Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III - "I Like Liver! And Onions! And Pain!"

Okay, covering this entire franchise one film at a time almost immediately became a mistake. The second one was interesting, but I’m already getting into the ones people don’t even remember existing, yet still have some kind of bullshit, undeserved “cult status.” I know that I can just drop this plan because it’s not like I have any kind of following to hold me accountable to stupid shit like this, but when I claim I’m going to do something, I typically try to follow through, even if I’m the only one who demands it. So with that, here’s Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.

This one is pretty forgettable, mainly because they decided to mostly abandon the comedic tone of the second film and go for a more straightforward horror movie. The plot is pretty basic: a young couple comes across some weirdo at a gas station, and they end up at the Sawyer house fighting for their lives. That’s fine, but only if there’s at least some great gore or something. But the studio was so adamant about getting an R-rating that the gore is so toned down that the film only offers the empty promise of something truly disturbing. 

That’s the problem with all the sequels and remakes and prequels of this series. It is impossible to recapture the tone and surprise of the first film, so each subsequent film sets out to do something slightly different, but never as good. At least the second film said, “Fuck it, let’s make a comedy.” That film leaned all the way into it, and that’s what makes it memorable. These other films, either due to studio interference or bad filmmaking or both, don’t go all in and just end up in some weird, boring direction. 

Franchises with villains like Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers are successful because they (mostly) stick to a basic formula, for better or worse. With Massacre, no one knows what to do with Leatherface. It’s a great name and a striking look, but is he a sadistic cannibal with the mind of a child, or is he a superhuman monster that can’t be killed? Too often, like with this film, they try to make him like Jason and the others. But why do that when Leatherface is the only one of the group that doesn’t work alone?

Texas Chainsaw isn’t a series that has to copy the slasher genre. I like watching some of these movies because they can be different. If I want Jason, I’ll watch Jason. The original Leatherface was fucked up enough already to be scary; I don’t need him to to rip cars apart and come back from the dead. I just want him to be part of a fucked up family.

You do get the fucked up family here. The only returning member is Leatherface, making this the first movie to start expanding on the Sawyer family. It’s nice to have a rotating roster of fucked-up weirdos and all, but as the series goes on, it gets less and less plausible that all these other crazies were just hanging out somewhere else during the events of the previous movies, just waiting for their turn to swoop in and take Leatherface to their murder-house.

The crazy family dynamic of the original is here again, but it’s just not disturbing this time around. You can’t recreate that kind of magic, I guess. It’s fun to see a young Viggo Mortensen as part of it, I suppose, but he’s not going all in like Bill Moseley before him or McConaughey after him. The addition of a sweet little girl felt like a weak attempt to be edgy. I didn’t care about anyone, and I didn’t find any of them particularly memorable.

In fact, I was ready to dismiss this one with a one paragraph review just to be done with it, but then I watched the special features (yes, I bought the fucking DVD just so I could write about this one). The silver lining of a lot of these failed franchise sequels is that they develop enough of a misguided cult following to warrant plenty of special features on a DVD. And since so much time has passed, everyone involved is much more honest than usual in these behind the scenes featurettes. 

With Leatherface’s DVD, director Jeff Burr is very open, even talking about being fired from the production and hired back within days when the studio couldn’t get anyone else to take on the movie. He also talks about how the studio limited him at every turn because of the desire for an R-rating (to the point that even the “unrated” cut is surprisingly tame). The most interesting revelation has to be that the ending of the film was written and filmed without Burr’s knowledge. He only learned of the ridiculous ending (in which Ken Foree is revealed to be alive with barely a scratch even though he had been clearly killed by Leatherface, and Leatherface is alive as well even though he was clearly killed, too) at the premiere. Apparently the studio found out Foree was testing well, so they wanted him alive for future sequels, which is also why they revived Leatherface. Though why they suddenly cared about continuity is beyond me.

Behind the scenes stories like that are much more interesting than what ended up on screen. I like this series overall, but the haphazard nature of each sequel makes it difficult for any of them to stand out. Leatherface at least stands out on DVD because all involved are willing to acknowledge it was a failure. And it’s interesting to hear what they intended compared to what we got to see. I might be grasping at straws to find enjoyment out of this one, but as the series goes on, that becomes harder and harder. 

