Charley and the Hemoglobin Factory

We did it, team.  We made it to another spooky season.  So this is the point where I remind you that I’m really not a horror guy, but then I go on to tell you about something in the horror genre that I really enjoy.  It’s true, horror is far from my favorite, but when it’s done well, I really appreciate it.  And there is one offshoot of the horror genre that I actually do love: the horror-comedy.

On the surface, it seems like an incongruous set of ideas.  If horror films and series act as a stand-in for tribal rites of passage or act to satiate our evolutionary instincts that have taken a back burner because we don’t really have to worry about being eaten by wolves for the most part anymore, adding comedy to the mix doesn’t seem like a great idea.  But it really is.  They can vary from creepy with a side of comedy to being fully farcical parodies like the Scary Movie franchise, so horror-comedies have a lot to offer even true fans of horror and non-fans alike.

So let’s talk about the 2011 remake of Fright Night.  I say this without ever having seen the original 1985 film or its sequel that I didn’t know existed until two days ago, but I have to say, I genuinely and thoroughly enjoy this film and upon watching it for only the second time recently, I think I’ve got to confer unto it hidden gem status.  I’m fully aware of how it was received critically, with an RT score of 72% and just 64 on Metacritic; and I know how I normally feel about movies in the 70% range, but this is definitely one of the exceptions.  Fright Night is a surprisingly strong entry into the world of horror-comedy.

It’s a fairly breathless ride. The movie starts in media res, setting up the premise.  Bad things are happening and people are dying and it gets really bloody.  Vampires and all that, they seem to always forget their manners.  But then you cut to Charley Brewster (played by the very talented late Anton Yelchin) walking his dirt bike home and chatting with his pretty neighbor before his mom (played by the always excellent Toni Collette) gets on his case for leering.  Charley is a fairly typical teenager, trying to shed his nerd past in an effort to be perceived as cool and do all the things being a nerd can sort of lock you out of socially when you’re high schooler surrounded by high school-aged minds.  I remember these days well, back when nerd culture wasn’t mainstream and, though the memories are fading quickly, I also remember what it was like to be a teenager unsure of yourself, so I commiserate with his plight.  Some typical chauvinist teenage banter ensues, but it doesn’t last long before Charley’s nerd past rears its ugly head in the form of McLovin from Superbad (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who plays a variation on the roles you know and love from him, but with a neat twist).  He ambushes Charley after class and lays it on him—the empty seats and Bueller moments in the morning roll call aren’t kids skipping class; they’re being eaten by a vampire and that vampire turns out to be the sexy next door neighbor digging out the concrete under his house for some unknown reason.  See, Charley has this new popular girlfriend (played by Imogen Poots, who seemed to be Yelchin’s horror partner; she’s also great in the very good, but not very funny film Green Room with him) whom he is desperate to keep from finding out that his deep dark LARPing secrets, so when McLovin threatens him with exposure, he agrees to go with him on his recon mission.

And from there, the movie just flies.  In about 10 to 12 minutes, you’re in on everything and Charley has been brought up to speed.  Fright Night is not a movie that’s interested in keeping you waiting or keeping the main characters in the dark.  It doesn’t take long before you’re thrown into the deep end and so are they.  What results is a legitimately funny, action-packed locomotive ride to the end of movie, with very few stops along the way.  The inimitable David Tennant plays Peter Vincent, a Criss Angel-like illusionist who claims to have occult knowledge of things like vampires, and he absolutely crushes the role.  As someone who has never been a Doctor Who fan, I am quite the big fan of Tennant (his pandemic show Staged with Michael Sheen is a particular high point for me and he just seems like an all around good guy) and he does not disappoint in Fright Night.  If I had been on the fence about the movie until his appearance, his performance absolutely pushes me over into the solid like side.  Tennant plays the role of Peter Vincent with such aplomb and charm that, well, he doesn’t really need vampire mind control powers to get you in a trance.  He’s just that good.

After speaking to Peter Vincent, Charley gears up for the final showdown.  He does what any high school kid would do when faced with a supernatural monster—he heads to the local hardware store and loads up in a way that feels very familiar if you’ve seen Stranger Things before this.  I’m not certain that scene is a reference to Fright Night, but I really do like to think it is.  I know I’ve come across a fair few inquisitive cashiers in my time, so it’s probably a juxtaposition of a common occurrence into a fantastical setting, but, well, we humans are wired to find patterns and connections, so let me have this one.  It’s certainly more fun than when the cashier comments on my pint of Americone Dream, boxes of frozen White Castle, and takeaway container of store-made pasta salad (that counts as a vegetable, right?).  Why yes, I am having a party; I just happen to be the only one invited.  Anyway, it was always going to end in a final showdown (between Charley and Colin Farrell, not me and the cashier, I don’t get down like that) and the movie comes to a satisfying ending.  Horror-comedies that have tonally difficult endings are a problem that can muddle the whole experience, but no splash on this one.  It’s a solid conclusion.

