You Know It Makes SPIDY Sense (Spider-Man / Spider-Man 2 (DVD))

Member Name: BabyGirl*

Product:	Spider-Man / Spider-Man 2 (DVD)
Date:	21/07/02 (230 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb Special Effects, Excellent Spider-man Suit, Great Acting, Realistic Storyline, Great Cast, Brilliant Direction, Good Soundtrack, Entertaining.

Disadvantages: Green Goblins Suit, Danny Elfmans Theme Music

That day my brother forced me into the study to see the urgh...Spiderman teaser trailer, er so what? Well lets just say after I saw it I was HOOKED! BIG TIME! It feels like absolutely forever I have been waiting for this one movie. I have to be honest I have never in my whole entire life anticipated a movie like this. I don’t know what it was, I’m not really a fan of the comic or the cartoon but there was just something about this movie that made it for me one of the best I have ever seen.

Now transforming a famous comic book in to a big budget movie can be rather difficult, Spider-man has been in talks for nearly ten years to be transformed into a movie so the wait has been pretty long, will the movie disappoint the hordes of comic book fanatics though? I mean this comic is definitely classed as one of the classics and deserves a decent movie paying homage to it.

One of my friends from College happen to rave about seeing the movie before anyone else, well lets just say she managed to see it illegally, I just said straight I am not going to waste watching this movie on some poorly filmed pirate, it’s a movie you have to experience on the big screen and still I stick by that. This is a movie that needs to be experienced on the big screen. Don’t bother watching it on a pirate version or downloading it on your computer, this one you just have to see at the cinema. There are some things you just don’t appreciate or even notice if you watch it on a computer or TV screen.

Now Spider-man wasn’t out on general release until 14th June but I was so damn obsessed with the movie I booked several tickets for the advance screening weekend. That’s right I’ve seen it more than once, actually I’ve seen it four times now!

The movie itself has got so many good reviews, quite shocking for a summer blockbuster. Usually for a movie of this kind reviews are either rubbish or mixed but the majorit
y of the critics thought this movie was fantastic, and I so agree with them.

I don’t really want to give much of the plot away but hardcore Spider-man fans will probably already know the story. Peter Parker is an unpopular geek who isn’t really liked by anyone except his best friend Harry Osborn. Peter is in love with his next door neighbour Mary-Jane ‘MJ’ Watson although she fails to realise his existence. Anyway on a high school trip to a Science Museum, Peter is bitten by a genetically enhanced super spider.

Peter goes home feeling rather ill and reacts to his bite by passing out in his bedroom. The next morning he wakes up with a much improved upper body and no need for his glasses. Peter slowly begins to realise he has similar characterises to that of a spider. Strange hairs begin to grow on his hands enabling him to stick to walls and he also has web shooters coming out of his wrists.

On the other side of town Peter’s best friend Harry introduces him to his father, Norman Osborn. Norman is the owner of Oscorp. A company which runs science experiments, although Osborn may lose funding from the government as the experiments he has been running do not end with success. Wanting to prove them all wrong Osborn decides to experiment on himself, of course this all goes horribly wrong and we are greeted by the green goblin. Osborn isn’t entirely the green goblin, more of an alter ego who wants more power than he’d ever dreamed of.

I don’t really want to give away any motives so ill stop there shall I, but you can see from what I have explained that the plot is very simple and easy to understand, complicated it is not.

So you’d think some little geek being bitten by a spider giving him spider-like powers would be incredibly stupid...right? Actually quite the opposite. This movie made sense, I was a bit shocked at that but really it did. Peter wasn’t bitten by an
ordinary spider; he was bitten by a genetically enhanced super spider so the outcome of that little bite is quite unknown. Also the way Peter has to learn to control his powers is so realistic; I mean he doesn’t immediately know what he’s doing which makes sense. The story is realistic in its own way.

Peters love interest MJ, (played by Kirsten Dunst), shows the romance part of the movie. These two characters gelled together beautifully. I was so impressed with the chemistry. Firstly MJ is perfect as the girl next door. The way the two acted together was really believable, maybe because the two may have had an off screen affair, according to director Sam Raimi anyway. Kirsten Dunst was perfect for the part because of her girl next door looks and also is a superb actress. This role didn’t really require top class acting but she made the part her own.

