Summer Cinema: ‘Spider-man’
I must admit I was pretty skeptical when I went to watch “Spider-man.” First of all, no one has really made a decent super hero movie since Tim Burton’s first round with Batman. Second, I have never been impressed with Toby Maguire’s soft-spoken, if you ignore me I’ll get an Oscar acting style. Maybe that was why I was so pleasantly surprised.
Plotwise “Spider-man” was nothing new for a super hero flick. It went something like this: Boy likes girl. Girl ignores boy. Boy gets super powers. Boy loses something dear to him. Boy fights crime. Boy saves girl. Girl loves super hero, not boy. Bad guy fights boy. Bad guy steals girl. Boy must save the girl, save the world and defeat bad guy.
Usually these comic book turned movie stories lose everything but the above plot. “Spider-man,” however, caught the humanity of the comic books that gave birth to so many faithful fans. Sure it is the story of a man with superhuman powers who goes about protecting the city and the life of the woman he loves, but it is also the story of a reluctant hero – one who tries hard to do the right thing but ends up screwing his life up ever more in the process.
As Peter Parker (Spider-man) says himself, with great power comes great responsibility. Happiness is optional.
Parker is a high school senior who when bitten by a radioactive spider inherits web-slinging abilities along with a danger sense and wall climbing powers. He is an outcast no one notices except to pick on. He wonders why he was given this gift/curse. He is unsure and afraid.
Maguire did a wonderful job of helping us relate to Parker’s naïve sensibility and self-discovery. He didn’t have the body of a super hero, but hey, a padded suit does wonders for a man’s ego.
Willem Dafoe played Norman Osborne, a scientist who experiments on himself provide him with an alter ego, the Green Goblin. Goblin is a maniacal, high-flying, bomb-flinging wacko bent on revenge, and Dafoe shows us once again just how many maniacal expressions the human face can be contorted into.
Kirsten Dunst plays Mary Jane Watson, Parker’s love interest with a depth and maturity that has been seriously lacking in the majority of her recent films. Once again we see the glimmer of the real actress that was so visible in “Interview With the Vampire” and “Little Women.”
Her and Maguire have quite the connection on screen, and most of the people leaving the theater after the film were either talking about the high-flying special effects or that upside-down make out scene.
Director Sam Raimi played the cameras like ants, crawling this way and that, exposing the audience to one funky angle after another. The thing is, it did nothing but help the movie. Spider-man’s trip up buildings and through streets was more enjoyable and dizzying that way.
“Spider-man” has upped the ante for the super hero genre. It has opened the door for “Hulk” and “X-men 2” coming next year. It’s humanity will always be its strong point, and that will keep people coming back. Because whether we want to admit it or not, we can all relate to Peter Parker in one way or another.
Grade: A-