Spider-Man.

Now if you're wondering about the fact that my URL has changed back, that is mainly because my views have plummeted since I changed my URL and it seems it isn't because of the title changes, if it is the URL I'll just use the old one, if it isn't it'll go back to how it was and I'll just accept that for some reason since I revamped the blog, I lost 90% of my readers along with it. As for me being randomly back with a Spider-Man review after what I said this morning. Well as I was listening to some critics much better than me I was reminded that my Dad has one of the largest DVD collections I've ever seen and I thought that I'd utilise this to do one of those Spider-Man retrospections people have been doing to tie in with Amazing Spider-Man's release. Enjoy!

As to why you should listen to my opinion over any other critic doing one of these is mainly because I'm out of the loop. Spider-Man was important to a lot of people in the sense of the whole fuck yeah America aspect of this film due to it being the first Superhero movie after 9/11 or just generally the fact that to Marvel fans this is one of the best superhero adaptations of all time.

Now me myself, well I was a DC kid not a Marvel one. I mean I grew up on the animated Marvel series, sure, but that wasn't really out of choice, they just dominated the channels I watched. And although I've read more Spider-Man as I've grown older, most of my Spider-Man knowledge has come from the 90's animated series which is apparently not exactly that well regarded by Spider-Man fans. So I have no real nostalgia for any aspect of this, the character or the movie - it was just as far as I remember a little fun movie that came out one summer as a kid. And as I'm also not American I can appreciate the context of this being set in New York and it coming out after 9/11 and being the first of its kind in that regard and all that but it means my empathy can only go so far. So what I mean by all this, is that most of these 'retrospections' were just nostalgic looks on the movie which means their opinion of the film was already made up for them before they even bothered to rewatch the movie making many of them interesting but ultimately pointless. For me, I'm basically discovering the thing again (I don't know how many years it has been since I last saw this) and giving my most honest take on it.


The fact that this film is so highly regarded and was such a box office smash is a miracle in itself, the film went through decades of rewrites and baton passes before it was finally released in 2002. Apparently it was mainly James Cameron's ideas that finally made it into the final screenplay although many screenplays had been written other than Cameron's during its long development. However that too was eventually rewritten by Scott Rosenburg after Raimi was finally decided and hired to direct after they went through a heap of different choices and then the screenplay had a final dialogue polish from Alvin Sargent which was the final rework of the script. Although David Koepp is the main person credited for the screenplay for reworking Cameron's main ideas before being rewritten by Rosenburg.


And I'm sorry but in the dialogue, this really shows. I mean this is basically the perfect Spider-Man cast (except Dunst who I think is insanely miscast) but everyone else - there is even a Bruce Campbell cameo, squee! They are just perfect and they all give great performances but the dialogue...my God no one talks in this movie, they just feel like they are reading fact sheets, every bit of dialogue is an info dump and it gets so incredibly annoying so incredibly quickly. And it is just so noticeable, "So, Dad, my incredibly rich Dad and I'm going to Public School now." "Yes Son who is a delinquent and kicked out of every private school I sent you to?"  and this such a waste of a great cast - because their acting can only go so far if they are acting around such awful dialogue to the point where some of the most serious moments, I was actually laughing, feeling sorry that these guys are putting in such great performances, taking it all so seriously and yet there is just shit tumbling from their mouths.

And before everyone hits their capslock I know Raimi's trilogy was based around 70's Spider-Man and I'm glad he managed to modernise it without making it 'dark' and 'gritty' or 'edgy' and I think it really does work, the action scenes are great and the film is really beautiful but it's just the dialogue, whether the corny info dump unnatural conversations are lifted from the comics or not, that doesn't change for me that it doesn't work. I mean maybe if you are old enough that you remember Spider-Man in the seventies and it worked for you on that level, that is fine, but this film came out in 2002 and so regardless of whether you want to argue it, this film was given a 12a rating here in the UK, it was marketed at young people so they don't remember the 70's they haven't got that nostalgia which is why I feel confident in saying that the dialogue doesn't work, because as one of those young viewers - it just doesn't for me. On every other level the corny, comics feel works, just not there.

Now as said I was never much of a fan of Spider-Man as a kid, or really Marvel in general and the movie came out when I was young, but not really young enough to look back at this nostalgically so I can't really comment much on how well the origins of Spider-Man and Green Goblin hold up or transfer from comic to movie. Although honestly with all the retcons in comics Spider-Man probably has like fifty origins so I guess it doesn't matter. But personally I really digged both of their origins, but I do kinda wonder about the Green Goblin, I mean even aside that you took an incredible actor like Willem Dafoe and gave him a mask that took all his emotion away, his entire redesign just seems in direct contradiction to the rest of the movie. Spider-Man's costume is basically a straight translation from the comics and with the garish colour palette of the film and the way so many people are written, most of the movie is a straight, honest translation of comics but then there is the Green Goblin who looks like he is from another movie entirely.