And that’s really kind of it for the movie; without just recapping what goes on, since it moves at such a breakneck pace after a relatively short preamble, I can’t go much deeper into it without spoiling the film for you.  It’s 106 minutes of turn your brain off fun.  By comparison, 106 minutes into Jurassic World: Dominion—which definitely requires you to turn your brain off, but the fun part is a missing component—you probably still think the movie is about dinosaurs and not about giant bugs.  If you feel like you need something like that this season, in this particularly scary October, Fright Night might be the movie for you.  At the time of posting, Fright Night is available on Peacock and Hulu, as well as being on Tubi, which is free to use (without an account, if I recall correctly), with ads being the only inconvenience.  I think you should give it a try.

Vince Vaughn and the Ill-Behaved Primate

Bad monkey, so-so title, great show

I didn’t have high hopes for Bad Monkey. Don’t get me wrong, I like Vince Vaughn as much as the next guy; Old School was one of those movies I loved growing up, but have been a little hesitant to return to because I’m not sure how well it has aged (actually, I’m fairly certain it hasn’t aged that well, thinking about what I remember of it). So I sort of assumed that Bad Monkey would see a continuation of that sort of “lad humor” that I’m really not that into anymore. I figured if I’ve outgrown Old School, I’ve outgrown Vince Vaughn. But, I was convinced to give it a shot and I couldn’t be more glad that I did.

It turns out that Bad Monkey is kind of a combination of a noir detective story, Miami Vice, and, oddly enough, Ted Lasso, with which it shares some of the creative team. Vaughn plays Andrew Yancy, an on the rocks detective in the Florida Keys, who is in trouble because he, somewhat rashly, but in a sort of justified kind of way, pushed a rich old guy into the ocean…with his car. But anyway, he went from Miami PD to the Keys, and is perpetually a dog with a bone.

The inciting incident is somewhat gruesome. An arm is found during a fishing tour and Yancy’s boss wants Yancy to take the arm up to Miami and try and dump it on them so his precinct doesn’t have a murder counted against them. Do this favor and his suspension would be lifted. So, he drives the arm up to Miami and when he’s rebuffed by PD there, his boss instructs him to dump the arm, this time into a swamp so the alligators can clear the case for them.

Remember what I said about Yancy being a dog with a bone? Well, in this case, it means that he couldn’t let that go. I know cops don’t have the best reputation these days and rightly so, and often I find myself having a hard time stomaching a certain type of cop show that is still prevalent on network TV, but Yancy seems to not only truly care about justice, but in the Ted Lasso tradition, he also truly cares about people. Like the legendary moustache man himself, Yancy is a surprisingly kind and open-hearted fellow who likes to talk. A lot. But there’s this almost incongruous quality to the job that he does and the way he goes about it. He reads people well, but he takes as them as they are. He judges a bit, sure, we all do, but it’s never too petty (though at times it does get pretty petty), but his approach to life and to people is very positive. He’s an oversharer, perhaps, but Yancy really does come across as a person who believes in right and wrong in a way that is very much live and let live, until you start harming another person. Unlike Lasso, Yancy does have a bit of a rough edge to him and he has his fair share of flaws—he’s not a relentless ball of positivity and energy that Ted Lasso is, but he’s definitely a good person. Even though he’s a cop. Well, he’s mostly a cop. Well, sort of, anyway.

