Welcome True-Believers! Spider-Man

If you've seen 'Unbreakable', then you've already seen what will likely remain the best comic book superhero movie ever. But, if you haven't seen 'Spider-Man' yet, you haven't seen the best translation of an existent comic book superhero available. It is by no means a perfect movie (or translation) but it's very close.

There are some changes that diehard Spider-Man fans might not like. The spider is one that is created through gene splicing instead of simply a spider who got hit by some radiation. Spidey's webs are actually a part of his transformation, and there is some sort of gland or such at his wrist. This, as opposed to Peter Parker creating a chemical web and 'webshooter' that he wears on his wrist. Some people may be opposed to these changes, and I admit I thought the web gland a little odd, but if the creator of the fellow is going to be onboard as producer, who am I to judge?


Our story in the movie starts off with an introduction to the true geek that is Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire - 'Pleasantville', 'Cider House Rules', 'Wonder Boys'). Encompassing everything that is a typical, high-school nerd, Parker is picked on, pushed around, is far too interested in science, and naturally has a crush on the most popular boy in school's girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst - 'Dick', 'Bring It On', 'Crazy/Beautiful').

Life kicks Peter around pretty good. Besides being the school whipping boy, he is also an orphan who is being raised by his Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) and Aunt May (Rosemary Harris).

During a field-trip with his class, Peter is bitten by a genetically created/enhanced spider. He quickly goes through a change and becomes (apart from differences noted above) the superhero we all know and love. Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

He spends a good deal of time coming to grips with (and playing with) his new powers. He masters his webslinging abilities, sends the school bully flying, and zooms through the city. The part of the movie devoted to Peter's boyish experimentation recreates, if not the exact content of the comic book, the mood of Stan Lee's original character discovering his new world.

Despite the fact that Uncle Ben gives Peter the long-standing tagline of Spider-Man comics, 'With great power comes great responsibility', Peter is really interested in capitalizing. He finds an ad in the newspaper for wrestlers promising $3,000 if anyone can stay in the ring for three minutes. Once Spider-Man takes care of the wrestler, he is paid only $100 along with a sorry excuse as to why Peter only earned that much. When Peter counters with, 'But I really need that money!', the wrestling promoter casually says, 'I missed the part where that's my problem.' Just one more way that life is kicking Peter.

Shortly thereafter, a man robs the wrestling promoter, and runs right by Peter who does nothing to stop him. Our friendly promoter is furious, screaming that he should have done something. 'He got away with the entire gate,' screams the promoter, and Peter naturally responds, 'I missed the part where that's my problem.'


As Peter makes his way back to where he is supposed to meet his uncle, he finds out that Uncle Ben has been the victim of a carjacking. Ben dies, and Spider-Man is in hot pursuit. He catches the carjacker and it turns out to be the same man he just let escape.

Had the movie ended here with Peter sort of wandering aimlessly into the darkness thinking about how true his uncle's words were, we would have had the first Spider-Man comic on film with an almost perfect translation.

However, we also have a 'meanwhile' here. Meanwhile, Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe - 'Mississippi Burning', 'The English Patient', 'Bullfighter') is having some trouble with his multi-billion dollar company. He is trying to preserve his military contract, but he has not yet perfected the formula for his 'enhancer', a drug that when taken into the body in the form of a gas turns people into superpeople, sort of. The unfortunate side-effect seems to be insanity, as judged by the effect of the drug on laboratory rats. How one determines that a rat has gone insane is not explained.

Faced with the threat of losing all that money from the military, Osborn takes the stuff himself and becomes The Green Goblin.

The rest of the movie follows the individual stories of Spider-Man and The Green Goblin, and shows how they come together. Peter's best friend is Harry Osborn, son of Norman, and he begins dating Peter's love, Mary Jane, creating a double triangle.

We see Peter get his early exposure to his real nemesis, J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons - 'Cider House Rules', and 'The Mexican', but mostly the psychiatrist from 'Law & Order'), editor of the local paper who ensures that Spider-Man is made out a villain in his paper no matter what he may do.


Everything else you already know. There is confrontation after confrontation between Spider-Man and The Green Goblin, and confrontation after confrontation between Peter and Mary Jane. Ultimately, true to the heart of the comic, Peter wins one battle, and forces himself to lose the other.



Sam Raimi is perhaps a strange choice to direct here, but he seems to be the right choice. Strange because his directing credits are a mash of a variety of none-to-greats (The Evil Dead series, 'The Quick and the Dead', 'A Simple Plan', 'For Love of the Game'), and he is the producer behind virtually every goofy, adventure, for-syndication television show in recent memory ('Hercules', 'Xena', 'Jack of All Trades', 'Cleopatra 2525')

However the choice came to be made, and however the choice might seem at first glance, it was a good choice. Raimi not only delivers Spider-Man, he delivers 'comic book' in a way we haven't quite seen before. 'Superman' had the feel (mostly), but it didn't have the look. 'Batman' had the look (mostly), but it didn't quite have the feel (though it was close). 'Spider-Man' has the look and the feel.


