Film RE-REVIEW: "Spider-Man"

[Firaga 5,947]

 

Late night review time!!

 

Hello everybody, and welcome to a “re-review” of the first thing that I ever reviewed here on KH13… well sort of. It was this and, like, two other movies, all in the same franchise, but still.

 

Yes, it’s the well known and widely popular comic book movie based on the hero of the same name, “Spider Man”, released in 2002, and directed by Sam Raimi, starring Tobey Maguire as the titular hero and his alter ego, Peter Parker, Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn and main villain Green Goblin, James Franco as Norman’s son, Harry Osborn, and a bland piece of wood as Peter’s love interest, Mary Jane Watson… oh, wait, I’m sorry. I meant Kristen Stewar-er, Kirsten Dunst.

 

I bet you already know where this review is going thanks to that crack.

 

No but really, I honestly enjoyed “Spider Man”. It’s my favorite movie of the entire “Sam Raimi Trilogy”… that obviously doesn’t bode well for 2 and 3, but I’ll tackle those later on.

 

Now without further ado, let’s swing into action!

 

As I mentioned earlier, Spider Man is a widely known and popular movie and well loved among Spider Man fans and comic book fans alike. It came out at a time where superhero films weren’t nearly as sought after as they are nowadays, especially from comic juggernaut (heh) Marvel. So in a way, Spider Man was sort of a trailblazer, and set a standard for comic book movies to come. Of course, not all of them followed the standard, but some of them surpassed it and set new standards to follow even so. But how does this film stand out more than a decade after its release, in a time where we have films like The Avengers and Man of Steel? Well, let’s take a look.

The beginnings of Spider Man is a well known origin story that has cemented itself in the vein of pop culture thanks to its many iterations and celebrated message and execution. We all know the story at this point, and the film take pretty much hits all the key bullet points: Peter Parker is an unpopular nerd who struggles with getting bullied by his peers and trying to tell his crush Mary Jane Watson how he feels about her. Then, he gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gets powers, uses powers to win wrestling match and get money, refuses to stop robber at said match, robber kills Peter’s Uncle Ben, Peter tracks down robber and confronts him, “with great power comes great responsibility”, and boom, Spider-Man is born. The rest of the film is Peter dealing with his new powers and responsibility as he takes on his first big super villain, the Green Goblin, born when billionaire and founder of Oscorp, Norman Osborn, goes crazy after a science experiment gone wrong.

Now let’s go into more detail about characters, because they are a very, if not the most, important part of a comic book film. Peter Parker, aka Web-Head himself, is a very likeable and relatable character. He is one of the first of his kind after all, as he was part of a breed of Marvel characters that dealt with real-life issues, and for Peter those issues were his confidence, his relationships, and his general outlook on his situation, things that are relevant to him even as he dons a more cocky, light-hearted attitude when he puts on the suit. My only issues with the character only really appear in the sequels, so I’ll just save that for then. For now, he’s a good character.

Then we have Norman Osborn aka the Green Goblin, our titular villain. Norman starts off well enough, knowing Peter personally and impressed with his intellect, but things start going off the deep end when he personally makes himself a guinea pig for his company’s super-green-strong guy-gas. Long story short, he goes coo-coo and dons a modified version of another pet project, basically a high-tech battle suit colored green, along with his trademark glider and “pumpkin bombs”, and becomes the Green Goblin, and goes on a rampage killing off Oscorp board committee members. Did I mention Willem Dafoe plays Norman? I did? Good, because holy crap, does he do it well as he captures Norman’s superiority mixed with lunacy, even when things start to get… difficult… for Osborn’s character later on. I’ll get to that in a bit.

Other characters include Peter’s Aunt May and Uncle Ben, two of Peter’s biggest emotional supports. May supports Peter throughout the entire film series and Uncle Ben’s death/interactions with Peter pretty much shape Peter’s ideology on being Spider Man. There is also Harry Osborn (played by the awesome James Franco), son of Norman Osborn and pretty much Peter’s only friend sans Mary Jane, if that even counts. He has a minor role in this film, but he becomes a more important character later on, so not much to say.