It’s not just a character-driven show either and it’s more than Vaughn’s performance as Andrew Yancy that keeps you there. And it’s also not just my unending appreciation of Meredith Hagner’s abilities as an actress either that kept me interested (if you haven’t seen Search Party yet, it streams on HBO and she is an understated powerhouse in it). In fact, just about the whole cast is excellent. It’s difficult enough to point to Vaughn’s and Hagner’s performances as standouts amongst their peers, because it’s even more difficult to not mention how good just about every other actor is in the show. I mean, this is a show that also has Michelle Monaghan, who is one of my favorite actresses of all time and whom I rate very, very highly on the talent scale. In addition to her, there’s also Jodie Turner-Smith, playing a dubious island mystic known as The Dragon Queen (you may have seen her playing Mother Aniseya in the unfairly maligned The Acolyte on Disney+, but that’s a whole thing for another post), Natalie Martinez, who shines in her starring role, and Rob Delaney, Ronald Peet, and John Ortiz (fresh off his role in American Fiction) who round out the cast with aplomb. Everywhere you look in Bad Monkey, there’s an abundance of acting talent. But, the story is compelling and it comes to a narratively satisfying conclusion after 10 episodes (really sort of feels like the sweet spot for TV series these days, 8 to 10 episodes, except for Bob’s Burgers and Abbott Elementary, for which there will never be enough episodes for me). It weaves itself from a whodunnit to a howcatchem and I am completely fine with that. Every transition and story movement feels natural and organic, nothing comes out of nowhere. Yancy was never going to be Philip Marlowe and he was also never going to be Columbo, but the show threads the needle very well, giving you an engrossing story that you enjoy watching unfold. I don’t want to go into too many details and ruin the experience for you, but suffice it to say that from the very first episode, I was hooked. The twists and turns along the way are always earned, they’re never just there for shock value, and every beat they hit feels like part of a well composed symphony.

And that’s one of the hardest tightropes to walk when writing a mystery, even though this isn’t strictly a mystery all the way through. Too many times, you find yourself embroiled in a plot, running the numbers in your head, pinning up yarn on your corkboard until you look like Charlie from Always Sunny and then the show decides to throw you something at the end that makes no sense just because it’s something you’d never have thought of. Or, sometimes the clues are there, but the conclusion is so unsatisfying that it tanks the rewatchability of a series. A great mystery is a great mystery, even after it’s solved. But some shows just don’t stick the landing and they do it in such a poor manner that you can’t go back to it and enjoy the process again in the future, such as recent hopefuls Death and Other Details and A Murder at the End of the World. It feels like it’s happened so many times that I hesitate to recommend a mystery until I know that the ending is a good one. But that’s not a concern here, as everything is crafted so well and no surprise is too far out of left field as to feel too easy or manipulative. The show respects its viewers and doesn’t pull cheap tricks. I really like that and I appreciate the skill it takes to manage that feat.

As of the time of writing, Bad Monkey’s season finale just aired this week, but its fate for a second season is still up in the air. Luckily, it’s on Apple TV and not Netflix, so it hasn’t been cancelled five times before even airing, but it also means that it’s not as widely available as it would be were it on Hulu or Peacock either. But if you have Apple TV, it’s well worth your time. And if you don’t have Apple TV, but can get a free trial of it, definitely do that. I won’t tell, promise. Yancy would probably let it slide too.

I Want a Clean Fight, No Blows Below the Fold

Newspapers: They’re not just for Garfield comics and lining birdcages

It’s amazing how little changes over time.

There are a few kinds of movies I’m always going to be interested in. I love a war movie. When I hear of a new one coming out, I always eagerly await the reviews, decide to watch it anyway, and if it does disappoint, I keep my head up looking for the next Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, Dunkirk, or The Covenant, when, sadly, we have a lot of Jarhead 2s and Hacksaw Ridges. I love a whodunnit, I’ve seen all the Branagh Poirot movies at least twice and I tell anyone who will listen that See How They Run is an underrated gem. I also love movies about curmudgeonly writers, but I feel like if I said why, that would be telling.

But I’m not here to talk about any of those kinds of movies. I want to talk about another kind of movie that I love—reporter films. It’s not something we see too often anymore (though it seems they’re making a comeback), but as a kid, reporter was always one of those things I wanted to grow up to be, along with astronaut baseball player and moon knight (not the superhero Moon Knight, mind you, a knight on the moon who rides a space dragon), as well as a brief stint wanting to be a chaotician, so when a good reporter film comes along, they’ve got me hook, line, and sinker. I love seeing an overworked, underpaid underdog taking on the system to get the truth to the people. I especially love it if they’re exposing corruption and conspiracies, but it doesn’t always have to be so grandiose. I don’t always need it to be as hefty as Spotlight or State of Play, or as understatedly brilliant and touching as Safety Not Guaranteed, or as significant in scope as Frost/Nixon or Zodiac. Because when it comes to those fighting for the truth, it is always hefty, it is always touching, it is always significant; to me, at least.

And that brings me to The Paper, a movie that I’ve had in my Netflix queue for weeks, but I could never find myself in the right mood for until it got the dreaded “Leaving Soon” tag on the thumbnail. Of course, the way streaming services work, it’s likely only a matter of time until it pops up on some other streamer, so I could always go on the hunt for it again in a few weeks (don’t you love the freedom of cable cutting?), but I found the two hours or so and decided to put down Astro Bot and watch it.

Boy am I glad I did.

