Spiderman 3

I have seen three and I am ready for four. You will not hear plot point details about Spiderman 3 here, or even a review. We can see it together or talk about it once you have. One of the things I hate most in this world is a movie spoiler. When I see movie previews or hear about films before I see them the story is ruined. This often forces me to see movies on opening weekend before I hear that “I see dead people” means he doesn’t know he is dead. It spoiled the whole thing for me.

Instead I will take this time to talk about the importance of the villain. Bad guys should be equal or worse than good guys. When villains are bad, or absolutely rotten, the good guy is raised to a new plateau for viewers and readers (see Unbreakable).


Case in point, Indiana Jones. When fighting the ultimate embodiment of evil for the 20th Century, Hitler’s Nazi Army, we love Indiana and want to be like Indiana. There is no doubt in our minds that the people he kills and pushes out of trucks to their demise deserve death for aligning themselves with the dark and sinister association fixed on world domination and elimination of the minority. When facing a third world sorcerer who stole some rocks and brainwashed some kids while Kate Capshaw screams I am looking to get my money back. So we return our focus on the real villain here, tyranny and the mobilized forces of the Third Reich while resoling our daddy issues.


Which Star Wars movies are better? At one point we knew Darth Vader as the ultimate force of darkness in the universe. A chased rebel alliance ran from him. They united smaller systems against the emperor and his pet powered by a dead religion because they knew his unrestrained hunger for power would never be quenched. Yet when we see the complexities of a torn childhood, the unanswered source of his power, an acclaimed fighter pilot who really only races speeders and accidentally blows up a small space station, and switches from a whiney agent of the state to mass murdered of children do we understand that this dark force is really just pathetic man unwilling to grow up and take responsibility for getting his girlfriend pregnant while under an oath of celibacy.


My best movie experience of all time was “The Silence of the Lambs”. I had not heard one word about the movie or the plot. I literally walked into the theater to see the next movie that was showing to fulfill my goal of seeing every major movie released during a year. And there it was. The perfect experience delivered. No hype, no build up, just a pure occurrence of an academy award winner in all its excellence and purity. Its sequels have been enjoyable. The good doctor is always chilling. I resist talking about it knowing at least one avid read has not seen the movie, but things in that first movie are more complicated than just a good guy and a bad guy. The definitive establishment of good and evil in the story is what makes this unequalled.

I could go on. But I will leave it to you to think about how dull Superman would be with out Lex Luthor (note the man of steel, of body strength, is countered by the greatest criminal mind ever know). Consider the Batman, a dark and disturbed knight, battles a clown full of laughter and jovial mirth. The duality of good and evil, ying and yang, light and dark, balanced in the eternal struggle for supremacy is at the core of every good story. The layers and delicate degree of compromise is what makes it interesting.