Posted on 05/02/2002 9:57:45 PM PDT by BlackJack
To get the big news out fast, Spider-Man is up, up and away as the firecracker to beat this summer. Working from a script by David Koepp, director Sam Raimi gives this unapologetic fluff a mind, a heart and a keen sense of fun -- all the ingredients missing from, say, The Scorpion King.
And the actors seem to be having almost as good a time as we are. The unlikely superhero that Stan Lee created at Marvel Comics in 1962 makes a perfect fit for Tobey Maguire. OK, so maybe a stuntman squeezed into Spidey drag for the dangerous feats that aren't CG (computer generated).
Maguire's substantial accomplishment isn't acrobatic; he builds a real character out of the sketch that is Peter Parker, an orphan from Queens, New York.
Peter has a high school geek's sense of the universe: He's getting screwed out of the good stuff, especially teen angel nextdoor Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst, taking adorable to a sexy new dimension). Superman's roots on another planet and Batman's wealth always kept those crusaders at a distance.
Peter is the average joe incarnate. Even after that mutant spider bites him and he starts going bugfuck climbing walls, Peter still can't make the move that would get him into Mary Jane's pants.
He feels resentful when his rich friend Harry (a brooding James Franco) horns in on her, but says nothing. Peter is a product of the solid values instilled by his uncle (Cliff Robertson) and aunt (Rosemary Harris). Mary Jane's father is abusive.
And Harry's dad, the scientist-mogul Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), ignores him while staging shouting matches with his villainous alter ego, the Green Goblin. Dafoe is a wild, warped wonder, taking the Goblin to dark places the Joker never investigated.
Comic-book freaks will bitch about liberties taken. You'll hear that some of the CGI isn't so hot (it isn't) and that the Goblin's mask looks like party plastic (it does). Know what? It doesn't matter. Raimi mixes his flair for the sensational (The Evil Dead) and the subtle (A Simple Plan) into one knockout package.
Peter testing his new powers with small skips and jumps until he is leaping across rooftops is Raimi's style in a nutshell: slow build, huge payoff. The cold technology of the FX, like the Times Square battle between Spidey and the Goblin, can freeze off feeling. Raimi counters by showing a New York crowd booing the Goblin with a moving, post-9/11 fervor:
"YOU MESS WITH ONE OF US, YOU MESS WITH ALL OF US."
It's the little things that float this $139 million balloon. That includes the upside-down kiss when Mary Jane slowly pulls down Spidey's mask for a smacker and nearly strips his face naked before he leaps away. Maguire and Dunst keep Spider-Man on a high with their sweet-sexy yearning, spinning a web of dazzle and delicacy that might just restore the good name of movie escapism.
I know some of the effects will look obviously CGI but who cares!!! It's based on a comic book for cryin' out loud!
SPIDEY!!! SPIDEY!!! SPIDEY!!!
"Face it Tiger.....you just hit the jackpot."
I remember it well. After dodging Aunt May and her matchmaking for months, Peter couldn't quite get away in time to avoid meeting this gorgeous red head (drawn by the incomparable John Romita (Sr.)). And before you know, they get married, have a baby girl (which disappears--presumed dead), MJ gets kidnapped, they split up, and finally the movie comes out. Aren't comic books great?
Yes....they have been, but I gave up on Marvel not too long after MJ's apperance (and the death of Gwen Stacey...sigh) though I did stay on long enough for the Mobius Vampire-6 arm Spidey drawn by Gil Kane.
I dwindled down to only John Byrne's "Fantastic Four" until Frank Miller's "Dark Knight Returns" sent me on another collecting binge for about 10 years gobbling up Miller, Alan Moore's terrific stuff (Watchman, V for Vendetta, and the late great Miracleman), Neil Gaiman, The Hernandez Brother's "Love and Rockets" and other good independents and DC's Vertigo titles.
Then Todd McFarland and the Image boys came along and dumbed everything back down to fanboy level pushing the good stuff out. (IMHO, of course)
But "Fantastic Four" No.1 (yes...I owned it!) absolutely blew me away.
I hope and pray they bring them to the Big Screen and do it justice.
"It's Clobberin' Time!"
Personally, I'd rather see the strings, than look at CGI.
'Spider-Man' will keep you in its web
Since the sequel is already in the works, a review of "Spider-Man" almost seems superfluous. But it definitely isn't. Because, when a comic-book movie gets it right, as this one does, people should know, especially those who think of going to a big over-hyped summer blockbuster about as often as they think about going to the South Pole.