Tomei shines as Marti, just one of the excellent performances in this film

For those unfamiliar, like I was, The Paper is a 1994 film about a struggling New York newspaper that is a stand-in for the New York Post, taking place over a 24 hour period, or one news cycle, which is how the news used to be before 24 hour news channels and eventually Twitter changed the entire scene. We open on two young Black men stumbling across a vandalized car with anti-white slurs painted on it. They think the occupants are asleep, so they approached the car to wake them up and tell them that it’s not that safe a place to bivouac for the night and they should probably move on. But in the car were two slain white men and beside it, a discarded MAC-11 lying on the sidewalk. As one man reaches for the gun, the other tells him not to, and a witness stumbles upon the scene, causing the Black men to flee in fear of being held responsible for the double homicide they did not commit. More on this later. Then we get to see Henry Hackett, played by Michael Keaton, whom, depending on how old you are, you may remember as Batman, Beetlejuice, Birdman, or if you’re one of the unfortunate few who also sat through The Flash, old Batman. You may also recognize him from Spotlight, another excellent film in which Keaton plays a dedicated newsman. He wakes up next to his seriously pregnant wife (played by Marisa Tomei), fully dressed, and very deeply in trouble with her. You see, in addition to being the metro editor for a troubled paper, he’s also about to become a father for the first time and his wife is worried—and scared—that she’s going to lose her career, also as a reporter, and end up raising their child with an absentee father and partner because he’s always at the office. Rounding out the cast is not only a ton of talent you’ll recognize, namely Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, and Randy Quaid, but also a veritable who’s who of slightly younger than you remember them white guys, such as the bad guy from Mr. Robot, Gil from Frasier, that cop from an episode of Monk where he briefly rejoins the force, and another guy who was also in Spotlight. There was definitely a lot of “Oh, I know that guy, he’s the one who does the Nixon impression in that episode of Parks & Rec”, but overall it was a reasonably diverse cast for 1994, including Geoffrey Owens and Roma Maffia, and I commend them for that. With these older movies, you take what you can get; diversity wasn’t a priority in the 90s, so when you see anything even reasonably diverse, it’s memorable.

He’s not paranoid if they’re actually out to get him, right?

What is also memorable is what hasn’t changed. Young Black men are still blamed for crime, the NYPD still busts down your door with guns drawn no matter who is in the room, and the truth is still a fight. It’s a story as old as stories about the news—business wants while the news needs. The paper, the New York Sun, is recovering from teetering on the edge of shutting up shop when the business-minded paper savior and managing editor Glenn Close brings them back from the edge, but only just. And here it is. Here is the crux of the story, the spool around which all the threads are wrapped. The news needs the truth; the news needs accuracy, clarity, timeliness, and diligence. And all these needs cost money. Business wants profits. In order to maximize profits, it’s usually the needs of the news that suffer. Business wants, the news needs. It’s hard not to see the tension and how both sides here have genuine pros and cons; Close may be the antagonist in the film, but she’s hardly villainous. After all, you can’t have the paper if you can’t keep the lights on and put ink on the page. So in order to have independent journalism, you need to have someone footing the bill. But there needs to be balance—all too often now, business seems to take the forefront. Sensationalism is the word of the day; if it bleeds, it leads, but even better now if it makes you angry. In an era where the truth has become malleable, where total fictions and outright lies are run with loudly and corrected quietly, and misinformation and disinformation are beamed to your phone in an instant, The Paper seems more relevant than ever.

I know it may seem like they’re friends from this picture, but they’re not

In a way, it’s a love letter to journalism, including the dirty side of it. The Paper doesn’t shy away from the characters’ personal struggles and faults. Glenn Close is having an affair with a reporter. Robert Duvall has an estranged daughter and a prostate the size of a bagel, according to him. Marisa Tomei is nigh on petrified that she’ll be raising their child alone, losing her identity in the process. Keaton wants to be there for his family, but constantly ignores the concerns of his wife because of his dedication to the paper; so much so that he steals a lead from competing paper The Sentinel, while there on a job interview for a job that Tomei desperately wants him to take because it means better hours and more money for their nascent family. Randy Quaid’s character is a needed bit of comic relief in what is ostensibly a comedy, but even he has his troubles—we meet him sleeping on Keaton’s office sofa with a revolver tucked into his pants because he believes the civil servant he’s been lambasting in his column is coming after him. These people do a thankless job with little pay and great personal sacrifice; at least when it’s being done right. The movie still finds the comedy in their situation, though. Through all this, there are plenty of laughs to be had, but it’s not the thing about this film that really stuck out to me; it’s how even thirty years later, these stories still feel familiar, not because they’re overused tropes, but because they’re still relevant. Because we’re still facing them. Because not enough has changed. Print media is still in peril. The truth is still under attack. Profits are still being prioritized. The police and public are still all too happy to blame the closest Black person for crime, and the cops still come through the door in a way that makes every arrest feel like it could end up like Two Distant Strangers.