Speaking of Mary Jane… well… I already made the crack, so it’s obvious that she’s the weakest character in the film, if not the entire series. Not only does Kirsten Dunst’s vanilla performance weigh the character down, but also the character weighs the character down. What I mean is that even if a much better actress were cast as Mary Jane, it still wouldn’t work because Mary Jane is a one-note love interest character. Her only purpose in life is to be Peter Parker/Spider Man’s meal ticket. That is it. I mean, I give the film credit for trying to make her kind of sympathetic and interesting by making her a victim of domestic abuse at home, but it doesn’t really fall through. There’s like one or two scenes where it’s given emphasis and then the rest of the film, and the entire trilogy, it’s just “poof”. Gone. No yelling or screaming from Mommy and Daddy, it’s just gone. You can argue that in the sequels that MJ is a grown-ass woman and has probably moved on from that kind of situation, but again, it’s the one thing her character had going for other than kissing Spider-Man upside down in the rain... it makes sense in context. But, I’m getting ahead of myself so I’ll just stop there.

Oh yeah, and there’s J. Jonah Jameson, played by J.K. Simmons, who is Peter’s boss at the Daily Bugle who is constantly asking Peter to get pictures of Spider-Man for him after he starts getting some buzz. I would comment about both JJJ and J.K.’s portrayal of the character, but the Internet has done it in spades for him. He hits the nail on the head, I’ll just say that, and it’s a shame because his screen time is criminally limited.

Moving on: the story, other than the origin and the other tidbits I mentioned, is very basic. It’s obvious that it was trying not just to be a film, but a film series, leaving hanging threads open such as the growing popularity/awareness of the Spider Man persona due to various acts of crime-fighting, the death of Norman Osborn in the final battle instilling hatred of Spider-Man in Harry Osborn, and Peter’s general struggle to maintain his secret identity and responsibilities as Spider-Man even if it means complicating his normal life. This includes not getting with Mary Jane at the end, because like all love interests who get mixed up with superheroes, it’s a huge gamble, it’s best to stay away. Of course there’s still enough hope left that they just might make it together… though I really don’t care to be honest. Sorry. lol

However, something that brings not just the story but the entire film down is the tone. You see, director Sam Raimi was basically going for an old school, “Silver Age” 60s comic-book feel, meaning that a lot of things are either super cheesy or super over-the-top. These things include Peter’s more emotional moments, some of the general dialogue, and even the deterioration of Norman’s psyche after becoming the Goblin (there are scenes where Osborn talks to his reflection in the mirror as well as to the mask he wears as the Goblin, an obvious metaphor for his “split” personality that really just goes off on a tangent. Again, I love Dafoe, and I could tell he was having fun, but geez, it’s borders on being a Saturday morning cartoon villain.).

This cheesy feel spills over to the action of the movie as well. I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but considering it was 2002 and the budget was only a little over a million dollars that probably mostly went towards costume design and set building, it wasn’t. That doesn’t save it from the sheer awkwardness of how it plays out. To put it in perspective, have you ever gone to Six Flags or somewhere like that and seen one of those live action stunt shows about Batman or something? Yeah, it’s pretty much liked that but in film form. Too much emphasis on having guys in tight costumes acting like they’re having a bar brawl instead of a big-action packed super hero vs. super villain fight. However, the sequences where we see Spider-Man save civilians from perilous dangers is much more entertaining and well edited/produced, so there’s a saving grace at least. Plus I’ll throw more of a bone towards the tone by saying that though cheesy, it has enough of a charm (in this film at least) to still come off as enjoyable, plus it’s not ridiculously cheesy either and enough consistent serious vibes are placed to balance it out. I mean, it’s not like Spidey pulls out a can of spider-shark repellent.

Other things to note is that the music/scoring are very memorable, being both very grandiose and compatible with Spider Man as a whole. I don’t really know how that is, though. I guess it’s just the style. Also, “Hero” is one of my favorite credits songs of all time. Yeah, the lead singer of Nickelback sings it, but the lead singer of Shinedown helped out, so screw it, I give it a pass. Oh yeah, and the wrestler in Peter’s match is played by “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Rest in piece.

Final verdict: “Spider-Man” is a good comic-book movie. It is not the best, especially by today’s standards, but there was enough of a standard at the time to be recognized as one of the most beloved comic book movies of all time. It’s hard for somebody like me to go back and give it a lot of praise, but like I said, it’s my favorite of the entire trilogy, so that’s at least saying something. Plus, at its worst, it’s at least a really good popcorn flick bar none.

I give “Spider-Man” a 7 out of 10.

 

One down, two to go, ladies and germs, though my next review isn't going to be Spider-Man 2. I'm gonna try to do some new reviews in between my re-reviews just to mix things up a little, because I have a lot of stuff I plan to go through.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Firaga Sensei

[Pokemoncuzzie 271]

One thing I'm noticing here, is that your writing style is very good. You are very articulate and you explain your points extremely well in written format. Really just wanted to mention that aha.