This is a film, of course, in which a guy slings webs, scales walls and fights a villain who looks like a cross between the Joker and the grille of a Dodge Ram. But much like Peter Jackson and the initial "Lord of the Rings" movie, director Sam Raimi gets Spider-Man; he's been smitten with Spidey since he was a kid. (For his 12th birthday, we're told, his mom painted a Spider-Man mural on his bedroom wall.)
To Raimi, making "Spider-Man" isn't interchangeable with making "The Scorpion King" or "Men in Black II" or any other big-budgeted summer movie. That fan's pure devotion coupled with Raimi's considerable directorial flair (remember the "Evil Dead" movies or "A Simple Plan"?) makes the movie far better than you might expect.
For anyone who hasn't been reading Marvel Comics since the early '60s (when Stan Lee created the character), Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is a teen geek who lives in Queens with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May (Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris). Peter's the kind of guy who gets kicked around by the other kids for no particular reason, the kind of guy with a hopeless crush on the girl next door, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst, with flame-red hair).
On a school field trip, Peter is bitten by a genetically mutated spider. The next morning, he no longer needs his glasses; his abs look like they were carved out of The Rock. He soon discovers he has other powers, too: He can crawl up walls and spin webs that make leaping over tall buildings in a single bound uneccessary. He simply swings though Manhattan's concrete canyons. (Special effects evaluation: very, very good -- but not always thrilling.)
A little morality tale subplot finds his Uncle Ben dead on a Manhattan street and Peter distraught with guilt. He stops fooling around with his new powers and starts fighting crime. Meanwhile, Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), the tycoon dad of Peter's best friend, Harry (James Franco, who played James Dean on TV), is experiencing a superpower makeover, too. In a Jekyll-and-Hyde scenario, the good Osborn turns into the bad Green Goblin, who cruises around on a glider wreaking havoc and trying to destroy Spider-Man.
OK, it's's not Tolstoy. It's not even Tolkien. But it is a picture packed with swinging action scenes, spiffy spider jokes and an unforced earnestness that never becomes corny or tongue in cheek.
"Spider-Man" doesn't go for the retro-camp of "Dick Tracy" or the brooding hipness of "Batman." True, the Spidey/Green Goblin battles are generic and somewhat repetitive, which can make the movie feel long. But the picture has an an energy and a self-confidence that give it a terrific movie-movie feel.
Even the acting is better than it usually is in this kind of flick. Dafoe brings some of his downtown theater training to his role, especially in the scenes in which the innocent Osborn is talking with his evil alter identity. (At one point, he chats with the Green Goblin's mask, which hangs from a wingback chair.) Dunst, whose work in the current "The Cat's Meow" proves she doesn't have anything to prove to anyone, puts some spunk and integrity into her limited role.
Still, it all comes down to Maguire, who is flat-out terrific. A lot of fuss surrounded his casting: What's the sensitive kid from "The Ice Storm" and "The Cider House Rules" doing as a beloved comic-book hero? But Raimi said he didn't need to look for Spider-Man; he needed to find Peter Parker.
Maguire, with his slightly crooked grin, his mild yet laser-sharp gaze and his crackly, choked-up voice, turns out to be the perfect choice. He knows we root for poor, shy Peter as much as we do for Spidey in all his wall-crawling splendor. Maguire brings a pensiveness to the part as well a goofy likability and an unabashed intelligence. When things get totally outlandish, he's our touchstone.
The best advice Uncle Ben gives his nephew is "With great power comes great responsibility." Sam Raimi knows exactly what that means.
I did too! I took the afternoon off and found myself wandering over to Celebration Cinema to catch the 12:50 p.m. showing.
This is a GREAT movie. The most engagingly human comic book screen adaptation made so far. The character portrayals were true to source (well, if you think of MJ as Gwen), and the acting did not disappoint. Kirsten Dunst was outstanding, as was the guy who played JJJ; Maguire was believable, and Dafoe couldn't have been better in his role as the maniacal GG. I liked this movie more than I liked Lord of the Rings--I will see it again, soon.
You mean you missed the Bob Layton/David Michelinie (did I spell that right after all these years?) run of "Iron Man"? Too bad. It was terrific. Personally, I hated to see Byrne take over the FF, because I liked Bill Sinkiewicz's (again, the spelling memory is tasked) work on it.
Yeah, Universal is filming it in San Francisco - right in the way of my commute home! They've set up this fake cable car in the middle of Sansome Street with a bunch of fake cracked pavement around it (as if the Hulk has just thrown the cable car, I suppose) and they've had the streets blocked off for a whole week.
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