There was a big fuss made over who would be cast as the new spider-man. Hard core comic fans had there own idea of what Peter Parker should look like. After much consideration Tobey Maguire was cast. Heath Ledger and Wes Bentley had also been considered. Personally I think Maguire was the perfect choice. He’s your average boy next door and has that very average, geeky look to him. Everything Peter Parker is. He’s basically one of us. He lives with his aunt and uncle and is a completely normal teenage boy, unlike the rich Batman, and he isn’t from another planet like Superman. He lacks the gadgets Batman has and isn’t invincible like Superman but still manages to be so interesting to watch as he learns to master his new powers. There would have been no point in having a buff bodied Peter Parker, that would have been far too obvious so I am really with the casting director on this.

Peter Parker is meant to be the average kid like us all who has this amazing power. Maguire is one of the hottest actors in Hollywood. I loved the fact that he could act an
d wasn’t gorgeous like other superheroes. Now he is rather charming and cute but isn’t straight away classed as eye candy for the female audience. This is what added much more realism to the movie, the fact that the lead guy in this big budget movie wasn’t gorgeous. Personally I think he did a terrific job as Peter Parker. He played the character really well, since the comic it’s been known that Parker is one insecure person who cannot let anyone get to close to him fearing it will reveal his identity as Spiderman.

Willem Dafoe plays the bad guy the Green goblin. I think he was a good choice as he definitely has the evil look to him yet he has another part of him which isn’t quite as evil as you’d think. The character development was really good in his case; he didn’t instantly gain superhuman strength and didn’t have the ability to fly but used a glider and green suit he captured from his company Oscorp. First time I saw the movie I thought his performance was only ok, but when I saw it the second time I realised his performance was one of the best in the whole movie. I just loved the way he played the evil part at one time and then managed to look all innocent the next. The way he is constantly battling his alter ego shows what a great performance he gave. Definitely had the stand out performance in the movie.

James Franco is also quite good as Harry Osborn. He plays Peter’s best mate and also has some issues with his father, I think his performance was decent but there wasn’t much to it really.

One of my favourite characters from the movie was definitely J. Jonah Jameson who is the editor of the daily bugle. Peter’s work place. Now this character cannot stand Spider-man and is very negative toward him making sinister comments about him nearly all the time. I think J.K Simmons gave a very convincing performance as the boss of the bugle! His whole tone was just hilarious
and I think he was there to make the audience laugh.

Also there were good performances from Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris as Peter's Uncle Ben and Aunt May.

The effects in this movie were just superb. Director Sam Raimi admitted there were some scenes he felt looked far too animated but was pushed for a deadline. Personally I think he is right to an extent but this doesn’t stop the effects from being amazing. There were some scenes where this was apparent but some of the other scenes truly made up for that. I was really impressed with what I saw and think they did a brilliant job. For one thing when Spidy swings from one sky scraper to the next is just amazing. I actually felt butterflies in my stomach as if I were riding a roller coaster! Seriously his swinging scenes are truly exhilarating! One thing that irritated me slightly is the fact that some swinging scenes were quite short and quick and some of the swinging scenes your all probably familiar with (from the trailer etc.) are just part of a whole montage piece, but trust me your in for a treat as there is one scene which took my breath away, and to make it better it actually looks real!

As for the fight scenes, I can say I was fairly happy with them. The final showdown of the green goblin and Spider-man is one hell of a fight. I was glad they didn’t drag on to long either as fight scenes so often do.

Raimi is definitely one talented movie director. I have quite enjoyed his past work such as The Evil Dead, A Simple Plan, Dark Man and The Gift. There was something truly different about those movies. The Gift held a lot of mystery and had a very eerie feel to it, the direction was very good and somehow Raimi has incorporated those same factors into this blockbuster. He’s added his own personal touch to them making it a very original movie. Now Raimi himself is a huge comic book fan so I think they got the right person to direct this, he’s
managed to do everything right and even incorporate some factors from the comic book into the actual movie.