I mean I know Osborn is given this whole military feel and this is pretty similar to the character I know from the 90's animated show - but just it's just like a generic battle armour, painted green with a silly mask and it basically has almost nothing to do with comics Green Goblin's look and in such a camp movie, he just looks out of place, it just seems he'd fit so much better in the 'edgy' Amazing take on Spider-Man. You know, there is nothing wrong with the character himself, he is  a great villain and Dafoe is perfect casting, don't get me wrong on this but his design just seems so odd when stacked up against the rest of the movie. Osborn's transformation into the Green Goblin is a little melodramatic but it fits with the general goofy comicbook feel of the rest of the movie...but he just looks so lost.

The way Spider-Man's powers are shown and developed is just masterful film making, there are laughs and thrills to be had as Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man. There are loads of characters in this movie that all have like their own mini-arcs too and so I won' t bother listing them all but Parker/Spider-Man and Osborn/Green Goblin are our central characters. The way they juxtapose the villain and the hero together is really interesting, this film is as much about the birth of Spider-Man as it is the birth of Green Goblin and I really enjoyed the development of both of their characters both in and out of costume; Maguire is as perfectly cast as Peter Parker as Dafoe is as Osborn. Too many superhero movies either make their hero so uninteresting compared to the villain (see: every Batman movie ever) or they spend so much time on the origin of the hero(es) that dramatic tension is lost and often a villain is hastily tacked on with a climax to prepare the film for a blockbuster finish to lead into the sequel where they can really start everything (see: Avengers or Green Lantern).

It isn't just characters that are juxtaposed - the entire movie is masterfully made, everything blends into each other and it uses the whole visual medium aspect to its fullest, it's a great looking movie and just brilliantly put together. This is a top quality product. There are these huge, action set pieces, these big spectacle moments it really blends the blockbuster with the superhero and works - it's just terrific fun. Every battle the Green Goblin and Spider-Man have feels straight out of a comic and yet given that blockbuster scale too, especially their final battle - it's just epic. I couldn't imagine how incredible the climax must have been at the time, for people in New York. With 9/11 still an open wound, to see the whole of New York stand together to help Spider-Man, I mean it gives me chills so at the time, for New Yorkers... wow.

That being said, I'm not really sure how I feel about the message of this movie. That only trouble can come to those who give people what they deserve - I hate these moralfag stories. I mean I know it is a huge part of the Spider-Man mythos and everything but stories like this just annoy me on a personal level, it's no real comment on the quality of it.

You know what I think looks really funny? The fact that Peter's physique change from skinny nerd, to muscular superhero looks so much better than when Captain America did it almost a decade later. Is it possible that CGI is actually getting worse? Well, no... the CGI has aged horribly in this film, basically 90% of every action scene looks like a cartoon. I mean don't get me wrong, as I said the action is great - classic superhero stuff with a Hollywood twist but much like most of these movies over the last decade, when it starts looking like a cartoon it pulls me out of the movie.

I really want to criticise the pacing, by all regards you know your movie is badly paced when it doesn't really start until an hour in. I mean that is like fifty percent of its running time - but I just can't criticise it. I had no idea an hour had past, I just paused it to go down the shop and I realised I'd been watching for it like an hour and I was like 'holy shit'. Time flies when you're having fun. And you know I sat there trying to work out if anything in that first hour could be cut out, because exposition doesn't need to be half of your movie but I just couldn't, everything is needed, everything works, everything fits together. It's on paper a terribly paced movie but I guess further cred to Raimi that it ends up working anyway.

So do I recommend it? That last paragraph leads straight into this, because that is just it. Spider-Man simply works. Not on every single level (although some criticisms are more personal than anything else) but on way more levels than it should, it works There are so many aspects to Spider-Man that would be classed as 'wrong' but put together in one cohesive diegesis, it makes it work. The high level of camp, the garish colour scheme, the melodramatic acting, the heavily moralistic story just when you put it all together, it just works, these things don't work on their own but it just all fits. Basically Spider-Man is such a perfect example of good filmmaking, with enough passion for the source material a comic can make it to the screen without basterdisation in the process. Yes Spider-Man is goofy at times, corny, cheesy, whatever but it never tries to be anything else - it isn't so ashamed of its source that it needs to try and make itself feel more secure by making it all 'edgy' and 'realistic' - it's a movie about a guy who swings around the city on bits of string that come from his wrists and it just works because of that. Spider-Man is just a masterpiece of fun, entertaining cinema - I don't believe storywise it will change your life but I think you'll struggle to find a truer comicbook movie than this. It just works, it works dammit, it shouldn't but it just does. God this is such an overlong closer - but just it's good okay, by all logic it probably shouldn't be but it works! I love this movie! GO WEB - GOOOOO!

Think About It!

-Locke