Random Thoughts

The opening narration references a trial. I really wish they showed footage from the courtroom.

“He’s a little touched. Been that way since he lost his job at the slaughterhouse.” I like how losing a job at a fucking slaughterhouse is used as the excuse for this family in multiple films.

This is definitely leaning back into the horror after the comedic second movie.

“It’s Armageddon, bitch-face!”

Leatherface rips off the trunk of a car with his bare hands. This is definitely the beginning of turning him into a superhuman monster like Jason rather than a child-like murdering basket case. I’m glad the fourth movie went the complete other way with it. We have enough giant boogeymen in the horror world; why can’t we let Leatherface be the weirdo of the group? I’ll take him screeching in a wig over him ripping cars apart with his bare hands any day.

“Militant lumberjacks…see ‘em all the time.”

So Ken Foree gets run over because he runs out of bullets? Even if he had gotten a shot off, he still would’ve been run over. He lives, but it’s still stupid.

“I like liver. And onions. And pain!”

Michelle couldn’t bring herself to kill the armadillo with the rock at the beginning of the film. But she’s able to hit Leatherface with a rock at the end of the movie. Character development!

Ken Foree being alive and pretty much unscatched at the end is fucking hilarious. While it was explicitly shown, he was pressed up against a running chainsaw for quite some time, and he stopped screaming at one point. Did he just get used to the pain? Was he playing dead while being attacked with a chainsaw? He must have some zen-like pain control. 

Cop Land - "You Blew It!"

This was covered by The Rewatchables podcast a couple weeks back because of Ray Liotta’s passing. I watched it then, but I’m just now getting around to writing my full article.

Cop Land is one of those movies that I thought I should love but always thought was okay. But I keep returning to it, thinking, “This will be the time that it clicks, and I love it.” But it never happens. Instead, it’s just a movie I like. I blame expectations.

Cop Land isn’t the first movie to be hyped for awards and then be a disappointment, but it is the first time I noticed this happening with a film. This came out when I was just starting to appreciate movies and pay attention to industry news and whatnot. So when this movie went into production with this insane cast (Stallone, Keitel, Liotta, De Niro, etc.), the Oscar buzz was immediate. Then the movie came out, was decently received but was shutout of the awards season (except, according to IMDb, for Stallone winning Best Actor at the Stockholm Film Festival, and the film being nominated [though not winning] Best Foreign Film at the Turkish Film Critics Association Awards [The Ice Storm won]). 

Despite my disappointment, I still like this movie. And once you adjust your expectations and stop thinking this is going to be Goodfellas 2, it ends up being even better. Stallone was, and still is, the standout in the film. It was like his last attempt to be a serious actor before retreating back into his franchises and mediocre action movies. He gives a great understated and unexpected performance. 

Aside from that, I’ve developed a love for angry corrupt cop movies lately. So I’m just happy seeing drunk and/or high guys with mustaches yelling and punching each other. 

Those were my complete thoughts about this film, but when I was looking it up on IMDb I realized that I had watched the theatrical cut on HBO Max, even though I owned the director’s cut on DVD. So being the idiot completionist that I am, I immediately watched it again to compare. Before I get into that, I just want to point out that I have to be the only dipshit to watch Cop Land twice in a 24 hour period since it was originally edited.

I’m not one to do an extensive comparison of theatrical and director’s cuts, especially since another website already does that. Instead, I like to focus on tonal shifts or specific scenes that change the movie in a meaningful way.

One of the things that always left me disappointed with Cop Land was the story. I found a lot of it hard to follow. Yes, almost every cop was corrupt, but what exactly was their corruption? The director’s cut (or maybe just watching it twice so close together) makes it a bit more clear that mob money helped Keitel set up the titular Cop Land in Jersey, and he keeps killing any cops that get into trouble with internal affairs out of fear that they will rat him out. 

