Life Of (Magnum) PI

The Amazing Spider-Man was borne of corporate greed, some malformed bastard child forced into being by a cabal of money-worshipping ghouls with the shapes of men in tailored suits. None of the so-called "creative parties" involved with that film gave two shits about the property, or even such alien concepts as "craft" or "competence". They were far too busy kneeling in a circle, stroking a giant throbbing ATM-shaped cock with their trembling hands, and writhing with ecstasy as they were pelted with spasm after spasm of sweet, sweet folding money as they unleashed this abomination upon the world.

What happened in The Amazing Spider-Man? Who remembers? Who gives a shit? I think maybe Spider-Man's dad was a spy, and he was killed by... somebody... because he knew too much... about spiders... ? I do remember Martin Sheen trying to say "with great power comes great responsibility" without actually saying "with great power comes great responsibility", which upset me to no end. Just let the star of Wall Street say the fucking words, you cocksuckers!

"Well, Peter... the thing about having any kind of influence in this world is that if one doesn't balance that efficacy with some amenability, then one is doomed to become an oppressor, and you wouldn't want to turn out like our friend Pol Pot, would you?"

The Amazing Spider-Man is a sack of flaming shit on the doorstep of every child's hopes and dreams, and its sequel, cleverly named The Amazing Spider-Man 2, is somehow even worse. Those brain-damaged, nihilistic seekers of the Anti-Life Equation behind the Star Trek reboot, TV's Sleepy Hollow and... and Cowboys & Aliens... are now shepherding this festering wound of a franchise, and we are all worse off for this. I don't even know what the fuck I just saw yesterday afternoon. This isn't one movie. It's a twisted Frankenstein's monster of cinema, some sad patchwork creature composed of elements of at least two or three different, terrible movies, sewn together with no regard for the subtle art of storytelling.

Spider-Man's parents just died in a plane crash after uploading... something into Roosevelt... something... I don't care about- hey, is that the Rhino? Paul Giamatti's playing the Rhino, before he becomes the Rhino? Why is he acting like he failed his audition for the role of Boris Badenov in a planned production of Rocky & Bullwinkle On Ice! because his acting choices were deemed "too over the top" to accurately portray the pathos of a goofy, rotund Pottsylvanian spy trying to assassinate a talking moose and his aviator goggled flying squirrel friend?

Hey, Spider-Man! Wait, where'd Spider-Man go? Why is Peter Parker seeing the ghost of Denis Leary everywhere he goes? Oh wait, does he feel guilty for breaking his promise to a dead man in the closing moments of the previous film? That's actually not too- oh, he's breaking up with Gwen Stacy! But they're such a good couple- never mind, they're back together. Why is Jamie Foxx playing Jim Carrey as The Riddler in Batman Forever? This is just terrible-

Spider-Man's back! Now who's this oily date rapist-looking asshole? Harry Osborn? What? Well... okay, I guess, but... he's Peter's best friend? What the fuck are you talking about? Apparently he's sick, dying from the same disease that literally just killed his father Norman, who we were just introduced to maybe two minutes earlier. Sweet Jesus, I have no idea what this movie is trying to accomplish. Spider-Man's blood? What the fuck does Harry Osborn need Spider-Man's blood for? Why would he assume that Spider-Man's blood would cure him of his affliction? That's really reaching-

Jamie Foxx was given his Electro powers by a bunch of electric eels that were generating electricity in the bowels of the OsCorp building? WHY THE FUCK IS ELECTRO THE WORLD'S FIRST DUBSTEP SUPER-VILLAIN?! Hey, Spider-Man! Doctor Kafka? What the fuck-

They're breaking up again! Peter and Gwen were meant to be togeth- Peter just discovered that his dad's secret subway car/science lab? The super-spiders his dad created were made with his DNA, and their Spider-Man powers can only be bestowed upon somebody with Parker DNA? That completely pisses in the face of Spider-Man's "everyman" persona. It's a complete betrayal of the elegant simplicity of the character's established origin-

Gwen's moving to England?! They're both moving to England?! Electro can teleport... along with his new lightning-bolt-branded outfit and the power meter on the side of his head? Why wouldn't that stuff be left behind when his body unravels into a chain of electricity? How the fuck does that make sense? I get that Electro is a being composed of electricity, but his clothes and that weird power meter Doctor Kafka implanted in his head shouldn't come with him, right? That defies all logic-

Spider-Man! Harry just injected super-spider venom into his veins, and now he's a monster in a super-suit... and now he's immediately tracked Spider-Man down, and he can't stop licking his lips, and I think I'm going to puke because I can't stand this bullshit anymore-

Gwen's dead?! Peter Parker's really sad, and he's petitioning the City of New York for permission to build a house next to Gwen's grave. Harry's locked up, and he looks fine again, and some mysterious asshole is there, and Harry tells him to bust Paul Giamatti out of prison, because Harry's forming a team of super-villains, and why would OsCorp just have a big, stupid-looking top-heavy metal rhino suit in their basement? And what the fuck are Doctor Octopus' robotic tentacles doing there? And the Vulture's wings? And I think I saw something marked "Symbiote", so I guess that takes care of Venom, too. It's all OsCorp?