Now that campaigning politicians can lie, admit it’s a lie, and continue to run on the admitted lie and people believe them, it may seem quaint for reporters to come to literal blows over a headline painting two innocent kids as murderers being brought to justice, but the fight for truth has to happen on every level. Shades of the Central Park Five loom over the lead story in The Paper, but beyond that, we know here, as viewers, that the two teenagers accused of the murder are innocent, but we’re not the only ones. After hearing some chatter on the police scanner, Quaid is convinced that not only is the arrest bogus, the cops know it’s bogus, and the arrests are just for optics. But, Close wants to run a gotcha headline because they got pipped to the post the day before on the actual murders; and I mean she literally wants to run a photo of the suspects doing the perp walk to the prison bus with the headline of “GOTCHA!” plastered across the front page. News reports running in the background televisions have interviews with people cancelling plans to come to New York; tourism dollars were starting to become a concern citywide because the murders and news coverage were stoking racial tensions. Pressure on all sides. Keaton decides to step up, running with Quaid’s intuition, but doesn’t have the proof. But like any dedicated journalist, he’s determined to get it.

A bagel, he says, ruining one of my favorite breakfast items for the next few months, at least

The story has lots of plot points that weave together, but it all comes to a head when, two hours after they’re supposed go to the presses, let’s just say that Keaton and Close make more than impassioned arguments for their side. And what ensues, well, that just needs to be experienced without me tinting anything for you. But what I will say is that while The Paper may be a forgotten film, overshadowed by other blockbusters from 1994 like The Lion King, Forrest Gump, True Lies, Clear and Present Danger, and Speed, this is a movie that holds up to the test of time and—in the current news climate—is more than relevant, it’s important. The Paper leaves Netflix on September 30th, so I haven’t given you a very large window, but like I said, if you miss it, keep it on your watchlist. It’ll show up somewhere soon enough and it is absolutely worth your time. Because good journalism is as important as ever and this movie acts as a well needed reminder.

Here Keaton uses an ancient relic, a landline.

It’s Thwippin’ Time: A Game of the Year Post

Sure, it’s got superheroes and a whole guy made of sand, but it’s humanity that’s at the core of Spider-Man 2

I normally don’t do “of the year” posts. I’m not a professional reviewer; everything I review is something I watch or play in my free time and I have my own limitations and personal likes and dislikes. When I do make lists, I always try make sure I couch it as simply my opinion and not try to present it as a definitive list. I don’t say “best”, I say favorite. My top five Christmas movies, not the five best Christmas movies, you know what I mean? When it comes to video games, not only is the initial investment higher than waiting for it to come to a streaming service, the time it takes to experience a game meaningfully is much higher than a movie or TV series. Sure, Rebel Moon may feel like it’s 70 hours long because of how rote and by the numbers it is, but it’s not actually. Even at my busiest, I can manage to get through a movie in at most two or three sittings (except for The Meg 2, somehow they managed to squeeze all the fun out of the first movie and make it borderline unbearable to watch). So when I talk about my Game of the Year, it’s just that. My game. Two or three games have really been at the forefront of GOTY discussions and of those, I’ve only played one for a short time and the other two I haven’t played at all. So, suffice it to say, I don’t have a complete knowledge of every game that came out this year. But one game did make an impression on me that was surprising, lasting, and deeply affecting.

Of course Baldur’s Gate 3 has dominated the Game of the Year conversation, along with Tears of the Kingdom, the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel, and to a lesser extent, Alan Wake 2. And with good reason. I personally haven’t given Tears of the Kingdom a go yet; I didn’t really enjoy Breath of the Wild for a few reasons, despite the fact that every time I booted it up, I did spend a good twenty minutes just in awe of how beautiful the world was and how amazing it looked and felt to move around that giant space (really kind of mind-blowing when you consider that was a launch title and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launched 5 years later and doesn’t look or perform half as well). But, it seems that TOTK took BOTW and improved on it and was a very rich and rewarding gaming experience for those who do enjoy Zelda games. I’ll eventually get around to it, even if I have to use guides to get through. I’m determined to eventually get firsthand knowledge of why Zelda is such a beloved franchise—I was a Sega kid, after the original NES, I went to Genesis and never really played many Nintendo titles, save for Pokemon and a few random Game Boy/DS titles. BOTW was my first Zelda. I’ve also never come close to an Alan Wake title, but boy does it sound interesting.

