Let’s rewind to another, simpler, stupider time: the 1980s.
It was a time when some things happened, some stuff did some stuff and some naughty drugs were taken a lot by high-powered businessmen in high-powered business suits.
It was also a time when the original The Evil Dead movie came out, made for around $375,000, starring nobodies, with a sense of humour and receiving a great deal of positive remarks from the critics. Fast forward to the other year and Sam Raimi, director of The Evil Dead has just released Spider-Man 3; a huge-budget summer blockbuster, starring some of Hollywood’s biggest names and courting some very mixed reviews.
The hecklerspray review? It’s shit. No one wants an emo Spider-Man.
Anyway – whatever could be next for the director who really has worked his arse off, seemingly to make some medicore-but-expensive films, all with cameos of Bruce Campbell? Why not move on to some Disney stuff, to make your journey to the dark side complete? Oh, he already has. The bugger.
Yes, Sam Raimi has made his move to the truly evil realms of Hollywood complete by signing on to produce The Transplants – a Disney film referred to as ‘an action-adventure with a comedic bent’. We can handle that. Maybe. It’s alright – he’ll do a good job, surely… right?
But hold on – there’s no need for unfounded optimism. The threat of Raimi truly making the film his own and thus giving it what we call ‘potential’ has been immediately quashed, as The Transplants is written by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobsen. For those who don’t know, which will be most of you, they wrote Not Another Teen Movie.
Ah well, it’ll just be another movie to ignore in a year or two. Not like we don’t have a big enough list to fit them all on.
Maybe we will be proven very wrong though, for once, and this will turn out to be a wonderful experience for the whole family. Maybe Raimi will take the title a little more literally than what is probably intended, and subject the audience to two hours of hilarious organ and limb transplants for the sake of medical/Disney science, with cameos of famous characters for good measure.
Baloo could swap brains with The Lion King‘s Scar, making for one of the most evil and physically threatening characters in the history of film. Pick a paw paw BAM! One dead Mowgli.
Maybe the kids from High School Musical could have their limbs replaced with those of Bambi, making for far more entertaining dance routines.
Or Robin Williams’ Genie from Aladdin could be transplanted. Off the screen. Forever.
As long as Raimi keeps his own sense of humour and puts Bruce Campbell in there somewhere it’s sure to keep the nerds happy. Oh, and as long as we don’t have to put up with another unlikeable emo superhero.
Shooty* says
I watched Spiderman 3 the other evening while doing the ironing.
It was rubbish, for the emo reason you have quoted.
But it wasn’t half as bad as Ghost Rider. A movie without one single redeeming feature whatsoever, other than the fact that it came to an end at some point.