Spider-Man CS3

Over the last six years (basically since my daughter was born), the fact that I don't get to the movies as much as I'd like has required me to institute the occasional and proud tradition known as the "loser matinee." The philosophy is that there are some films I want to see on the big screen, and it's hard to coordinate schedules/sitters/etc. with either my wife or any of my buddies (who have their own domestic responsibilities) in order to take in a good, mindless flick. So, I circumvent the issue by playing hooky a few times a year to see selected shallow/mindless movies by myself in a mostly empty theater at noon on a Wednesday (or whatever). Anyway, the bottom line is that I'm perfectly comfortable with being a 34-year-old tool who sees movies by himself; it's a nice change of pace from the normal week and it feels like I've literally gotten away from it all for a couple of hours. Then it's back home and back to the weekly grind: wife, kid, job, the usual.

Enough exposition; let's talk about my latest loser matinee experience: Spider-Man 3. Now, if you haven't yet seen it, you may want to navigate away from this page, as there are some spoiler-type revelations here (but nothing too major). The main point of this post isn't so much to critique the film, but to compare it to something else which was occupying my thoughts right around the same time: reviewing Dreamweaver CS3 (the text of which is available here, in case you want further context).

I walked out of Spider-Man 3 with a familiar feeling: disappointment. It wasn't a bad movie by any means; it held my attention throughout, it had some fantastic action sequences, the effects were beautifully done, and overall the movie was fun. Not as much fun as the previous two, but not bad. The disappointment was that it could have been so much more... no, let me rephrase that: it could have been so much less. I feel like I saw an edited-down version of Spider-Man 3, 4, and 5 in the same sitting. Too much going on. Too many storylines. Too many villains. Entirely too many musical numbers. Glossing over some things, letting others drag. And since it was fresh in my mind, I had a lot of similar thoughts about Dreamweaver CS3, so I started thinking about which parts of Spider-Man 3 corresponded to which parts of Dreamweaver CS3 (even doing so a bit during the film; those Peter/Aunt May scenes were death to sit through). Granted, there are some holes in the following logic as big as some of the more laughable coincidences in Spider-Man 3 (Brock picks a really good time to go to church! Flint Marko really killed Uncle Ben! The alien suit comes down from space mere yards from where Pete and MJ are swapping spit!), but here is my comparison of Spider-Man 3 and Dreamweaver CS3, warts and all:

Both are bloated. I don't need to belabor this point, but there's just too much going on for either to sit right. Some parts of each are too fast, others are too slow, and both come across as uneven at best.

Dreamweaver's bugs and interface tiredness = Mary Jane's teeth. I hate to pick on Ms. Dunst, but can't some of the Spider-Man millions buy a trip to the dentist? Seriously, it's distracting. Kind of like when I first noticed how Shannen Doherty's eyes were out of alignment, and couldn't see (no pun intended) anything but after that. (As an aside, yes, I proudly admit to watching 90210 back in the day.) Anyway, I kept looking at the poor girl's teeth, and it overshadowed everything else that was going on during her scenes. By comparison, Dreamweaver's bugginess and stale interface leaves the same impression: you're so busy focusing on those while trying to get work done, not much else stands out in the end.

Photoshop integration = Venom. Venom is one of my absolute favorite Spider-Man villains (especially as penciled by Todd McFarlane), yet he/they were woefully underused in the film. I wanted more out of the Venom story, because what's there just didn't work right. Venom was almost an afterthought, appearing very late in the story and ultimately coming across as kind of lame. I would rather Venom had been done right (the lone villain in the film) or else not at all. Same goes for Dreamweaver's "advanced" Photoshop integration (as it's being touted). Adobe nailed Photoshop import in Flash, and then turned around and half-assed it in Dreamweaver. A hobbled copy/paste feature does not advanced integration make, and I would rather would have seen it not included at all than to have what we got.

Same old, same old. Oh, look. MJ's been kidnapped by the bad guy(s). Oh, hey, Spider-Man gets his suit all ripped. Oh, boy. Harry Osborn is holding a grudge. Wow. Peter Parker's taken off the mask. Can we have actual new challenges for Spidey rather than new villains presenting him with the same problems? By the same token, Dreamweaver's been running in place for over five years now. Doing largely the same things in the same way; only the name and version number have changed.

Both are sort of coasting on reputation. The first two Spider-Man movies (along with Batman Begins) raised the bar for superhero movies, so Sam Raimi and crew could have done just about anything and still made a mint. Dreamweaver established itself years ago, and people have been upgrading anyway without anything genuinely new or game changing, so really, why bother doing anything radical this time either? It's sort of sad, as both have some nice new features that I would love to have seen more of (Gwen Stacy/CSS Advisor integration), but I guess that leaves the viewer/user just wanting more in the next installment, right?

Spry framework for Ajax = The alien suit. Try it on—feels good, doesn't it? But are you losing yourself in the easy fix? Just as Peter almost disco-danced his way out of everything he loves, are designers doing themselves a professional disservice by implementing Ajax without really understanding how it works? Don't get me wrong—I think the Spry Framework integration is one of the true genius features in Dreamweaver CS3, but like a bag of Doritos, you gotta wonder what it's doing to you behind the scenes. The question is worth asking, even if I think the overall benefit may be a good one.

So, that's what I got. Am I reaching here? Quite likely. But it's kind of fun (in an unbelievably nerdy sort of way) to be able to take two completely different yet equally disappointing experiences and see if there's any overlap to be found. If nothing else, comparing a movie to software gives me a chance to put a post in the conspicuously empty "Pop Culture" category, so there you go. But I digress. In both cases, each gets a grudging thumbs-up; Spider-Man 3 is worth seeing, and Dreamweaver CS3 is worth getting your hands on. But both could have been so much better, so disappointment abounds.

Posted at 10:48AM May 16, 2007 by Kevin Schmitt in Pop Culture  |  Comments[0]