Let me get this straight: this rotting shit-heap of a franchise has actually managed to pre-ruin the origin stories of Spider-Man's entire rogues gallery? Wow. That is impressive. That is a supreme fucking feat, right there. This is just a travesty-

Rhino's loose on the city, blasting fools left and right with his... gun hands? Peter watches the carnage unfold on TV, and looks sad. Then he finds a suspiciously professional-looking recording of Gwen's valedictorian speech from their high school graduation that Peter hilariously almost missed at the beginning of the film, because he was busy juggling Plutonium and cracking jokes at Paul Giamatti's expense, on a flash drive in his bedroom. Her speech is so poorly written and completely unlike anything you'd ever hear at a real high school graduation, she might as well be looking directly into the camera, saying...

"I know I'm dead, Peter, but don't let that stop you from superhero-ing. Get over me, you fucking cry-baby. Stop weeping over my grave like a little pussy bitch, nut up, grab that Spider-Man costume out of your closet and swing out there to stop the Rhino before he murders that cute little kid you saved earlier in the movie, who's dressed up in his very own Spider-Man Halloween costume (Do you get royalties from that stuff, by the way? If not, then these people are clearly guilty of copyright infringement and you should sue) and is just standing in front of this insane, babbling caricature of a super-villain, because he thinks he's going to save the day somehow with his devastating near-sightedness. P.S. - Uncle Ben says "hi". P.P.S. - He also says something about understanding that when somebody has a skill or proficiency that sets him or her apart from the rest of the human race, that person has a grave burden not to allow that proficiency to harden their heart and make them a despot, but rather to use that prowess to better their family and community, doing their part to make the world a better place. XOXO, Your Dead Girlfriend."

Hey, Spider-Man! He swings in and the Rhino kindly decides not to murder Spider-Man with his gun hands while the webslinger shares a touching moment with his littlest fan, before telling him to run along home before he gets squashed like a bug by the star of Sideways. Then the two titans rush toward each other, and the music swells- and the movie ends.

I don't fucking care. This isn't a fucking movie. It's like the producers played a long, drunken game of Cards Against Humanity, and this thing was the end result. This is what happens when a delusional studio decides to forego making an actual motion picture, in favor of a pointlessly bloated, insanely plotted platform to launch a larger franchise that nobody involved has even bothered to plan out beforehand. Just throw all this shit out there, and we'll figure out what to do with it later! It doesn't have to make sense! Shove it down the throats of the consumers, and they will accept it, because they don't know any better!

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a mega-budgeted advertisement for a series of other mega-budgeted advertisements that will be haunting mega-plexes in the years to come. There might be twenty minutes of good material in this movie, which is a problem considering the movie is two hours and twenty-two minutes long. And it only feels like three hours.

Spider-Man himself, portrayed by Andrew Garfield, is fine. The actor's performance is one of the highlights of the film, as is Emma Stone's portrayal of Gwen Stacy. The actors have a lot of chemistry, and the landfill of a story that surrounds them is not their fault. They deserve better. Sally fucking Field deserves better. Spider-Man deserves better. Audience deserve better.

This fat nerd deserves better.

This isn't cinema. This isn't art. Nobody will ever aspire to make the next The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but perhaps in time it will inspire tomorrow's best and brightest to try harder, to make something better, something mediocre. The soulless fiends behind this atrocity are too far gone to be helped. They're too busy sucking off the devil's first cousin in the 9th circle of Hell, shoving that horned bastard's pineapple-shaped cock down their distended throats, to be saved.


Shortly after the movie ended, my nephew couldn't help but notice the dejected look on my face. He looked up at me and asked me a question.

"Do you ever have any fun?"

There was no sarcastic tone in his voice, nothing accusatory. He just simply asked me if I ever have any fun. I didn't know how to answer that question. Of course, I could have simply said "yes" and left it at that, but I was taken aback by what the boy said. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 so disgusted and disappointed me that I couldn't hide my feelings from this child. My face was a beacon of sadness that he couldn't help but notice. Then he decided to run around in a circle in front of me for several minutes, eventually collapsing in a heap, completely out of breath yet somehow still managing to laugh. I asked him why he suddenly decided to act like a crazy person before my eyes, and he said he was trying to cheer me up. Now that was 20x more entertaining to me than anything the worthless "writers" of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 could ever come up with.

TIME MARCHES ON!