Reviewing Movies

As I got around to watching Season Five it was learned that the show will be discontinued after number Six, the present on-air season. On paper a show about a US Marshall raised by a backwoods hill-billy racketeer in Kentucky who uses his local knowledge to fight organized crime sounds rather pedestrian. As Raylan Givens Timothy Oliphant uses his acting chops and a suave mien to bring life to an old-style quick-draw lawman. The ensemble cast and continuing plot lines draw the audience into a show that is difficult to stop watching. The cast of characters and the actors who portrait them continue to be well-drawn and performed. This season we meet Dewey Crow’s Florida Cousins and the fifteen-year-old Kendall, a doe-eyed criminal-in-training. Ava’s sojourn through the prison system provides Boyd with an interesting sub-plot. As usual it is difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys here, rarely are situations black and white. Raylan’s sometime partner Timothy, the Afghan sniper,  and Boyd’s henchman Jimmy bring handsome good looks and straight-man qualities to a cast that too often appears inbred and lacking intelligence. Underlying criminal menace is never cause for anything but polite, if sometime exaggerated, cordiality here. The show may have sexual content, nudity, and violence but proves this can be done convincingly without undue foul language.

Two versions:

Andrew Garfield is the second actor to don muscle enhancing spandex in the current Spiderman franchise and his tenure is rumoured to be capped at two outings. Half way through this 140 minute marathon Peter Parker has spent most of his time stalking Gwen. Finally they attain lip lock in an Oscorp service closet. To my way of thinking there is nothing wrong with either actor who has played Spidey a good script wouldn’t have fixed. Sally Field as the Weepy Widow is rather insufferable. That this superhero goes home to mummy/aunty to get his dirty underwear washed is rather laughable and sad.

This flick takes ages to get anywhere and the audience may die of boredom waiting for it to do it. Definitely not for the vertigo challenged. There is cartoonish violence and people do die here. One may believe the gangly Garfield as a spider but spider venom gives that little twerp unbelievable strength. One is given too much time to ponder these conundrums.

Some movies seem way too long. Had I paid $15 to watch The Amazing Spiderman Two live I’d have probably toughed it out, otherwise I’d have walked out after 15 minutes. Takes way to long for anything to happen in this 140-minute marathon. Radio-active blood or not this gangling spider has only 4 limbs and only enough brains to control one of them. Someone should stomp on him and put him out of his misery. Too much angst and not enough action here. Spidey spends nearly an hour stalking Gwen as only a spider could from vertigo-inducing heights. The movie can’t decide if it’s an unrequited love story, a tragedy, or an action movie. The final action sequence is truncated lest the audience die of boredom.