Even not completely understanding the story the first time around, I still found one moment completely baffling. Stallone goes to Keitel and tells him that he knows Rappaport is alive, and he wants everyone to go into the city together to clear things up. Why the fuck would he tell Keitel this when Keitel has clearly made up his mind about he does things? In the director’s cut, this scene occurs after Stallone has found Rappaport rather than before. He also explains that he’s telling Keitel about this because he feels like he owes it to him. I still think that’s pretty stupid, but I can accept it since Keitel is responsible for Stallone having his job. In the theatrical cut, this scene ends abruptly, but in the director’s cut Stallone is given a hero moment when he stands up to Keitel and tells him that he doesn’t like what’s happened to their city. Keitel eventually agrees with him and agrees to go in, though the music makes it clear that he’s not going to honor this.

The changes in this scene make the movie quite a bit better, and it reinstates a moment that Stallone’s character desperately needed. It’s not that much longer than the original cut, so I don’t understand why it ever happened in the theatrical cut as it did. 

If the movie then ended exactly the way the theatrical cut did after this change, then this would be a truly great director’s cut. But for some reason, James Mangold (the writer and director I have failed to identify until now…oh well) decided to end the movie with the newscast footage rather than with Stallone back on the job. This baffled me. That ending is important for multiple reasons.

First, it solidifies that this is Stallone’s movie. It was about him waking up to the corruption around him and doing something about it. The ending moment shows him staring at New York City. He’s done this throughout the movie with sadness because he’s never been able to join the force because of his hearing. When he looks at the city at the end, it’s not with regret. Instead, he seems happy for the first time to be on this side of the river. To cut that out and end with newscast audio makes no sense. In the words of De Niro: “You blew it!”

The director’s cut is still a bit better, it’s just that losing the original ending is tough. Because of that, this isn’t one of those clear cut cases of recommending the director’s cut over the theatrical. Most people don’t have this on DVD, so you’ll probably end up watching this on a streaming service if you ever watch it again, and that’s fine because that last Stallone moment kind of makes up for any earlier confusion.

Overall, no cut of this film was going to make it the classic I wanted it to be. But watching it in today’s TV landscape made me realize something: this would have been an amazing TV show. The story could breathe a bit more, and there could have been a season or two of all the shit that happened before the events of this movie, which could have been the final season. Unfortunately, this movie was made right before TV became so much more respectable. This is one of those rare moments in which I truly wish this will get remade as a TV show.

Random Thoughts

After finishing We Own This City (the HBO series no one is watching but you’ve been told is amazing), I still had a hankering for corrupt cop drama. Thankfully, The Rewatchables decided to cover Cop Land because of Ray Liotta’s passing. 

Fucking mustaches, drinking, yelling, throwing punches, everybody pissed off, cheating. I don’t know why, but sometimes I like watching these movies about complete trainwrecks at the end of their ropes.

With a cast like this at this time, it was impossible for this movie to meet expectations. It’s a good movie, but people were expecting a classic.

Nice touch to have the pinball machine tell Stallone he has “no authority.”

Robert Patrick is the most corrupt looking cop I have ever seen.

Peter Berg definitely looks like a dude who would cheat on his wife.

Oh shit, I forgot I own the director’s cut of this. Now I have to watch this twice.

“It’s like you’re the sheriff of Cop Land.” 

(Pitch Meeting executive guy voice): “That’s the name of the movie!”

Damn, Superboy, I know you're hiding out, but you can eat something other than canned soup. There were about two dozen cans in that hideout!

Why is Liotta always wearing an oversized untucked shirt in this? Is that just how cokeheads dressed in the '90s?

Spider-Man 3 - "So Good."

The Sam Raimi series is getting closer to the end on Blank Check, which means they covered Spider-Man 3 recently. This notoriously “bad” movie has been re-evaluated over the years, and rightfully so. 

This movie should never be considered a masterpiece or even the best or second-best in the trilogy. But I do think it holds up better once your expectations are altered a bit. Raimi, for whatever reason, was attempting to make a kind of musical comedy with this entry. I can’t get behind some of the musical elements (dancing to “The Twist” while making omelets will never make a bit of fucking sense), but other moments that have been ripped apart were never meant to be taken seriously. 