Now, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a masterpiece. A perfect 10 out of 10 on IGN. 96 Metascore. On the podcast The Besties, Griffin McElroy described it at “miraculous” on numerous occasions, at least three times over multiple episodes. So it’s only fitting that it’s one of the most talked about games in the GOTY conversation and that it indeed won The Game Awards’ Game of the Year. But it’s not my game of the year.

There’s nothing I have bad to say about Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s amazing. I don’t have that much play time in it, but what I have done so far has been exhilarating, satisfying, and rewarding. I’ve played in a few stalled Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, loved the movie (boy did that come out of nowhere, I never thought a D&D movie could be so fun or well done), and generally enjoy being able to do roguish things in video games, so it’s generally a good fit. I love that there are completely and meaningfully different ways for you to approach just about every problem in BG3. A lot of games give you the illusion of choice, a dialogue tree that eventually gets you to largely the same conclusion regardless of your choices, but BG3 doesn’t feel like that. Your choices feel like they have real consequences and consequences that are unique to your playthrough; including ones that are unforeseen. I can’t take anything away from Baldur’s Gate 3, but for me, it had some of the same problems that BOTW has. Part of it is just that the scale is so massive, it’s intimidating. That’s probably the biggest one. Trying to jump into BG3 felt like swimming the English Channel while I’m still getting used to wearing my floaties. Even the opening sequence is almost impossibly large in scale. Perhaps it’s my own failing, but in the face of BG3’s expansive narrative, deep lore, and massive map, I felt immediately lost and quite small. Launching the app became a daunting task, an Everest to climb before getting out of bed. It is a game that demands—and deserves—your full attention and dedication and at this time, giving it that just didn’t seem on the cards. I will, no doubt, revisit BG3, and soon. Though I may only have about 5 to 10 hours in the game, I want to play more. I feel the drive to get in and master my character, learn more about the game, and immerse myself in the world.

But there’s one game from 2023 that made me feel all those things as well; one game that had me spending idle moments waiting for the slivers of free time to jump in and get going, one game that had me coming back everyday because of how amazing the gameplay experience is. And that game is Spider-Man 2.

A thrilling opening sequence gets you right into the game and adds to the cinematic feel most open world games lack

Now, there’s no way I can sell you on Spider-Man 2 being the technical marvel that BG3 and TOTK are. I know that. But there’s still a lot to love here and for many reasons. As a narrative action open world RPG, Spider-Man 2 doesn’t skimp on any aspect of the experience. The combat system here is refined, changed only slightly from the previous games, and while I did miss some of the old features that made crowd control easier and gave you a feeling of invincibility at times (my kingdom for a Web Blossom every once in a while), I can’t fault the changes they made. Sure, there were times where the game felt more like Arkham, where Batman’s brutality was doled out in smaller doses before having to retreat to the darkness, leaving enemies frightened and nervous (especially those with guns). I did find myself having to strike quickly, lay a small beat down on some enemies, and then swing to relative safety to catch my breath and evaluate my strategy for the rest of the fight. I did lament the loss of that feeling of invincibility, but as the narrative unfolded, I realized how important it was that the combat helped you remember that you’re Spider-Man, not Superman, and that things very well can come to an end for Peter or Miles. They’re not invincible, anything but. I came to appreciate that I felt more vulnerable in fights; after all, I think it’s Spider-Man’s humanity that makes him such an enduring and appealing hero. I’ve never really read any Spider-Man comics with regularity, I watched the cartoon in the 90s, but ranked it behind X-Men and far behind Batman: The Animated Series, I enjoyed the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films (emo Peter’s dance number aside), but I skipped the Andrew Garfield movies and the MCU’s No Way Home left a very bitter taste in my mouth even though I like the first two movies (it felt a lot more like Jurassic World than Jurassic Park, if you know what I mean), but despite all that, I’ve always ranked Spider-Man as one of my favorite heroes.

