Spider-Man: No Way Home (4/5 Stars)

 

Making that sweet sweet corporate lemonade.

Right at the top, we should talk about the writing of this movie. Our screenwriters are Christ McKenna and Erik Sommers known for some of the best episodes of Community, the first two Marvel Spider-Man movies and the Jumanji reboot. What these two excel at is synthesis and adaptation, the ability to take existing material and turn its seeming limitations into features. The intellectual property of Spider-Man is in a unique place in the realms of moviedom due to the odd financial position of its corporate parentage. Way back in the day before Marvel created its own universe with Iron Man (2008), it was licensing its characters to other movie studies. Its most popular character, Spider-Man, was licensed to Sony, whose first movies in the deal included the Sam Raimi trilogy in the early 2000s that featured Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man and such villains as the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), and the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church). These were enormously popular movies, but as soon as Raimi and Maguire seemed to be done with the franchise, Sony rebooted it with Andrew Garfield in the title role, Marc Webb directing, and such villains as Rhys Ihfans as the Lizard and Jamie Foxx as Electro. That is, Sony didn’t continue the story, they restarted it. In the first Andrew Garfield movie, Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider etc.

Why? Well two reasons. First, Sony’s contract with Marvel allowed it exclusive rights to make Spider-Man movies just as long as they made at least one Spider-Man movie every five years. Second, Spider-Man’s defining feature is that he is an endearing teenager going through everything for the first time. These two factors combine in Peter Parker getting bitten by a spider in a new blockbuster movie every ten years or so. In 2018, someone at Sony had the great idea of meeting their corporate largess in story-form head on. The resulting animated movie was Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, which explained the multitude of variations of Peter Parker’s story over the years with the pseudoscientific application of a physics theory called the multiverse. The idea being that there are a multitude of universes and that there is a Spider-Man for each of them ranging from the traditional Peter Parker-Spiderman to Miles Morales as Spiderman (Peter Parker, but black) to Gwen Stacy as Spiderwoman to Peter Porker as Spider-Ham (a spider that was bitten by a radioactive pig) etc. This worked so well, that Marvel used the multiverse as a plot red herring in Spider-Man: Far From Home, and now in Spider-Man: No Way Home fully engages with it. There is indeed a multiverse and it includes all the villains from the Sony franchises of the last twenty years and...all the Spider-mans.

The last sentence was kept well underwraps by Sony and Marvel the past year with much credit to them. I expect now that everyone has seen this movie, it isn’t much of a spoiler anymore. Anyway back to the writing. With great ability, the screenwriters have sorted out the last twenty years of Spider anthology and put together a movie that makes it seem like the whole thing was planned from the very start. Even more so, they end this movie on a note that allows the whole thing to start all over again in the hands of Sony. It is an especially adept way to maintain and extend a giant money making machine. Chris McKenna and Erik Somners deserve to get paid a lot of money.

For the obvious reason, this movie lacks the originality of the previous movies. Like Infinity War and Endgame it feels more like the culmination of plenty of other movies, not something stand alone. It’s a nostalgia tour and one’s appreciation of it would likely be increased or decreased by one’s appreciation of the older movies. For myself, I only saw the Raimi trilogy and the latest Marvel movies (the ones with Tom Holland as Spider-Man) to the exclusion of the Andrew Garfield movies. I’ve become a little more interested than not interested at all in the Garfield movies now.

To illustrate the enduring appeal of Spider-Man one needs only to briefly summarize the plot. Peter Parker has been outed as Spider-Man by Mysterio and is now the subject of intense press speculation. Since Peter is just a humble kid, he would rather not have his private life and that of his sweet Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) intruded upon. So he goes to Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and asks him for a spell that will make the entire universe forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. The spell goes haywire and instead of everyone forgetting that Peter is Spider-Man, people from other universes who know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man are pulled into this one, namely villains from past movies. So now we have the same villains from the Raimi and Webb movies in this one and because Marvel is made of money, you get the same actors coming back too. In an inferior movie, this would result in a simple plot of Spider-Man fighting and defeating five villains instead of one. But here, the story takes a really nice, dare I say, cute turn. Once Peter Parker realizes what all of these villains have in common, in the previous movies they all die fighting Spider-Man, he goes out of his way to try to help them. Why, because he has the ability to do so and as Aunt May says in this movie (and this is the first time it is said in a Tom Holland movie), “with great power comes great responsibility.”

That line is as effective as ever and the context in which it is spoken (different yet the same) speaks to the seeming timelessness of the Spider-Man story. For me at least, it has not yet become cliché, instead I got chills. I made this point before in a different Spider-Man movie review and I think I’ll make it again. As Llewyn Davis said, If it isn’t new and it never gets old, it’s a folk song. The same applies to Spider-Man.