Of course, I’m referencing the “emo Peter Parker” sequence. It’s very clear that the film is presenting this as a comedic moment and doesn’t seriously consider Parker to be “dark” or “cool” or whatever he thinks he’s being. It’s making fun of the fact that this is the best Peter Parker can do when it comes to being evil: pointing at uncomfortable women, demanding milk and cookies, and dancing like a horny cartoon character. 

Viewing the film as more of a comedy doesn’t make this sequence great, but it does make it a bit more bearable. Honestly, it’s still hard to watch. Rewatching this film recently, I came across another character’s arc that I found much funnier: head injury Harry.

Early in the film, Harry (who I will also interchangeably refer to as Franco) almost dies during a fight with Spider-Man. He survives, but is left with the most convenient amnesia of all time: he’s still Harry, but he’s selectively forgotten that Peter is Spider-Man. So he also no longer blames Peter for his father’s death. For some reason, this turns Harry into a grinning moron, and I love it.

Franco is hilarious in this. His line delivery of “best friends” and his face in general amused me to no end. It’s just so fucking stupid you have to laugh about it. Franco was a murderous asshole, but a knock in the head turned him into a goofy bastard walking around eating cotton candy like a dildo. Yes, Franco was a nice enough guy before he believed Spider-Man killed his dad, but he wasn’t a fucking a mental patient. 

I’ll add my favorite moments of head injury Harry in the Random Thoughts section, but before I want to move on I have to comment on how he turns on a dime when he rediscovers that Peter is Spider-Man. He goes from comically goofy to comic-book villain in a single scene. And Franco is just as funny being over-the-top evil as he is playing too nice. My favorite moment has to be the delivery of the line “So good” when asked how he likes the pie right after he destroys Peter and Mary Jane’s relationship. He is clearly taking pleasure from eating that revenge pie in the scene, and it’s hilarious.

Embracing the ridiculousness of Spider-Man 3 can only get you so far, though. This is still a far too busy movie, but watching it in the current MCU era actually benefits it in that regard. This is still a busy movie with way too much going on (“evil” Peter Parker, Venom, Sandman, head injury Harry, Eddie Brock stealing the photographer job from Peter, MJ’s career problems, relationship problems, evil Harry, etc.). There’s a lot of shit going on here, but at least it’s all contained within one movie.

No matter how busy this trilogy gets, each film works on its own. You can watch any film in the trilogy cold and still understand almost every bit of it. But if I were to just watch Raimi’s newest movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, without watching the bulk of the MCU, I would be distractingly confused by everything. 

As a fan of the MCU (I’m actually digging it more now than ever before after getting over a case of Marvel fatigue), I can handle the homework required to properly enjoy the current movies. But watching the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy reminded me of how nice it was to be able to watch a comic book movie without considering the events of twenty other movies. 

That doesn’t make Spider-Man 3 less busy. But it does mean that I didn’t need to watch a six-episode limited series about Sandman beforehand. And I didn’t need to see a spinoff series just about The Daily Planet to understand what’s going on with Eddie Brock. And I didn’t need to watch an origin film about the Venom goo. All this shit could just be introduced out of the blue, and it worked. It doesn’t necessarily work well (that’s a really convenient middle of the night experiment Sandman falls into, and it’s crazy convenient of that space goo to fall to earth right by Peter of all places on the planet), but it works.

Spider-Man 3 is still worse than most of the MCU films, but being able to watch it cold is nice. It still kind of sucks. But you don’t need to do any homework. And if you embrace the goofiness, it ends up being the funniest movie in the trilogy. It’s also the worst, but it isn’t the trainwreck many people claim it to be. 

Random Thoughts 

Spitwads in a college class? That should have been the first red flag that parts of this film would be woefully out of touch.

Concussion Harry is great. It's like, "Hey, I had all the asshole knocked out of me. And I'm also so fucking stupid and happy now that giving me an old basketball brings me immense joy."

Seriously, he went from funding fringe scientists trying to create new sources of energy to being legit excited about getting Peter Parker's shitty old basketball.

