SPIDER-MAN

Remember last year when I bravely rampaged over the concept of summer movies

using The Mummy Returns as the gaudy vehicle with which to demolish the facade of mindless blockbusters? …..(silence, perhaps a cricket)….well I remember and although you may not be able to quote me, I'm sure everyone was disappointed with last summer (Planet of the Apes). This summer, however, is shaping up to work out far more beneficially for us movie fans. We'll start by pretending The Scorpion King didn't happen and cut straight to the first real summer movie of 2002, Spider-Man.

This review almost didn't get written and it had nothing to do with my laziness (although it really did) or the fact that being associated with bangitout.com is no longer the boon I once thought it could be.

Surprisingly, it had more to do with how adequate and pleasant the movie version of the classic Marvel comic book turned out to be. I really hate to compliment a very good (but not great) movie that may only have been released to buy some executive a third yacht. Spider-Man is well tailored, well acted, and knows the delicate art of drenching a young actress in a skintight tank top (also, the advantages of using ice). Tobey Maguire, as the collective critical
world agrees, has embodied Peter Parker, to quote a well loved Pet Detective, like a glove. The series (after the money this one made we can expect a few more-Note: KEEP JOEL SHUMACHER AWAY!!) opens with a sturdy background on the Parker and Mary Jane characters and gives them depth so we actually care about the adventures to be shared in the future.

To go back to that Mummy Returns review - I criticized that movie and those of its kind (pure money seekers) for lacking heart; movies that are essentially laughing at you as you sit there with your five dollar coke (no ice =Jewish) and seven dollar popcorn (do you eat the crunchy unpopped kernels too?). Well, Spider-Man has heart and we need to thank a director who obviously is a fan of the character's lore and mythology first and a filmmaker looking to sell a product second. Sam Raimi has taken on a tremendous project and because of his apparent devotion to the process (character development + special effects), he has struck summer movie gold.

The writer, David Koepp (who wrote my last movie reviewed, Panic Room), spends much appreciated time letting us in on the evolution of a confident outcast becoming a somewhat arrogant (how could you not be?) hero. The only part of his writing that I can't seem to understand is that bizarre opening monologue (" If someone told you I was an ordinary guy….someone lied") that just doesn't fit in with the character of Parker or even the plot of the movie. Someone may have told him that it would be a cool way to open a movie…someone lied.

Willem Dafoe does very admirably as The Green Goblin with an honorable mention for the scene where he confronts his mirror image. Keep your eyes out for future installments of the series and the outstanding performances both comic and dark by J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson and James Franco as Harry Osborn, respectively. I was
even shocked at how passably the computer generated Spidey fit in with the pace of the movie and managed not to destroy enough believability to matter.

There is not much more to say here except that if you are holding back on seeing this one because you despise the same old in-your-face, frenetic, and dumb summer fluff, you should give this one a shot because it has enough
redeeming qualities to draw you into its web.