Long after the rest of the world has moved on to new sensations, Paul's enthusiasm for Spider-man 3 remains undiminished. He's only seen it twice, yet he seems to have memorized every frame, and continues to ask me for clarification on certain plot points and character motivations.
Providing answers takes a bit of doing, since this movie is full of idiotic plot twists and illogical character motivations. (Both of which are on display in the very first scene, as we're confronted by the fact that our heroine has been given the lead in a Broadway musical even though she can't sing! Later, she's abruptly fired from the show, as if no one noticed during rehearsals that she couldn't sing, which leads her to...oh, never mind.) But Paul is able to rationalize everything, no matter how ridiculous. Isn't it kind of silly that Peter Parker's nemesis, Eddie Brock, just happens to show up at the very same church where Peter just happens to be pulling alien goo off himself? But he has to show up there, Paul says, because how else could he get the goo on himself and turn into Venom?
Okay, but what about all those scenes with Aunt May? They were pretty boring, weren't they? Yeah, he admits, they were. But you always have talking scenes in between the action scenes.
(He's right about that one. When I was a kid, I realized that you needed boring exposition scenes scattered throughout Where Eagles Dare, because if the whole movie had been nothing but Clint Eastwood machine gunning Nazis it would have been too much of a good thing. You need a little down time.)
Paul thinks Spider-man 3 is the best in the series, and from a seven-year-old's perspective, he's probably right. In fact, with it's irrational, herky-jerky plot and overdose of action, it almost seems to have been made by seven-year-olds. And though that may irritate those of us who care about silly things like plot and characterization, to a little kid, that makes it the coolest thing in the world.
