A boy, his mask and his cardie (Spider-Man / Spider-Man 2 (DVD))

Member Name: thehud

Product:	Spider-Man / Spider-Man 2 (DVD)
Date:	12/12/04 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Action, FX

Disadvantages: Dafoe's hamminess

The superhero movie thang has been a bit overbearing of late … you know what I mean, a bunch of guys in tights (or black rubber in cinemaworld) running round doing their superbusiness, eating their superburgers and going to their supertoilets … turn around and you’ve got the latest weirdo crawling out from under a stone and putting the world to rights.

The first Batman movie was one of the first (if you leave aside Superman, which feels like it belongs to a different age), and probably also the best, and many of these films fade into a relative sameness … they’re all enormous fun, of course, and eminently watchable, but they are pretty formulaic after all … no real problem with that, of course, if it represents good entertainment, but there’s no denying it…

The Spider-Man movie (why on earth make with that damned annoying hyphen, which seems to have come from nowhere) has a little bit more going for it, much as did the Marvel comic book of the same name, with its emphasis on the troubled real life of the hero’s alter ego, poor bespectacled Peter Parker, a put upon academic trying to make his way in the world and bringing doom and destruction to all who love him.

WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY, and all that … Born in the hours of the death of his Uncle Ben, and blaming himself for not stopping the killer, Spiderman (I’ll stick to the traditional Marvel version without the dash thanks) is a dark avenger on a mission to repay his debt. It makes for an interesting sideshow to the colourful and exciting action and provides a useful counterpoint to the run of the mill fare.

Made in 2002, and directed by Sam Raimi, the film remains pretty true to the comic book original, although I always remember Flash Thompson, the classroom bully, as having blonde hair, rather than the black spikes of PP’s tormenter here, and benefits from the principle.

It’s an absolute blast from start to finish, trucking along at a fair old rate, and keeping you pinned to the edge of your seats, even though the schizophrenic scenes with Willem Dafoe hamming it up for all he’s worth as the split personality of Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin drag a little. The manic flat top of J Jonah Jameson (played by J K Simmons) is nicely comic, but much of the drama depends on decent playing from Tobey Maguire as PP and Kirsten Dunst as the object of his affection Mary Jane Watson. Maguire is just about spot on as the geeky Parker, and apart from her weird front teeth Dunst gets it right as MJ. They combine pretty well, or at least as well as they can given the relatively short space allowed here for character development.

But Spider-Man is all about action, fight sequences and larger than life, colourful clashes between good and evil. I look forward to seeing Doctor Octopus in the follow up, and wasn’t really that taken with the Green Goblin here, but the staging and special effects are pretty decent and the move races along at a hot pace, dragging you inexorably into its sticky grasp.

You even get the appearance of the Human Spider with his crappy costume and gloves as PP tries to earn some dosh in the pay per fight antics against Bone Saw, and his cardigan like shirt is almost worth the entrance fee on its own. There are an awful lot of worst movies around than this and Spider-Man is one of the better of the recent spate of super hero movies.

Summary: