movie’s obvious attempts to be a good old-fashioned rollicking actioner.

Oh, and there are some interesting nods to other works, both Otomo’s own and that of others. “Akira” comes to mind, as well as the bookending sequences of “Robot Carnival.” You’ll also get a strong “Rocketeer” vibe from Ray’s flight sequences (the costume alone gives it away, really).

I should mention the dub job. It’s… well, it could’ve been worse. Patrick Stewart does his usual sterling work, but he’s horribly miscast as the cranky, crazy grandfather. Alfred Molina does a spot-on job as Ray’s father, even managing to salvage some dignity from the bombastic lines he has to spout on occasion. I don’t know who Kari Wahlgren’s supposed to be, but I guess all they needed was someone to be shrill, annoying and to scream appropriately during her damsel-in-distress moments. Anna Paquin? Well… I don’t understand the thinking behind that choice. I like her well enough, but I couldn’t shake the sense that it’s a much harder sell having an actress voice a male part for English roles than it is in Japanese (where it’s not only normal but just about the norm). She didn’t do a bad job, really, though she also had almost nothing interesting to do with the role. Ray’s just a kid who goes along with the flow of things, really. And that’s probably the last, most fatal flaw in the movie: The hero isn’t really all that heroic, when you get right down to it.

Steamboy. See it for the pretty pictures. Do it with the sound off, if you wind up with it on DVD. It’ll be better that way, believe me.

IMDB: Steamboy

It’s corny. It’s overblown. It relentlessly offends the viewer’s intelligence. It makes up bits of monster-mythology out of whole cloth whenever the plot needs there to be a convenient bit of such. The music is an assault on good taste. The Brides are just plain badly done, especially when in “harpy” mode, which is what we’re treated (and I use that word very loosely) to more often than any other effect in the movie. Bits of utterly redundant exposition are thrown at us willy-nilly throughout. Bits of painfully anachronistic dialog are dropped hither an yon like so much smelly guano. Tropes from a dozen different movies are grafted together, much like Frankenstein’s monster was grafted together out of so many corpses of what used to be fully functional people. (Spotted: Aliens, Indiana Jones, any given James Bond flick, LXG, and that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head, many hours later.)

The acting is hard to gauge, mainly because the plot and dialog are so execrable that the actors aren’t really given anything to work with. I feel sorry for Hugh Jackman, pity for Kate Beckinsale, and mild chagrin for the rest of the players sucked into this sorry mess. One gets the feeling they thought they were involved in the making of a rollicking-good action flick, but… no, instead their names are forever attached to such a godsforsaken disaster.

What takes this movie from the level of just being a trite popcorn flick and directly into the realm of actual badness? Here’s an example, and I have no reason to avoid spoiling you on this bit: The Creepy Undertaker tries to cold-cock Van Helsing with a shovel from behind. V.H. spins and blocks the attack, then ducks aside as, get this, the werewolf V.H. was chasing leaps at him and instead catches the Undertaker right in the chest, knocking him partway across the cemetary, into an open grave. The shovel spins through the air and lands business-end down atop the Undertaker… and then the Undertaker’s hat flutters down atop the shovel handle, and spins there a few times, as if it was the icing atop some wonderful cinematic slice of cake.

A swallow of cinematic ipecac, is more like it. It’s way, way too trite, too overdone, too “look at me that was cool wasn’t it cool damn you know that was so, so cool.” The whole damned movie is like that.

Hateful. There’s no other way to describe it. I’m so very glad I paid no money at all to see this movie. I can’t even recommend it for a MST3K-style treatment, because any fun to be derived from making fun of it is vastly overshadowed by how much pain is involved in actually watching it. Again: Hateful.

IMDB: Van Helsing

The Incredibles is Pixar’s crowning theatrical work. Period.

Okay, I can expound on that just a little bit. For one thing, as was stated elsewhere (though I can’t remember exactly where right this minute), Spider-Man 2 is now officially the year’s second-best superhero movie. This movie’s got the whole meal deal: Drama, folks in funny outfits, several kinds of comedy, meaningful character interaction, clever ruses, action sequences that are both amusing and effective, snappy dialogue… yeah. It just doesn’t miss a beat.

So I can get this wrapped up with a minimum of muss and fuss, I’ll leave you with some bullet points.

• The “newsreel” stuff is golden; they capture the feel of an Untouchables-style exposition perfectly.
• Mr. Incredible isn’t a doof. He’s blind to a few things, but in that painfully-real way that many guys are blind when they find themselves trapped in suburbia.
• Elastigirl rocketh most mightily. ‘Nuff said.
• Everything pays off. Watch for things that are given lip service at one point and show up again later. Some of them aren’t so subtle, but a few really are.
• The kids aren’t wholly unlikeable. You don’t spend too much of the movie rooting for someone to slap sense into them.
• The poignant moments are actually poignant. Nicely done.
• Uh, go see this movie. Yeah, that’s it.

That should cover it, though I’m sure I forgot some things…