Spiderman

Starring Tobey Maguire. Kirsten Dunst, Willem Dafoe

Directed by Sam Raimi

The first REAL blockbuster action pick of the summer, and it is a solid winner. As a kid, I was a huge Spiderman fan, and as I got older, I remember thinking fondly of the character even after my comic book phase had (mostly) ended. This project has been in production for years, and now that it’s finally here, it’s very obvious they did one thing right. They made a SPIDERMAN movie. Avi Arad and Stan Lee at Marvel Comics have been hitting the movie adaptation homer like Barry Bonds in the last few years (X-men, both Blade films) because they have finally realized what it takes to translate comic book heroes to film. If you are going to take a comic book hero and have him played by a real person, the character has to be A REAL PERSON. In Spiderman, they drove that pitch way out to the deepest part of the park. Spiderman has always been one of the most humanized of all the superheroic figures. Peter Parker, before being bitten by the (here) genetically altered spider that gives him special powers, isn’t “one of us”, he’s the geek that we all picked on in high school. Ok, maybe he IS one of us. Anyway, he has problems with girls, one inparticular, his home life is a drag no matter how much his adoptive aunt and uncle try to be good to him, the other kids laugh at him, he has trouble fitting in, his life sort of sucks. After being bitten, his problems aren’t all magically solved. The continuing theme of Spiderman for decades, repeated here by Peter’s uncle and later Spiderman himself, is the “WIth Great Power comes Great Responsibility.” In his life as Spiderman after graduation, Peter finds this truer with each scene. DOes he want to be a costumed crime fighter? No, but his gifts and the events of his life have obligated him to do so. Does Spidey get the girl? No, and he shouldn’t. It took Parker decades to finally get MJ to see things his way, and here is no exception (not to mention its a great marketing ploy. How many people tuned in for months waiting to see if Ross and Rachel would ever get together). Does he have a mansion, or a superhero hideout? No, he shares rent with some roomate who steals his girl, he has some crummy job working for a jackass boss for no money, and he has to find time for his hobby which is, oh yeah, fighting crime in New York. In this, the film suceeds on another very Spiderman level. Spiderman is a New Yorker, always was. No Gotham, no Metropolis, a REAL New Yorker. He ate street corner hot dogs after catching the guy who tried to rob the cart, he defended Mom and Pop corner stores from thugs who wanted to rob them, he swung from the Empire State building. In a city whose skyline has beed so tragically altered, Spidey swings with respect and a kinship with his city that is reflected in many scenes, especially his climactic battle with the Green Goblin. Unfortunately, Dafoe’s Goblin is no match for Maguire’s webslinger in the acting or characterization departments. He comes off very very OUT if you get my drift, and campy as opposed to truly menacing. Overall, a very impressive version of this story with killer effects, a love story with chemistry just hot enough to keep us coming back , and a lot of summer movie fun. 4 cell phones for this one, true believers.