Review: The Amazing Spiderman 2

 

 Spiderman2  Ok, first I have to bitch... First off, I just finished watching the DVD of The Amazing Spiderman2.  Now, someone wishing to sow confusion would ask why I waited so long when 3 has been out for so long?  Really? When did 3 appear? Why 2007!  How can that be, 2 just came out in 2014! Ahh you see, it's all about the Amazing! If you were part of the not Amazing Spiderman 2 you were released in 2004.  Now if you WERE Amazing you were released in 2014.  What does this all mean?  Well they had to be paying attention, but it sure led to confusion, at least on my part.  Maybe we can call them Toby and non-Toby Spidermans.  Well, they could have done better.  Stan draggin his feet maybe?   Oh and speaking of dragging, didn't his Hitchcock moment drag on!

Ok, on to the movie.  Two hour and twenty two minutes is the runtime of TASM2 but there is so MUCH action that it is the fastest 2 1/2 hours your going to experience.   The movie STARTS with a brutal fight and plane crash and then segues into some of the best Spiderman web slinging that I have ever seen.  I am serious!  There are flips, twirls, and dives that would make flying suit enthusiasts green.  Plus, Spiderman IS Spiderman!  The moves, the wisecracking really are spot on.  The crew for this movie have again set the visual effects bar, award winningly high.  

But I have to say, the characters took a back seat.  Parker again suffers angst on choosing between his two loves as does Mary Jane.  Oh and Sally Fields needs to slap someone.  Hey kids, this woman is character in the finest sense of the word.  How about we learn to write for actors with talent huh?

The plot is a bit confusing just because there seems to be too much of it.  Subplots abound.  Now in a comic, that is fine,  but a movie that is frenetic in the extreme, well, it is damn hard to follow at times. 

I have got to give credit where credit is due.  I have seen so many of these movies take the cheap shot tear jerker route, just to eat up time.  TASM2 by contrast kept this to a minimum.  I think it made for a better movie. 

Overall I would say that there is much more to recommend in this movie than to pass on.  It is a definite watch for spidey fans, where ever you are.

Here is the wikipedia article for those who are interested  HERE

Scientifically Accurate Spider Man

You and I both know there is something fundamentally wrong with the Spider Man model portrayed in the media. In an effort to address this, the folk over at ADHD have scored a short video describing what a scientifically accurate Spider Man would look and act like.

PREDATAXIS: Rippling to victory.

Like something from a horror movie, the Swarm ripples purposefully toward its prey, devours it and moves on.

Researcher John Kirby, an associate professor at the University of Iowa ,has coined the term PREDATAXIS to describe the modus operandi of colonial predator Myxococcus xanthus when its/their prey is detected.

The following is a attempt to summarize and simultaneously speculate upon Kirby's findings published online Oct. 24 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, And to do it in a way suitable for speculative fictionists to contemplate and, one hopes, speculate on. So forgive my trespasses, JK.

BattleField Xanth.

When a M. Xanthus aggregate of thousands of individuals begins attacking an unsuspecting prey colony, it creates a rippling pattern in its own ranks.

As the Swarm moves into the colony and through the prey, this rippling pattern - the organized behavior of thousands of Xanthics working in concert - lets them kill and engulf the hapless colonials with ease.

Individual Xanthics move and attack by shooting rope-like projections called pili from both ends. These pili attach to prey or other surfaces, letting them pull themselves forward and backward in a "spiderman" type motion.

This motion of millions of individual predators at once results in an alternating pattern of high and low Xanthic densities, like crests and troughs of waves.

The overall motion of the wave across millions of Xanthics is directed implacably toward the prey.

At high prey density, M. xanthus forms ripples with shorter wavelengths. As prey are slain, the ripple wavelength gets longer.

Eventually, there is no more prey. The rippling behavior dissipates for lack of targets. The Xanthics separate, going each their own way, until the next Call.

Likely a sophisticated quorum sensing process is involved in coordinating all those predators in their deadly line dances. Like bioBorgs.