Most impressive about this 'summer blockbuster' is that it comes close to delivering the true heart of Spider-Man. Next to Submariner (who is arguably one of the best examples of an anti-hero in all literature, nevermind in comic books), Spider-Man has always been one of the premiere anti-heros in the world of comic adventures. As opposed to the 'lily whiteness' of most superheros we're familiar with, Spider-Man is not a knight in shining armor to the world even after his Uncle dies.

Also, while many of your more prominent superheros don't end up with the girl, they rarely turn them down, and they generally don't get them because they don't want the girl to know their secret identity. Spider-Man, on the other hand, doesn't tell Mary Jane he loves her in the way that a police officer on permanent extremely dangerous assignment might not want to 'get too close'. Where Superman and Batman usually fall prey to some ingenious trap or contraption to provide the peril, Spider-Man does not approach their (apparent, if not completely sensible in Batman's case) level of invulnerability, and one needs only really beat the snot out of him. Spider-Man's vulnerability and mortality are much closer to home.

This anti-heroness is almost captured in the movie, but not quite. Though it isn't perfect, the making of a pretty good attempt makes the movie that much more worthwhile. Let's face it, no matter what your superhero ought to do in order to remain true to the comic book, it still isn't the best idea (moneywise) to have your cute leading man turn down the attention of the cute leading lady he's been drooling all over the whole movie. Fairly brave. Not the most daring act in the history of film, but brave.


Everyone in the movie is incredible, with the exception of Kirsten Dunst (who isn't bad, just not incredible), and no one is more surprised to hear me saying that than me.

I had my reservations about Maguire, and he isn't perfect, but he pulls the role off surprisingly well, and any superhero who has become as entrenched as Spider-Man is a tough gig. Maguire almost pulls off the proper attitude when he is letting the robber escape, but he can't quite manage it because he's just too cute for a serious sort of callousness. But, when his uncle dies and he starts the chase, he does a surprisingly good job of 'really ticked off'. In most all ways Maguire does justice to Spider-Man and Peter Parker, especially along the lines of inner turmoil.

Willem Dafoe, likewise, is practically perfect as The Green Goblin. A role, one has to admit, that could hardly go to anyone else since Dafoe has more or less been playing the character in every other movie he's been in. Dafoe, Raimi, and screenwriter David Koepp ('Jurassic Park', 'Mission: Impossible', 'Panic Room') come together marvelously in some of the Goblins major scenes. Acting, directing, writing, movies, and comic books are all at their best in the 'mirror' scene where Osborn and Gobby confront each other.

Kirsten Dunst is not perfect, but she's good enough. She gives a realistic performance that, with a few exceptions, is about as good as anyone could do in the role. She is slightly distracting in the final scene, but otherwise she is more than passable. Not high praise I know, but she isn't really a great actress. The serious emotion scenes still elude her.

And don't forget about J. K. Simmons. J. Jonah Jameson might be a pretty minor role altogether, and even more minor in the movie, but J. K. Simmons has given us one of the scariest things ever to come down the comic-to-movie pike, and that's because he looks exactly like J. Jonah in the comic. Seriously eerie. For the first few seconds I was wondering if he was a computer animation.



After all this, yes, there are some things wrong with the movie.

Macy Gray is in it. Several scenes are 'stolen' (though some people prefer to call this an homage of some sort) from your other big superhero movies. We have our own version of the parade scene from 'Batman', complete with our own CGI character balloons and Gobby flying through/around them recreating the flight of the Batplane. We also have Peter Parker rushing down a crowded street while unbuttoning his shirt to reveal his logo ala 'Superman'. Macy Gray is in it. The CGI dance across the rooftops is not only absolutely horrible, it is totally unnecessary. Or, let's put it this way, if that's the best we can make it look then we certainly don't need it. It's one thing when you have a running across rooftops scene that looks bad because the person in the lead role was killed during filming ('The Crow'). It's quite another when there is a scene you don't need at all and you have perfectly healthy leading man available to rework something with. And, Macy Gray is in it.




All in all, a movie that is very close to perfection. Is it the best movie you'll ever see? I'm sorry, but I can't look at it that way. Is a comic book the best book you'll ever read?

It's got some great action scenes. In fact, there are times you can almost see the 'KAPOW!' It also has a pretty interesting and in-depth (though not necessarily a deep) relationship between our hero and his love. Sure, things are sometimes ultra-simplistic (though not as often as you'd think), but that's really what it's supposed to be. Most of the effects are excellent. And most importantly, Spider-Man is really Spider-Man. Contrast this with the fact that Superman and Batman of their respective movies were really much closer to some sort of 'common view' idea of who they were, as opposed to being absolutely true to their source material.

If you want a movie with a lot of 'mentality' that doesn't lapse into surreal 'rock'em sock'em' fights just about every time you turn around, frankly I don't know how you could be thinking about this movie at all. But, if you want a movie that is very much what a Spider-Man movie ought to be, then you won't be disappointed.

Unless, you are disappointed (as I was) by the fact that the thing doesn't start off with Stan Lee saying, 'Welcome True-Believers.'