|
Spider-Man (Full Screen Special Edition)
|
Rating:  -
Spiderman grabs my heart. I'm female, so I like heart with my action movies, and this movie has the perfect balance. I will watch it a hundred times before I'm sick of it. The nerd in me relates to Peter Parker. Go Spiderman!
Rating: -
My son loves this movie. Huge spidey fan. I like the music in it. When I saw that it was Danny Elfman, I was surprised. His music usually has a very "small" feel to it with limited thematic phrases. This felt much larger. I could tell a difference in his musical growth. Overall, the acting is great and the effects are okay (not near as good as the subsequent movies).
Rating:  -
For its time, Spider-Man (2002) is an impressive technical achievement, as well as an entertaining, straight ahead action film. Director Sam Raimi's interpretation of the vanguard of Marvel Comics, while a pretty good thrill ride, is open to much discussion, as he reconfigures the Spider-Man universe.
Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee and Steve Dikto, back in 1963, and has become an icon among comic book superheroes. In 1967, Spider-Man appeared in an animated series, that captured much of the basic essence of the character, and helped to boost his popularity. The short lived 1978 TV series, demonstrated that realistically translating the character to live action, would be a major technical challenge. It would not be until after another twenty years had passed, that technology would advance far enough to make bringing the webslinger to the big screen possible.
With nearly forty years of history behind Spider-Man, the challenge was to decide what to focus on, and how to present the characters. While the screenplay gets some things right, there are other matters that do not play as well, as Spidey's life story gets a major makeover. The film takes the traditional route, starting at the beginning, with a retelling of the origin of the character, and after setting the stage, Act II focuses on Spider-Man's battle with the Green Goblin.
Casting was a crucial process, and after appearing as Spider-Man in three films, I have mixed feelings about Toby Maguire. Not so much with his performance as Spider-Man, but mostly as Peter Parker. His voice sounds too boyish, and his portrayal does not match my conception of the character. The writing is a major contributor to this, as Maguire's Parker comes off as more of a shy, clumsy, lovesick goof, rather than as teen struggling with coming to terms with being a superhero. The angst and inner conflict that Parker had in the early days (the first 100 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man), as well as Spidey's irreverent sense of humor, is completely missing. As is having to deal with financial troubles, and Aunt May's health concerns. While going in that direction might have dragged down the movie, even a critical element like Peter's relationship with Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson), is glossed over.
In the 1960's era comics, Mary Jane was an outgoing swinger type, and bears little resemblance to the confusingly written 'good girl' character we have here. Peter is her neighbor for 12 years, yet she hardly knows him, and then he suddenly becomes her soulmate? Kirsten Dunst does a good job with the role as written. The issue is not with her performance, but again like Maguire, with the writing. Peter's love interest in the early comics was Betty Brandt, followed by Gwen Stacy. However, involving those characters would have probably been too complicated, particularly as the focus in the film is on Parker's high school life. Peter is made to appear to be afraid of girls, but in the comics he was more preoccupied with other matters, and regarded as a 'square', rather than being afraid. While the rationale for some of these decisions is understandable, the mixed up timeline, and the jumble of partial truths with fiction, can be hard for aficionados of the older comics to accept.
Listening to the comments by Raimi, John Dykstra, and others, it often sounds like they are selling a bill of goods. Repeatedly we hear things like Norman Osborn is like Peter's 'surrogate father', and that he favors Peter over his own son. Osborn offers to help Peter as Harry's roommate, but actually does nothing for him on a personal level. Willem Dafoe is an exceptional choice for the Osborn/Green Goblin role, but the Goblin's costume is ridiculous joke, looking like a shiny vinyl lizard that is hard to look at without laughing. It's too bad, because the Goblin maneuvers very well on his glider, and his pumpkin bombs are extremely stylish. When the Goblin knocks Spidey unconscious, in what universe is it possible, that while helpless, the Goblin didn't take the opportunity to peek under his mask? Wouldn't you?
Unlike the Goblin, Spider-Man's costume looks fabulous, although it is apparently not very durable, and the mask seems very prone to damage. Later in Spider-Man 2, the mask comes off so often as to be completely ridiculous. The special effects do a good job of recreating the kind of radical movements Spidey is capable of. He is almost flying across the skyline of New York. Peter's ability to create his own webbing, versus man made web shooters, is more in line with the DNA angle to his origin, and simplifies things for the filmmakers.
Revealing some of the deficiencies of Spider-Man, is the sequel Spider-Man 2 (2004), which is a much better film, particularly from a technical standpoint, where both Spidey and Dr. Octopus, do some amazing things. Unfortunately all three Spider-Man films, display an unfortunate pattern regarding the mortality of super-villains.
Sam Raimi definitely deserves a lot of credit for what he has achieved with the Spider-Man franchise. The films are spectacular, and very entertaining, and have forever lifted him from the ranks of cult horror films. With a history so long and rich, there will be issues regarding Spider-Man, no matter what road is taken. Raimi seems to have carte blanche regarding the character, and the films are rewriting Spider-Man's history in quite significant ways. It is apparent that the PG-13 films, are targeted squarely at a young audience, who have different tastes, and may have never read a Spider-Man comic. The decisions made here were crucial, as they established the framework for the films that follow, and will become 'reality' for those who have no other frame of reference.
Raimi had great power in deciding what to do, but did he live up to the responsibility of doing justice to Spider-Man? In the end, while the film successfully delivers Spider-Man, it falls very much short in depicting the lives of the real life characters.
Rating: -
Purchased this DVD set to replace the VHS tape we had originally, so that we could watch it on our new tv. Great buy!
Rating:  -
The disc came to me with a huge sticky smudge all over it along with several deep scratches. Therefore the disc would not play even after I cleaned it as best as possible.
|
