Spider-Man

Reaction: When I walked out of the theater, I was disappointed and angry. I mean I was fuming and could not contain my disdain for the film. It was like I had been cheated out of two hours of my life and I wanted my money back despite the fact that I didn?t even pay for the ticket. They owed me $7.50 for putting me through that dreck!

Expectations: Like any viewer, I entered the theater to see Spider-Man with certain biases and expectations. I have never read the comic books but was familiar with the background of it having watched the cartoon. More importantly, I was familiar with director Sam Raimi?s work. I knew that he had eschewed the canted angles and disjointed zooms and dolly?s of Evil Dead III and The Quick and the Dead in favor of more character development. I felt that A Simple Plan and The Gift had interesting characters with depth. Also, the situations in those films were slightly askew ? there was nothing very straightforward about the characters and their predicaments. I was hoping for a return to his older style, if not in full, at least in spirit.


Cinematographer Don Burgess had previously done, amongst other films, Cast Away and Forrest Gump and both films were very stylish and creatively shot, in my opinion, as they each had some great camera movement and good use of short lenses. On top of all this, Danny Elfman wrote the original score. I love the work that he has done for Tim Burton and Sam Raimi.


In short, I expected a fairly stylized film, one that would use some skillful cinematography to emulate, on a certain level, the comic book. I expected some goofy humor and to find the characters amusing or, at least, interesting enough to hold my attention between special effects laden fight scenes.


Commentary: Let me begin by saying that J.K. Simmons was great as J. Jonah Jameson and William Dafoe was inspired as The Green Goblin/Norman Osborn. They were by far the most interesting characters. Scenes involving these characters always held my attention, always left me wanting more from them. Beyond these two, everyone else was disposable. Well, except Bruce Campbell as the ring announcer. I think he?s great and his bit part was funny and fun to watch. In fact, it was the funniest scene in the whole film. This is one of my main criticisms of Spider-Man - the paucity of humor. I found myself chuckling only a few times. Were cliched high school antics supposed to make me laugh? If so, they didn?t. I was bored by the characters and their hyper-pedestrian development.


I realize that the film was not meant to be Citizen Kane and, from what I?ve been told, it mirrors the general spirit and method of the comic book. But A) this was not a comic book. We changed from one medium to another. And B) the film style was bland and ordinary. The characters, their development, and even the cinematography did nothing to betray the many developments that happened since D.W. Griffith?s time. Stylistically, this film was from 1915. Basically, it was only the special effects which gave the film anything 21st century. Even the establishing shots of the Osborn mansion were boring and repetitive! Christ! They didn?t even bother to make certain shots darker or cloudier to reflect the events inside.

I loved Attack of the Clones and its characters and their development were cliched as well. But I liked the characters, I liked their histrionics. The cinematography was not that of Gregg Toland, but it at least went beyond the bounds of making space and time coherent and linear to making use of metaphor through placement of characters on the screen and camera angles whereas Spider-Man seemed lacking in this department.


The special effects were good. The fights scenes and those of Peter Parker trying out his new abilities were fun. But they weren?t anything spectacular and they lacked drama, they lacked tension, for the most part. By the end of the movie, I was so bored that even the scene where the Green Goblin dropped both the cable car and Mary Jane seemed unexciting.


The acting was good all-around but most of the characters were so bland that the roles didn?t seem to demand much from the actors. Tobey Maguire was good but he didn?t put a lot of spunk into the role, the character was too shallow. Kirsten Dunst?s Mary Jane Watson had some credible ambivalence and confusion to her as did William Dafoe.


Maybe I went to the film with the wrong expectations. It seems that I have been doing that lately. I didn?t expect an art film but I did expect something beyond the near totally pedestrian. Things didn?t seem to gel for me and I found virtually no unique imprints from the director. I could have very well been watching a Joel Schumacher film. If Howard Hawks were alive today, this is something he would have made. Everything is straightforward, linear, and bland. Raimi?s perverse humor is absent and this is probably this film greatest flaw.