I wrote previously about how the X-Men trilogy started good with “X-Men”, got awesome with “X2”, and then went off the rails with “Last Stand”. If only X-Men had served as a warning to other trilogies that would follow. Alas, the Spider-Man franchise looked at the burning dumpster fire of “Last Stand” and thought... “Yeah, let’s do that.”
Author: david.holland
Writer for I Rebel about Star Wars Destiny and other nerdy topics.
Marvel Movie Reflections, Issue #5: Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2 follows on the success of the first installment. Tobey Macguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, and JK Simmons are all back, along with Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus. Sam Raimi is back to direct, keeping up his tone from the previous film.
Marvel Movie Reflections, Issue #4: Spider-Man
Spider-Man came about in that pre-MCU time when there wasn't a lot of clarity about what a comic book movie is supposed to be.
Marvel Movie Reflections, Issue #3: X-Men 3: The Last Stand
I'm a pretty forgiving moviegoer. Your dialogue is poorly written? That's okay. Plotholes? No problem. Time travel paradoxes? Whatever. I would rather enjoy a movie, so I give the writers, directors, and actors lots of leeway. I was even more forgiving when I was younger - I'm older now, more mature, and have higher expectations - but I vividly remember walking out of the theater having just seen "X-Men: The Last Man" as a high schooler thinking: "Was that movie... bad?"
Marvel Movie Reflections, Issue #2: X2
Three years after "X-Men" came the sequel, "X2". I have long defended this movie as one of the best in the franchise, but I haven't actually watched it in a while, so it was nice to blow the dust off the DVD and take a trip down memory lane.