Then he shows up eating cotton candy and grinning like a dildo at the Spidey parade. It's hilarious. I seriously wish they hadn't introduced any new villains in this and just made the whole movie about Harry rediscovering his hatred for Spider-Man. That way, we would get at least two more scenes of blissful idiot Harry, and I'll take that any day over a sand monster or space goo.

The comical amount of sand that comes out of Spider-Man's boot is a nice touch.

"You'll get your rent when you've fixed this damn door!" 

They look at him like he just killed a puppy in front of them after this line. The dude has been hounding him for rent for YEARS at this point. Even without alien goo, Parker was bound to snap at him eventually.

The woman acting equal parts frightened and sickened by Tobey Maguire weren't actresses. That was their natural reaction to him.

Franco's line reading of "So good" when asked about the revenge pie he's eating might be my favorite moment in the trilogy.

I love the prolonged look of disgust J. K. Simmons gives Maguire as he sits in Jameson's chair.

I forgot that Eddie Brock goes to church to ask God to kill Peter Parker. This movie is so fucking stupid/great at times.

I can think of plenty of other TV stars I would rather see as Venom instead of Topher Grace, like Alf or Balky from Perfect Strangers.

The news guy says Mary Jane recently had a "brief stint" on Broadway. Ouch.

Hey, Houseman, maybe you could have told Franco about how his dad died a movie ago. 

This is the first time I noticed Flash Thompson at Harry's funeral.

Jurrasic World: Dominion - "Jurassic World? Not a Fan."

The Jurassic franchise has never meant all that much to me (as evidenced by my claim of Jurassic World being my favorite movie in the series a few years ago). I don’t hold the original film sacred, and I never even watched the third one (but does watching that clip of the talking dinosaur a hundred times on YouTube count?).In other words, I’m easy to please with this dinosaur shit. I didn’t even hate Fallen Kingdom, though I found it pretty boring. But the end of that film promised a world overrun with dinosaurs, and I thought, “Well, at least that next one will be badass.” Holy fuck was I wrong.

To be fair, my expectations are largely to blame here. I wanted to see a Roland Emmerich-type disaster movie with dinosaurs instead of aliens and natural disasters. I wanted raptors in the streets of New York. Pterodactyls bringing air travel to a halt as they reclaimed the sky. A T. Rex fucking up a baseball stadium or something. You know, some real cinematic shit. Instead, it’s glossed over in the intro that dinosaurs are just part of the world now, and the main issue isn’t that DINOSAURS ARE ROAMING THE FUCKING PLANET, it’s that there’s a corporation tinkering with the dino technology to control crops (which is only slightly more interesting than the Quantum of Solace villain’s plan to control the water of Bolivia). 

The James Bond movie reference is fitting because this movie really wants to be one for some reason. It’s a good thing that pterodactyls are cool with commercial flight because the characters in this movie are constantly flying around until they end up in a Bond villain-esque compound at the end. The movie is way too busy trying to explain why the characters from the new films will end up in the same place as the characters from the old films. This inevitable meet-up of two different generations is meant to be some awesome moment of nostalgia and current pop culture, but I just didn’t care. 

At first, I thought I didn’t care because I’m just not that into this series. That may slightly be the case, but there’s also the issue with an utter lack of character development aside from all the good guys wanting to stop the bad guy. The new characters are after their adopted clone daughter and a baby raptor, so I guess there’s a chance at some emotional attachment there for some audience members. But the characters from the first films are just there to wear their costumes that audiences will recognize. 

But who cares about the people because this is a dinosaur movie. But it isn’t, really. The dinosaurs are presented as a normal part of the world, so gone are the scenes reveling in the awesomeness of the creatures. There’s a chase sequence in the middle of the film with raptors, and you forget that dinosaurs are even a factor in it until the end when Chris Pratt holds his hand up like a dildo trying to use the Force. And even when the new giant killer dinosaur finally gets to fuck shit up, literally every scene is in the dark. In a series that is only popular because of spectacle, this film is oddly devoid of it. I get that six films in, it’s hard to get excited about dinosaurs. If these assholes have the nerve to keep cashing in on the nostalgia of dino lovers around the world, then they should at least try to justify the existence of their movie. 

