Okay, this shouldn’t be too hard. Is “Spider-Man” better than “X-Men”? Yes. Is it better than “Superman?” Arguably. Is it better than “Batman?” The later two: Yes, far better. The Tim Burton movies: Probably not, but it’s more true to the comics.
Is it one of the better comic movies ever? Was Larry Bird one of the best mulleted ballers ever? Yeah, but there have only been so many. Will “Spider-Man” make craploads of money? Hmmm–maybe. Why? “Star Wars” opens two weeks later. Ouch. Will everybody love it — even comic book-haters? Most definitely.
From the get-go, “Spider-Man” is everything you could possibly want it to be — considering it’s a summer movie (isn’t it funny how we now have summer movies and winter movies, each with their own entirely distinct set of standards?). The action is intense, the web-swinging special effects are more realistic than you or me, the dialogue is comic-book-campy (though sometimes too much or not enough) and dumbed down (always too much), and the story is–well, the story is goddamn incredible, but not to the credit of Sam Raimi and crew.
Nearly everything that’s good about this movie is owed to the fact that this is probably the most interesting mainstream comic title out there. “Spawn” was an awful movie mostly because the comic really didn’t provide too much to draw from. “Superman” was a fair enough title, but he was an alien — kind of hard to relate to, you know? And “Batman” never really had a great story outside of ass-kicking and whatnot. He was such a loner and therefore not much of a dater or pal.
“Spider-Man,” on the other hand, had so many intriguing and often-realistic story arcs, perhaps too many, as suggested by the morphing of two characters — Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson — into one. For the most part, we get at least a glimpse of all of them.
Peter Parker?s life as a nerd. The gorgeous girl next door, Mary Jane, and the bully she dates, Flash Thompson. The allusion to deceased parents. The mistake he made that lead to a close one’s death. The struggle with power and its responsibilities. The betrayal of a friend and the public’s betrayal of the superhero. “Spider-Man” establishes it all, and as a primer to uninformed fans and a setup for the inevitable sequels, it works marvelously.
Did Sam Raimi do a fair enough job of transferring the story from wood pulp to celluloid — a job that, in my own words, “you couldn’t possibly f*ck up if you tried?” In all honesty, and this comes from a fan who wanted to have his mind blown but didn’t — yes. Peter Jackson probably did better with “Lord of the Rings,” but Raimi’s transfer inevitably works pretty well. If anything, there’s a bit of inconsistency.
At it’s best, Raimi has charged up the camp — like when Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin hauntingly giggles the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” song. At it’s worst, it’s not sure whether it wants to be campy — as when the same Dafoe gets a tad too serious in confronting his inner demon. This isn’t Shakespeare, Willem.
Were the special effects summer-movie-worthy? Hell yes. While there were whispers about the poor quality of the web-swinging scenes, I’m convinced those people were delusional due to spiked Mountain Dew or crack-laced Goobers.
Spidey’s building-to-building escapades are about twenty thousand times cooler than anything “The Matrix” had to offer, and Raimi’s decision to let Spidey get playful when he discovers the web-spinning ability was a stroke of genius. I swear, it gave me flashbacks to my discovery of all the cool things you could do with Play-Doh or the wonders of riding a bike up and down the streets of suburbia as a 10-year-old.
Were the actors up to par with our lax summer movie expectations? Impeccably. As the Green Goblin, Dafoe outdoes Jack Nicholson’s Joker at times, but looks more like Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze at others. Kirsten Dunst looks like she had but an hour to offer and filmed all her scenes one after the other — Bam! Bam! Bam!
Tobey Maguire as the casting-outside-the-box lead fares well enough. Nothing spectacular, but give him credit for getting himself in shape for it. The body fits the part. Stealing the show are J.K. Simmons as Parker’s boss-to-be, Noah Jameson, and James Dean look-alike James Franco (as the Green Goblin’s son, Harry Osborn) who may end up this summer’s biggest talent discovery.
Summer moviegoers will eat it all up. Good buzz amongst newcomers to the “Spider-Man” world will pack air conditioned multiplexes all summer long, and with the staggering numbers, every comic title this side of “Milk and Cheese” will be greenlit for a movie adaptation by year’s end.
GRADE: B+