Spider-Man

Sometimes I think I've got the American public figured out, and that I have my finger on the pulse of all that's cool and hip almost to the point where I fancy myself as being able to be an Ad or PR executive. I feel that I can pick a winner and see a loser coming a mile away, and that most of the time, most reasonable people will agree with me. For Instance, last summer when I saw "The Others" and loved it, I just knew the general public would not appreciate an excellent piece of film making that did not include a lot of special effects. To my surprise the public "got it" and made The Others" a big hit. That made me think that most of the time people know a good and creative film when they see one, and will support it. For the most part this true, but every now and again I find myself stupified by the public's position for or against a particular movie; I then am faced with the realization that I don't know anything.

Everybody, including myself, is now hip to the opening weekend bonanza that saturation marketing provides to a lot of very weak movies. So if your like me, you give it a week or two to let the hype die down and the word of mouth circulate, which it usually does, and the natural order of things takes effect with the pretenders falling by the waste side and the movies with legs sticking around. Spiderman "the movie" is a freak, I don't know how it's doing this!! Spiderman is the biggest stink bomb of the year, yet it seems to have everybody fooled to the tune of $200 million. What are you people looking at!! This movie stinks on so many different levels it's kind of difficult to figure out where to start.

Maybe the best place to start is the epicenter of most of the hype, which is the special effects. In my humble opinion, the computer generated effects in this movie are drastically overused and cartoonish. If I was into cartoons I could have stayed home and watched a better one on the cartoon channel. The effects were no where near realistic, which was a big help in making the movie as bad as it was. There was no suspension of disbelief because the scenes were so obviously computer generated almost all of the time. The fight scenes lacked artistry and imagination; and they weren't helped any by a lackluster story that had not one viable surprise in it. To sum up, the effects looked cheap; there is just no better way to put it, there, I said it, it's now out there, and I just don't see how it's not as obvious to you guys (90% recommended, please!) as it is to me. I think they went about this thing all wrong. I knew there was something wrong when I saw the trailers. I was saying to myself "This can't be the real movie their going to put out, this looks like it's animated". I kept seeing the trailers and thought that there had to be more to it; but there wasn't. All these computer generated effects are being overdone; I hope future movie makers will begin to move away from this kind of crutch as I see it. I think that some think these effects are a substitute for a good idea. If they are to be used they should be used to enhance the physical performance of the actors or stunt people as in the originator "The Matrix" and more recently in Blade II". Even more ideally I would like to see more effects creativity in the style of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" which surprisingly didn't use much, if any computer generation.

Moving on to the cast. While Tobey Mcquire seems like a likeable guy, he just is not Spider man. Am I the only one who remembers the old Spiderman cartoon. Is it just me or did the old Peter Parker have a bit more of an edge to him than portrayed in this movie. I remember Peter Parker being a loner, but a little sarcastic, and a lot more self assured. The old Spider man seemed dark and mysterious, sometimes brooding. This Spider man just seemed goofy and pathetic at times. Just let's go through the rest of the cast really quick, because it's really not that important. Willem Dafoe shows that he is a recent graduate of the William Shatner school of method acting in his performance as the Green Goblin. Green Goblin's son...who cares??. Kirsten Dundst while being a hottie is wasted in this movie. When she is not being summarily reamed out by her abusive father, she's dating guys she doesn't even like, and when she's not doing that, she's walking down dark poorly lit alleys in the pouring rain for no good reason other than getting rescued by Spider man.

Some comic books just don't translate well to the big screen, especially those that have also been cartoons. I think that the Spider man mythology may have presented some logistical problems which may not have lent themselves to being solved with computers. That being said, my one biggest criticism of this movie was that it should have been done in the flesh as in the first two Batman movies. I think it would have been edgier and more realistic. They could have then added in the CG effects to enhance it. But if they did that they might have to write a half way descent storyline, which they obviously were determined not to do. It might of necessitated tweaking the myth and broadening or adding to the idea of who Spider man is a bit; but when you make $200 million in two weeks, why bother?