Now the suit, many might say it’s far too colourful but I loved it. I thought it was perfect, it was the right colours, easy to spot and most of all Spider-man looked good. Three time Oscar winning costume designer James Acheson designed a superb spidy outfit. I was very impressed; the brightness of the suit makes it look as if it’s just jumped off the pages of the comic. He deserves another Oscar for this one! Even though I was very impressed with Spider-man’s costume I was quite disappointed with the green goblins costume. I felt it looked too over the top. It was a metallic shade of green and even though it seemed to be more animated than not it still seemed a bit out of place, especially alongside Spider-man’s suit.

One thing I loved about this movie was the way scenes jumped from one to the next. It all fitted together perfectly and gave the movie much more originality. It wasn’t like all the other superhero classics; it was different and good in its own right. It wasn’t confusing at all the way the scenes changed; it truly made the movie a lot more exciting and made it flow more easily.

I loved this movie because it is so bright and colourful, compared to Batman which is quite dark and sinister. The movie is one for everyone, I believe that. It has elements of an action movie, romance and comedy and these genres do not clash in any way. The comedy was in all the appropriate places and so was the action and romance. If you hate action movies don’t dismiss this one straight away, I’m sure the other elements of the movie would keep you entertained. The movie isn’t all dark and serious so you can expect to laugh out loud. I mean there are parts in this movie for the boys (the action) and for the girls (the romance) and for both (the comedy).

The one thing I was rea
lly disappointed with in this movie was the music. Danny Elfman is a superb composer, composing music for such movies as Batman, Dark Man, Mission Impossible and the TV series The Simpsons. The theme music was basically highly unoriginal; I’ve heard it all before. It seemed totally uninspired and sounded far too similar to that of Batman with elements of the Dark Man theme in there somewhere as well. Personally I feel Elfman did a lazy job. The music was unmemorable and a major disappointment.

Now being a Spider-man fanatic I ended up purchasing the soundtrack and I must say I was very pleasantly surprised. The soundtrack is any rock fan’s dream containing songs from The Strokes, Chad Kroeger (of Nickelback), The Hives, Sum41, Alien Ant Farm and Injected. My favourite song off the whole album is definitely Chad Kroeger’s song Hero. It’s just a spine tingling rock song which really goes with the movie. Another more commercial song is Sum41’s song What Were All About which is just an upbeat song you can bop your head to. I’m also a big fan of The Strokes song When It Started, and this is definitely one of my personal favourites. Also good songs worth listening out for are The Hives, Injected and Pete Yorn. These are my favourite songs off the album. Even though Danny Elfman’s theme music was rather disappointing the other songs will keep you satisfied. If you like rock music I’m sure you won’t find it difficult to get into this album, it really is worth listening to. 8/10

This is already one of my favourite movies ever. I had been waiting a long time to see it and it exceeded my expectations. I think it’s original, believable and makes sense unlike some superhero movies out there. The cast were brilliant and gelled together perfectly. I personally think this film would not have been what it was if it hadn’t been so perfectly cast. The script for the movie was brilliant, I was very im
pressed. This movie is just raking it in and it deserves to be. I really think you should go and see this; it isn’t just for the boys you know! I’m a typical girly girl and I loved it! Personally I think anyone can enjoy it! I loved this movie because it had lots of genres rolled in to one, it had a brilliant cast and most of all it was entertaining.

So this movie is done but wahay Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst have signed on for the sequel to this brilliant movie, which will be out in...2004 *sigh*. Can I wait that long??? I guess I’ll just have to go see this one a couple of more times to keep myself satisfied.

CAST~~

Tobey Maguire – Peter Parker/Spiderman
Kirsten Dunst – Mary-Jane Watson
Willem Dafoe – Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin
James Franco – Harry Osborn
Cliff Robertson – Ben Parker
Rosemary Harris – Aunt May
Randy Poffo – Bone Saw McGraw
J.K Simmons– J. Jonah Jameson

DIRECTOR~~

Sam Raimi

CERTIFICATE~~

12

SITES~~

OFFICIAL SITE - http://spiderman.sonypictures.com/
UK SITE - http://www.spiderman-themovie.co.uk/
SOUNDTRACK - http://www.columbiarecords.com/spider-man/

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