Come on... you didn't expect me to not comment on Spider-Man,
did you?
Short version: I liked it.
Long
version: Back in early 1986, an 11 year-old boy read in a comic industry
news magazine (might have been Comics Journal, though I couldn't
say for sure anymore), in trustworthy black-and-white, that a Spider-Man
movie was being worked on, and that said movie would be out by the
end of that year.
Needless to say, it didn't happen that year. And the 11 year-old
-- that was me, in case you haven't figured it out yet -- has therefore
waited 16 years to see this freakin' movie. Lightsaber-rattling, action
figure-collecting Star Wars fanatics got nothing on me.
As I write this, Spider-Man has made better than $334 million
at the US box office, and has yet to be released in the UK. It's the
#6 moneymaking movie of all time, and it'll almost surely be in the
Top 5 before we get too far into June (bye-bye, Jurassic Park).
And, y'know, it doesn't matter that inflation makes that ranking questionable
at best, and downright fallacious at worst. It's still pretty damn
cool. And not too shabby for a movie property that was stuck in legal
hell for 10 years or so.
| "...
It's obvious almost from the outset that the camera is most assuredly
Raimi's bitch" |
There are reasons for its success of course, not the least of which
being the familiarity of the character to the man on the street. Beyond
that, the direction was fabulous. I'm no film student, nor am I a
hardcore Sam Raimi fan (I found his Evil Dead movies to be
campy fun, but that was about it), but it's obvious almost from the
outset that the camera is most assuredly Raimi's bitch. Whenever Spider-Man
swings through the city -- particularly in the 30-45 second montage
at the end -- the effect of the camera swirling around him, juking
back and forth, zooming in and out, is nearly as disorienting as we
imagine tagging along with Spidey would be.
And
the cast was about as close to perfect as you can get. Tobey Maguire
-- who I'd never heard of before he landed this role -- was absolutely
the right guy for the job, and Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin was
a casting coup almost on par with Jack Nicholson's role as the Joker
in the first Batman. I doubt anyone who's read the comic could
have suggested a better actor, both in terms of looks and talent,
for the role of the movie's bad guy. Sure it's kind of distracting
how much he looks like a Power Ranger in that costume, but the only
other real option was to turn him into a green monster. And while
that may have been preferable to the grownups, it would have made
the movie even scarier for the kids it was largely targeted towards.
Both of the stars are almost overshadowed, however, by JK Simmons,
who brings Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson to life. Simmons
is on-screen for maybe ten minutes of the film, but he manages
to steal every scene he's in. Even in the comic book, JJJ is kind
of a ridiculous character, but Simmons makes the camp work. Brilliant.
Yeah, James Franco, who plays Peter Parker's buddy, Harry Osborn,
is kind of wooden. But he does look a lot like Dafoe, who plays his
dad. By and large there are far more hits than misses in this movie's
casting.
One character that falls somewhere in the middle of 'hit' and 'miss'
is Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Watson. This isn't entirely Dunst's (try
saying that out loud) fault, as the script doesn't give her much to
do besides play the rather bland pretty girl next door-cum-damsel
in distress. Anybody who's read the comic can tell you.... That's
not Mary Jane Watson. Mary Jane Watson is the life of the party, and
knows it. MJ calls every guy she meets 'tiger' because there are just
too damn many of them to keep track of. Before the movie had been
cast, there was some talk of Kate Hudson playing Mary Jane, and that
would have been brilliant, I think. Certainly Hudson's role as Penny
Lane in Almost Famous was about as close to the 'real' Mary Jane as
anybody's ever likely to get.
Dunst
does manage to squeeze one surprisingly good moment out of her role
when she subtly lets Peter know that she's aware of his feelings for
her, but otherwise they could have gotten almost any other competent
young actress to read these lines. Hopefully Raimi will give her more
to do in the inevitable sequels. Dunst has been acting since she was
a fetus, I'm sure she can handle a more complex part.
The special effects were, of course, amazing. The movie cost well
over $100 million to make, and it shows. There are times that the
CGI shows through -- particularly in the early scenes, before Peter
gets into costume -- but it's usually impossible to tell where Tobey
Maguire ends and his stunt doubles or the computer imaging begins.
This allows Spider-Man to move just like he does in the comics --
as opposed to, say, Batman, who barely moved at all. That kind of
stuff is important to us comic geeks, and it's swell to see a comic
movie for once that doesn't look like the producers sent the real
comic guys out for donuts and coffee while the aesthetic decisions
were being made.
So yeah, as a fan and as a moviegoer, I'm happy with Spider-Man.
The story is dense, and there may be a little too much lovey-dovey
stuff between Peter and MJ to consistently hold the interest of the
10-and-under crowd, but on the whole I'd say Raimi and Co. done good.
The movie certainly knocked the socks off that 11 year-old who's been
waiting patiently since 1986.
Bring on the sequels, I say.