It’s as if even the characters in the film don’t know why it exists. So many times characters look at each quizzically and ask, “What?” I’m starting to wonder if those were outtakes that got left in. Even the villain seems confused about everything. A very aloof Campbell Scott plays a Big Lots version of Steve Job whose only villainous trait seems to be a complete disconnect with humanity to the point that he can’t hold a full conversation with anyone. There’s a scene in which BD Wong (hey, he’s been in the other movies!) explains why they need the cloned girl, and Scott (rightfully) points out that maybe they shouldn’t just let her hang out in the lab. She immediately then escapes and is able to even break out the baby raptor on the way. It’s like Scott is still learning how to be a villain, and his heart really isn’t in it. 

And that’s the feeling I took away from the whole movie. No one seemed to care at any point. They know any movie with Jurassic in the title is going to make a fuckton of money, so why try? Just throw together some action sequences and make sure all the characters meet up at the end. And maybe that’s all some audience members want: let me see some familiar faces and some dinosaurs. But as an audience member I set the bar pretty low for myself, and I still came away very bored and disappointed. At least they claim this is it…for now. But like the character who always wears a black leather jacket for some reason said in one of these: “Life finds a way.” Well, when life finds its way back to this series in a decade or so, hopefully someone finds a way to make it interesting.

Random Thoughts

Every time Pratt held up his hand like a Jedi was so fucking stupid. I get that he did that in the other movies, but that was with dinosaurs he had been working with for years. It’s not every random-ass dino knows what the fuck he’s doing with his hand. And when he did it at the same time as Alan, the movie presents it like this amazing moment of two worlds coming together, but I found it so stupid-looking that I laughed.

Dinosaurs are so normalized in this movie that they bring home the baby raptor in a fucking dog crate that I would use for my tiny Bichon. 

So at one point in the film, a random evil lady has some dinosaurs that will attack people at her command. This works by her pointing a laser pointer thing at a person. If you have to be close enough to the person to point something at them to make it work, then wouldn’t you just fucking shoot that person instead of siccing a goddamn dinosaur on them? But I guess this is in keeping with the James Bond theme, because only a Dr. Evil-type motherfucker would have any use for such a stupid dinosaur.

The globe-trotting aspect of this movie is distracting. Laura Dern goes from Iowa (or maybe Oklahoma) to Utah (or maybe Nevada) to meet up with Sam Niell. Then they are suddenly in Pennsylvania…to get on a plane. And when the plane lands, they have to get in a helicopter. What the fuck is going on here?

Everyone is still way too underwhelmed with the fact that human cloning is now possible. Seriously, a human clone exists, and their main takeaway is that they can bio-engineer locusts with her DNA?

About those locusts. They seem designed to destroy any crops not grown with Biosyn seeds. But BD Wong and Big Lots Steve Jobs act like the locusts aren’t doing what they planned. So the villain is accidentally doing villainous shit. If he didn’t want to control the food supply, then what was the plan with the locusts? And is all this the film’s lazy way of condemning GMOs or something? Like everything with this movie, it feels like half a thought that they forgot to finish but kept in anyway.

Back to the pterodactyls. So when they disable the magic defense system at the compound, the pterodactyls immediately attack anything in the sky. So why is this not happening throughout the rest of the world? The movie makes it painfully clear that air travel is still possible. So the pterodactyls elsewhere are just cool with planes, but the ones at the compound hate them?

Why the fuck did the writers just decide to skip over all this kind of shit? I just think there’s a fantastically interesting and entertaining movie about what the world is like when the dinosaurs first make their way back to the rest of the planet. 

Ugh. Fuck this movie.

Spider-Man 2 - "He's Just a Kid."

I’m listening to the Sam Raimi series on the Blank Check podcast, so I decided to write about Spider-Man 2 and 3. I don’t know why, but I didn’t have much to say about the first film, even though I like it quite a bit. But that’s how I’m doing things these days: if I don’t have anything to say, I’m not going to force it. So here are some thoughts on 2.

Sam Raimi’s involvement with comic book movies both interests me and bums me out. On the one hand, you get a unique director presenting their take on a comic book property. But on the other hand, the massive franchise keeps him from doing the type of movies that built his film nerd fan base in the first place. 