Traversal has never been more fun

But more on the narrative later, let’s get back to gameplay. Now, I’m usually one to say that I generally look for one of three things to do in a game—shoot bad guys in the face, be a Premier League club manager, or pet and/or battle with Pokemon. Failing all that, it better be a racing game. Spider-Man 2 offers almost none of that (there are some missions where you get to zap some bad guys in the face, they offered a fun departure from the regular combat loop), but I still found the combat in SM2 (as well as SM1 and SM: Miles Morales) to be incredibly satisfying, if not the most satisfying combat of any game I’ve ever played. It’s not just fun, it’s the right amount of challenging and the right level of difficult to engage you on both a reactive and strategic level. For a game like this to hold my attention at all is a minor miracle, but for me to wake up thinking about what I want to tackle in-game during my free time that day is a completely different feeling. I’m not a completionist by any means, and even in games that I’ve spent 80 to 100 hours in a single player campaign like Red Dead Redemption 2, getting to 100% is just something I’ve never cared about. But despite the fact that I’ve finished the story, I’m going to go back and get to 100%, just because the experience of being in the game is so much fun. Much like the previous games, traversal is an exercise of pure joy, as you zip, swing, and thwip your way across a simulacrum of New York. New for this game is the ability to glide using “Web Wings”. Personally, I found it largely a practical inclusion because of the distances you had to travel and the smaller buildings in some of the new areas of the map, like Brooklyn and Queens. And yet, after I spent a little time trying to master the new mechanic (and spent a few points upgrading my character), I found the flight to be almost as satisfying as the webslinging, though it still doesn’t hit the same way. I mean, lots of superheroes can fly, it’s almost a given in the superhero world; but only Spider-Man webslings. SM2 introduced a new way to fast travel, something I only tried once because I heard that it was something you had to try at least once (and it was cool). Getting around is just such a good time, I never found a good reason to want to get to my destination any faster than I already could. Traversal this good makes this game such an amazing experience. I remember in the early days of the pandemic, when quarantine was still new, I used to boot RDR2, just do go for a ride on my horse, go fishing, and play some poker at a saloon. Now, that’s a testament to just how much you could do in that game and how well it was all executed, but despite being a smaller scale of game, I did find myself playing just to have a quick swing around the city and stop a few crimes rather than always jumping into missions. That’s how enjoyable the game is. It took everything about the previous games and just made it better; and those were both fantastic experiences to begin with. So the gameplay is slightly different, but still somehow much improved.

A passing familiarity with Spider-Man lore would leave you quite worried at the sight of Peter’s cool black suit

The way the story unfolds is different as well. While in the previous games we get a taste of Miles’s origin story, these games have benefitted from largely avoiding the origin trap and giving us an established Spider-Man to pilot around the city. Now that both our Spider-Men have gone through their beginnings, you get to see levels of growth that you haven’t really seen in the movies, which seem to be rebooted every decade or so in a weird licensing tug-of-war hell. Peter is in a different phase of his life; still dealing with the fallout of the events of the first game, Peter carries the weight of loss on his shoulders. Miles has a different journey than Peter, one that sees change in his life as well. And despite the fact that in any other situation, I’m extremely tired of superpowered teenagers, Miles’s problems are palpable and relatable—surprisingly grounded for a guy who can swing around on webs and punch people with electricity.

Everything here is more mature and nuanced than the previous games, letting you slow down and take a breath and live in the story with the characters. This game’s New York feels very real and lived in and the fact that the main characters and their support have their own issues that they’re dealing with and working through makes it feel all the more real. There’s a real sense of grief, of loss, of coping, of rage and anger. All these characters, not just Peter and Miles, feel like real people. When you interact with them, it feels like they’re living their lives and you’re just jumping in for a small vignette, rather than feeling like NPCs are waiting patiently for you to interact with them.

Spider-Man 2 reminds us that the people we surround ourselves with are a source of strength and support

Much has been said about the side missions of the previous games and how the ones in this game are better, and they are. But they’re not just better because they’re less repetitive, less annoying, and more rewarding, they’re better because they tell stories. Some of them echo the feelings of loss and regret that the protagonists are going through. Some touched me more deeply than others, more deeply than I thought video game stories still could. But by the third time I was wiping away tears from my eyes, I knew I was playing something special. The key word to this game’s narrative is empathy. The way the story shows empathy to not just the protagonists and the people that they care about, but to the random person on the street who simply needs help and to the game’s villains themselves puts empathy at the forefront of the game’s core set of values. As you work through the missions and more of the story is unveiled, you feel for the characters, even the so-called villains. The game makes it a point to humanize just about everyone you deal with, minus the scores and scores of nameless criminals you beat and web up with gleeful abandon. But hey, you can’t stop and smell the roses at every mugging, kidnapping, arson, or monster attack. I know that rightful praise has been heaped on Baldur’s Gate’s narrative and I’m sure it is every bit as deep and rewarding as Spider-Man 2’s or more so, but the way this feels so human and so easily understandable is remarkable. I couldn’t help but feel like a part of me was in almost every character. The anger of Miles, the grief of Peter, the fear of the New Yorker looking for her aging grandfather, the yearning of Harry to feel healthy and normal, the need for MJ to make a difference, the quest for peace of Howard the homing pigeon keeper; I saw a little bit of myself in each and every one of them. And yet, despite all this, despite the game making me face feelings I didn’t particularly want to face, despite the greater heft of the story, I found myself able to dip in and out and do some regular superhero stuff to re-center myself before going back to the story missions. The relatively seamless switching between Miles and Peter gives you a back door when the story leaves you needing a break emotionally. If things are getting too deep with Peter, swap to Miles for a bit and do some of his missions and vice-versa. There’s always an out, so the weight of the story never becomes too taxing.