Rango (4/5 Stars)

Alright all you cinema lovers you’ve got a Netflix assignment before watching “Rango.” Knowledge of the following should enhance your viewing enjoyment ten-fold: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” at least the first chapter of Hunter S. Thompson “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” the chapter “Red Queen” from Marc Reisner’s “Cadillac Desert,” and most importantly Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown.” It also wouldn’t hurt if you’ve familiarized yourself with the walking style of John Wayne, the Indian from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," the Eye of Mordor from “The Lord of the Rings,” the wheelchair movement of the Big Lebowski, cursory knowledge of desert flora and fauna, Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” and any and all Looney Tunes parodies or something to do with a “New Sheriff in Town.” You don’t need to have seen any of these to enjoy “Rango,” but then again you won't be in on some of the jokes. Unlike most movies that dumb themselves down to the lowest common denominator in order to appease the ignorant, “Rango” has absolutely no shame for looking peculiar, channeling classic movies, and counting on the audience to appreciate the quirky references not to be turned off by them. Overall, “Rango” is a good movie that was made by people who love great movies for people who love great movies.

“Rango,” is about a pet chameleon wannabe thespian that spends his days in his glass case acting out Shakespeare with inanimate props. Then a crisis occurs, the speeding convertible transporting his case hits an armadillo, and he is thrown out of the back where he subsequently almost hits a red shark and lands in a desert wasteland in the middle of nowhere. Actually circumstantial evidence suggests he is somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert on the road to Las Vegas. We don’t know the chameleon’s given name although again circumstantial evidence suggests he’s one of those “Goddamn Animals!” Anyway in search of water, he comes upon a town aptly named Dirt. The place looks like a Spaghetti Western inhabited by Ralph Steadman drawings. The characters are various desert animals dressed in western attire, all of them looking like there hasn't been enough water for showers in years. The amount of detail that went into the visual aspect of Rango suggests somebody put a lot of love into this thing. Gore Verbinski, who previously directed the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, is at the helm here. It may be a few movies too soon to say this, but I think one day he may be regarded as an equal among such other great artistic directors like Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, and Guillermo Del Toro. Animation in general has reached such a level of sophistication that I wonder if movies like this will ever be recognized by the Academy for Art Direction or Costume Design. I mean most of the design in last year’s “Alice and Wonderland” was entirely CGI. Why wouldn’t “Rango” be considered?

 Johnny Depp continues his career long quixotic quest to not look attractive by voicing the odd-looking chameleon with different size eyes and a potbelly. Upon coming to the town, he decides to put his acting skills to the test. Instead of simply admitting he’s lost, he calls himself “Rango” and tells a far out story about how he killed seven members of the same family with one bullet. He must have seen “True Grit.” I liked that movie too. This chameleon has good taste. Unfortunately for him, the town is in an enormous water crisis and actually needs a really good sheriff, what with the last one getting killed and all. So you can see where this is going.

The dialogue in “Rango,” is verbose and witty. The level of vocabulary in “Rango” is on the level of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” It should be. John Logan (Aviator, Gladiator) wrote the screenplay but Gore and James Ward Byrkit both straight from “Pirates” also get story credit. The Pirate accents have been switched for Western accents, but everything is still gruffly poetic delivered in a slurred multisyllabic rough and ready converse. Isla Fisher voices a lizard named Beans, giving us the least romantic name for a love interest ever. Abigail Breslin provides the voice of Priscilla, who I think might be some sort of Jewish possum. Bill Nighy is Rattlesnake Jake with suspiciously familiar eyes. Ned Beatty continues his dominance in evil cartoon voices (see Toy Story 3) with the Mayor. This time he's channeling John Huston in “Chinatown.” The Spirit of the West also shows up to counsel Rango in the form of Clint Eastwood in his Man-with-no-name garb driving a golf cart with a bunch of Oscars in the carriage. It’s a scene on par with Ed Wood getting advice from Orson Welles in “Ed Wood.” Unfortunately Eastwood didn’t voice himself. It was Timothy Olyphant. That’s too bad. It would have been so cool if he did.

The story of “Rango” is a movie cliché and one well-versed in movie knowledge will perhaps guess all the plot points before they happen. That didn’t bother me at all really because the movie itself is counting on me knowing everything anyway and instead spends its enormous energy in making all the old memories fresh and new. This movie is a great example of what the difference is between rip-off and homage. A Rip-off is a cynical attempt to capitalize on a popular trend. Homage is a nostalgic callback to something remembered fondly. Actually in practice they are exactly the same thing. What makes a movie one or the other is how deserving it is to be in the same class as that it is imitating. If a movie is lazy and dumb, then it is almost an insult to the classic to see itself in the inferior product. However, when the movie is creative and smart, as is Rango, a callback can be a compliment between artists who are on an equal level. “Rango” does not rely on its references. Take out every homage and it still would be funny and look great. That’s why it is full of homages and not rip-offs. Depp and Verbinski aren’t riding any coattails here.