Because of this, the overt Raimi moments in these films are my favorite parts. For whatever reason, I didn’t appreciate this as much when I first watched Spider-Man 2. But with this rewatch, I was blown away by one scene in particular that was so fucking Raimi it felt like it was from a different movie. 

The scene is when Doc Ock is being operated on after his mishap. There’s a bit of a Universal monster vibe since a villain is being born, but more than that, this is an Evil Dead scene. As Doc Ock’s mechanical arms begin to act on their own, a true horror scene begins.

There’s wind, snap zooms, and a lot of screaming. One is reminded of the tree attack in The Evil Dead. It’s two minutes of Raimi awesomeness. The stylistic choices alone make it one of my favorite scenes in the trilogy, but the appearance of a chainsaw is the icing on the cake. The close up on the doctor’s face followed by the snap zoom on the chainsaw is nearly identical to Ash finding the chainsaw (or any other tool or weapon, for that matter) in the Evil Dead series. It’s just an amazing sequence that feels like it’s there just for the Raimi fans. 

Beyond the Raimi stuff, I still enjoy this trilogy on a pure comic book level. One of my least favorite tropes of the comic book movie world is the reluctant hero…when it doesn’t make sense. Typically, a reluctant hero like Wolverine or the Hulk is presented as someone who hates their abilities and wants a regular life. But when no regular life is presented or even seems possible, I don’t give a fuck. Quit your fucking whining, Logan, and use those goddamn indestructible claws and carve up some bad guys. And do it without being a bitch about it! 

Peter Parker, on the other hand, has a life that is being ruined by his heroic obligations. I feel for him in a way that I don’t for the “normal” versions of other superheroes like Logan and Bruce Banner. Parker’s life completely sucks, and it’s all Spider-Man’s fault. Of course, he would be reluctant to the point of giving up. 

This isn’t to say that I want to see a Peter Parker movie. I always want superheroes to be superheroes. I just don’t like that the writers get lazy and just make the majority of them reluctant because they need to add another dimension to their character and can’t think of anything else aside from, “What if they didn’t want to be a hero?” If it’s earned, as it is here, then it does make the character more interesting. And it makes the heroic moments more powerful because you know the sacrifice Parker is making every time he puts on the mask. 

We all know that Parker is going to choose to be Spider-Man, but we also know what he would be doing if he gave it up. He could have a chance with Mary Jane, and his education could lead to a fulfilling career. What have we seen of Wolverine when he’s not part of the X-Men? A cage fighter. A depressed, alcoholic limo driver. Yeah, it really makes sense that you’d want to give up your room in Xavier’s mansion to live a “normal” life, you sad, almost immortal bastard. And what about Bruce Banner? Hiding out in a soda factory in South America until he gets pissed off enough to destroy the place? Just keep your big green ass in the Avengers lab and accept your fate.

Normies like me watch these movies to see something amazing and wonder what we would be like with special powers. If you’re going to try to make me feel sorry for one of these heroic fucks for having powers, then you better make a damn good case for why their lives would be better without the power. Spider-Man 2 does that, and that’s what makes it an upper tier comic book movie.

Random Thoughts 

Peter Parker and Norm MacDonald in Dirty Work both start their hero journeys the same way: losing a pizza delivery job because a boss can't let go of the antiquated "thirty (or twenty-nine in this case) minutes or less" gimmick. Who ends up being the bigger hero of the two? That's up to you.

Holy shit, this movie has a lot of screaming.

That is some piss poor placement of the inhibitor chip, Doc. That thing looks like it would break if he just happened to look up too quickly. It had no chance holding up during an ill-advised scientific presentation.

Joey Coco Diaz comes to Spider-Man's defense in this. 

Why do the fights in this look better than the new Spider-Man movies?

Mary Jane is the most distressed damsel in cinema history.

I really wish Doc Ock would have put on a shirt before he went to kidnap Mary Jane.

Ah, the good old days of the Stan Lee cameo when it really was just a cameo and not a fourth-wall-breaking distraction.