Spider-Man - movie review with spoilers (May 3, 2002)

Another of the comic book heroes makes his way onto the big screen. While I am of course familiar with the basic story (who isn't?), I don't know many details. For my purposes, when a film is made of a story that originates from another medium, I try to judge the movie not so much on the basis of how "faithful" it is to the letter of the original, but rather, on how the film holds up as a separate entity, with its own internal logic and story. That being said, I did enjoy this film a lot, and it had some great action sequences, but it didn't hold my attention for the entire 2 hours or so. I found myself getting restless and fidgeting in parts, but not for any reason that I could really pinpoint. It's a great popcorn movie, but not one that I can see myself watching over and over again.

Tobey Maguire ("Pleasantville", "The Cider House Rules") plays the title character, and while I wasn't sure about the casting at first, he does a fine job. Granted, he doesn't have to do many of the action/stunt sequences given the full-body nature of Spider-Man?s costume. He does a good job of showing the struggles and pain that Peter Parker experiences and which motivate his transformation into Spider-Man. My only disagreement with his performance is in the voice-over narration that bookends the film. The delivery is flat and without emotion or conviction, which is not in keeping with either the character at the beginning of the film or after his transformation by the end of the film.

Kirsten Dunst ("Interview With The Vampire", "Little Women", "Dick", "The Cat's Meow") plays Peter Parker's would-be love interest, Mary Jane ("MJ") Watson. She does a fine job in the role, but then there's nothing particularly challenging about the role, except for the physical work. MJ is the typically pretty damsel in distress / girlfriend sidekick. Dunst plays her with the right degree of sweetness without making the character too sugary, but it was very strange to see her in this kind of fluffy role after having very recently seen her play the complicated and complex character of Marion Davies in "The Cat's Meow" (which I highly recommend, by the way). She really serves mostly as eye-candy in this film, especially in a scene where she is wearing a tank top and is drenched with rain, but there is certainly chemistry between her and Maguire that shows up well on-screen.

Willem Dafoe ("Platoon", "The Last Temptation of Christ", "Born on the Fourth of July", "Clear and Present Danger") plays Norman Osborn, father to Peter Parker's good friend, who becomes Spider-Man's nemesis, the Green Goblin. I think his is the stand-out performance. He has to play two very disparate characters, and he manages to create a bad guy that is not one-dimensional but rather, extremely interesting. The scene in front of the mirror when Osborn discovers his alter ego especially displays this talent.

Cliff Robertson is wonderful and very effecting as Peter Parker's uncle.

For fans of the show "Xena: Warrior Princess", look for Ted Raimi ("Joxer") in a minor role and Lucy Lawless in a cameo.

One of the standout scenes in this film for me was the montage of drawings and sketches as Peter Parker tries to come up with his costume. To see the development of the sketches was very cool, with the last sketch being the familiar webbing, setting up the hilarious scene at the wrestling match and our initial glimpse of the first costume he actually wears. I also thought that the slow-motion sequences were done very well, especially in showing Peter Parker's developing enhanced senses. The technique has been overdone in so many films following "The Matrix", but the effect is used very well in this film.

One of the sequences that I found particularly annoying, to the point of being infuriating, comes early in the film when the students are touring the lab where the spiders are being studied. Peter Parker keeps trying to take pictures of the spiders, but one of the bullies keeps bumping his arm and making him miss the shot. More than I probably should have been, I started seriously getting angry at them for doing that as I consider myself a fairly good amateur photographer, and I can understand how absolutely maddening it would be to have that happen repeatedly and purposefully.

On a more somber note, I had heard previously that while the trailers for "Spider-Man" which contained shots of the twin towers of the World Trade Center were pulled following September 11, there was supposed to be a sequence in the movie that the filmmakers were going to leave in. I kept waiting for that sequence, and that probably distracted me a little. I was surprised when no such sequence materialized. I expect that it was supposed to have been during the montage of Spider-Man catching various criminals, as I'd heard that he'd literally netted a couple of criminals in webbing spanning the two towers. While I don't think images of the World Trade Center should be removed from everything, I do think that it may still be too early to see the towers in a film that is as light as this one. I do think it would be distracting and would rip the viewer immediately out of the film and into real life. I believe it's been reported that that was exactly the reason that a sequence containing the twin towers was also edited out of the film "Kissing Jessica Stein" before its release.

I was a bit surprised that there was a full opening credit sequence. I had expected a segue from the title card ("Spider-Man") directly to the start of the film given the familiarity of the story and the audience's probable anticipation for the start of the film.

For fans of the old theme song, be sure to stay all the way through the end credits.

And for fans of The Mark and Brian Show, I can't wait to hear what Mark's reaction is going to be when he discovers who the singer is for the World Unity Festival.

The film is directed by Sam Raimi ("The Evil Dead", "Darkman", "Army of Darkness"), and the score is written by Danny Elfman (Do you really need a list of credits?).

A definite recommend.

Oh, and before our screening, they showed a teaser trailer for "The Hulk", which brought loud cheers from the audience ... until the words "Summer 2003" flashed on the screen.

Back to Movie Reviews.

Back to home.