More focus on Miles means wonderful new confusingly named Venom powers

And here lies one of the biggest reasons Spider-Man 2 is the Game of the Year for me. Approachability. The size and scale and openness and consequence of games like Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur’s Gate 3 can be paralyzing at times. Permadeath adds a level of pressure to the gameplay that isn’t always welcome; I understand its inclusion in games and I’m not against it in general. Giving real consequences such as character death in the game raises the stakes, the intensity, and does leave the palms sweaty. It’s not like it’s a bad thing, but I’ve found that I’ve become the kind of guy who wants everyone to make it home at the end of the day. If put in the role of a leader of people, I want to get them all to the end of the game alive. I don’t know, call it a flaw, but I want to be a hero. I want to save people, including my own party of course. But yes, much like character death in films, sometimes it’s necessary and I completely understand that. However, it doesn’t lend itself to a super casual experience. And not everything needs to be a casual or relaxing experience; there’s room for all this in gaming (and in film, for that matter), but at this point, where I am mentally and emotionally, it’s an added stressor to the gameplay and makes it a little more difficult for me to engage with a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 because I have to get into the right mindset (or manage a hell of a lot of save files) to play and I can’t just pick it up and play to lift my mood.

Spider-Man 2’s New York map is huge. It feels so much bigger than Spider-Man and Miles Morales. But it never feels daunting; it’s New York, I’ve been there a hundred times physically and virtually thousands more. In film and TV, New York is nearly 50% of all the cities in the world (the others being Los Angeles, and occasionally “London” or “other”), so no matter how big it got, it always felt familiar to me. Perhaps people who grew up playing games like Zelda or other Baldur’s Gate games feel the same sense of familiarity with those maps and that helps it feel like less of an enormous playground to get lost in, but for me, it’s like learning a new language. But that familiarity definitely made things easier for me to jump into and out of SM2 as necessary.

Harry’s back and he’s happy, healthy, and alive, like the Nutriboom founder’s wife

Everything about Spider-Man 2 felt comfortable. That’s not to say that it wasn’t a challenging game or that I want games to be easy, but I often look at media as a form of give and take. I look at what experiencing an uncomfortable piece of media, for example, say The Power of the Dog, gives me and I think about it in terms of what it takes from me to watch it. What emotional distress it causes, what personal feelings it may dredge up that I’ve spent a lifetime neatly packing away in a little box in my brain, and what it gives back; the experience, the engagement, the enriching of my life. When something gives more than it takes, it’s usually worth it for me, whatever frustrations or distress that may come along with it. And Spider-Man 2 gives me a great deal and doesn’t take too much, despite the very real, mature, and sometimes depressing story points that make me face things in some of those tiny little brain boxes. And that’s why it’s my Game of the Year. It was an experience that will not only stick with me for the rest of my life, but one that I will come back to over and over again, like rewatching a favorite movie or replaying an Uncharted game (which also often feels like rewatching a favorite movie; but my god, the Uncharted movie was unwatchable drivel).

Spider-Man 2, much like the Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse films, proves that I’m not suffering superhero fatigue as much as I’m tired of seeing the same old thing with a different filter on it. Just like choosing a Street Fighter character with a slightly different colored outfit isn’t nearly as exciting as playing with a new character that feels different, watching the same movie with a different actor and slightly different powers doesn’t excite me. But Spider-Man 2 weaves together a story that was familiar in a way that I hadn’t seen it before and it benefitted greatly from the balance between the new generation in Miles and the older in Peter, while giving them real people and support structures that make everything feel real. Even if it is a game about two separate people who get bitten by two different radioactive spiders. I’m so looking forward to where the next game will take me.

If you’re still here, I want to thank you for reading my blog. Whether this is your first time or you’re a regular, I appreciate every moment you spend on reading my content and I hope you enjoy it. With 2023 coming to a close, it’s a good time to reflect, and I wish for you all a better 2024, with much more content to come!

What’s more human than fighting for what you love? I’m a lifelong MJ defender.