How amazing is The Amazing Spider-Man?

The difficult thing about comic book movies is that there is always a push for a new movie to be released. This means that there is going to be times when an actor gets too old for a particular role, and if you want a new movie, you are going to have to relaunch the series. This was the case recently with Spider-Man.

This has happened for good or for bad with a variety of franchises. Replacing Batman, has had it's ups and downs, and the new Superman didn't go very well. Marvel hasn't had many titles that have reached that point yet, so they are still looking to see what will happen as they have to relaunch to maintain popularity. (Let's just ignore the failed movie attempts from the 80's.)

So what do I think of the newest Spider-Man movie?

I think this is the best Spider-man movie that has been made to date. Tobey Maguire does a good job of being the web-slinger, but there is something wrong with the tone of those movies. They don't seem to take themselves seriously. (I know, how serious can you be about a story involving a man with spider powers? It's a delicate balancing act.)

I think the casting is as close to perfect as you can get. Martin Sheen and Sally Field as Uncle Ben and Aunt May are inspired. (When I first saw Sally in the kitchen, I started to have a moment where I though, "But Aunt May has..." and then I stopped that thought.) Emma Stone was a great choice for Gwen Stacy. I wasn't sure what to expect when I saw Denis Leary as Captain Stacy, but I was happily surprised about that casting choice. Oh, and Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man was a great choice.

Do you know what else makes this the best of the Spider-Man movies? The humor. When I saw the trailer, I knew that Garfield was going to be able to make me remember why I fell in love with Spider-Man. When I was young, I decided to be like Spider-Man, to be funny and sarcastic. I wanted to have a quip whenever I needed it. I didn't see that Spider-Man from Maguire.

There were a few small issues, but over all, I loved this movie. If you haven't seen this movie, you need to fix that. Go see the Amazing Spider-Man today.

What's missing with The Muppets?

Last night I watch The latest offering from the Muppet Workshop, The Muppets. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but I was disappointed at the end of the show. There were some good and bad points to the experience, so let me break it down.

The Good

• I really appreciated all the Muppet cameos. What do I mean by that? There have been a lot of Muppets over the years, and you have all of the main characters, but a lot of those creations have faded away. Everybody doesn't make an appearance, but as a viewer of the Muppet Show, I got to see some of my old favorites.
• The celebrity cameos were really good. It isn't as well done as the Muppet Movie, but I still enjoyed them.
• They did a great job of continuing the tradition of breaking the 4th wall.

The Bad

• Is it just me, or is the first Muppet movie that isn't mostly about the Muppets? I'm sure someone was interested in Walter and his family, but I wasn't one of them.
• The music wasn't inspired. I continually found myself wondering why these songs even existed.
• I hate to be an elitist, and I know it's hard to match someone else's voice, but a lot of the voices missed the mark. I often found myself wondering who was speaking because I have a bad habit of not actually watching a movie if I lose interest and just listen to the audio.

All in all, it wasn't terrible, but it could have been a lot better. Check it out if you are a Muppet enthusist.

DC's latest animated release-Superman/Shazam!

I didn't have high hopes for this animated special. I've seen a lot of the DC animated comic book movies, and they've been decent. A few of them have even been good, but I was extremely impressed with this DVD. Of course, I should add that this DVD will still disappoint you with what it isn't, but we'll get to that in a minute.

So based on previous DVDs put out by DC, I was expecting to see the entire length of this disc devoted to Superman and Captain Marvel fighting with Black Adam, but about half an hour in, I was very disappointed to see that the story was coming to an end. Before I move on to the rest of the disc, let me tell you that the main reason I was disappointed was because the quality of story and art was so high that I didn't want the story to end at that point. Let's talk for a minute about what's happening in the story.

So the basic storyline is that Billy Batson is just a kid trying to survive alone on the streets. He's lost his parents and he ran away from foster care. He's trying to make it the best he can. Somehow he still has a positive attitude about the world and is even willing to stand up for a homeless man who is getting robbed by a group of kids. (Being a foot shorter than the shortest of the trio means he doesn't last very long.) Billy is also meeting with Clark Kent, who is doing a story on the foster care situation in the city. At the same time, Black Adam has made his 5000 year voyage back to earth after being exiled, and want to kill Billy because of what will happen next. (Billy gains super powers based off the ancient gods and is the replacement for Black Adam.) Super powered fisticuffs ensues, but you'll have to see the DVD to see what happens next.

The story ends and you realize two things: first the story was way too short, and second there's still a lot of time left. That's OK, the rest of the disc is going to blow your mind. There is an assortment of short features of a variety of DC heroes. It's a great idea even if the DVD is mislabeled. (It should have been called DC Showcase or something like that.) So what else do you get? The Spectre, The Green Arrow (with Black Canary cameo) and Jonah Hex all get short story treatment. Each special is done with it's own temporal and emotional treatment. The Spectre feels like an old film noir detective story, Jonah Hex has a wild west feel, and Green Arrow is more of a modern adventure.

If you have any interest in comic books and characters, you will want to watch this DVD even if you don't follow DC very much. It will be worth your time.