Spider-man by Ahem

The hype is all over, the trailer is no longer a cinematic potential guessing game and the studio executives have hit their key criteria: making the type of profit that will allow them to keep their upholstered suite and eat chinese at the office during meetings.

But seriously, it's that old cliche: "When the dust settles". From the only natural over-reaction of Harry Knowles website and the equally conclusion-jumping journalists using their immediate report feedback as a rule set in stone, everyone in the media world has jumped on the Spider-man
bandwagon on impulse.

Spider-man is not the wheel. Spider-man is built out of the structure of Superman The Movie, and the reason is because Superman's new way of thinking provided success, and of course, the high standards that Superman set become a formula for ther comic book movie succcesses. Spider-man adapts Superman The Movie's structure to it's own story, and like everything after Superman
The Movie, Spider-man never dares go beyond where the Man of Steel's vehicle went before.

We have the origin of the characters powers, the heroes journey to adulthood, and then the film takes off with the villain's introduction, resulting in a double jeopardy scenario. It's a very conventional layout for any post-Superman The Movie superhero film, and the fact that Marvel comics have now adopted the format speaks volumes how great Superman The Movie is.

The film starts off with Sam Raimi's own frustrated perspective on adolescent school life, with Peter Parker bullied by those of higher social status, encouraged to conform and abandon his individuality to achieve goals. This opening, while dripping in high school stereotypes and plastic dialogue, presents interesting comparisons and contrasts to the exact themes found in Raimi's first comic book effort, Darkman. Much like Westlake, the doctor of that doomed movie, Peter Parker tries to exist and focus on his own interests, pursuits and hobbies, never competing and never aware of the aggressive social rat race. Westlake was victimised by those players of the rat race, who are able to preserve their own power through hurting others, and only through the destruction of his life, his true romance and work did it prompt the protagonist’s retaliation. In a sense, Raimi expressed his distaste for the working methods and conformist mental attitude of the materialistic late 1980s in which the film is set, and much hatred is forced on the film's corrupt yuppie villain. Less severe, Raimi's Peter Parker
dodges the school bully and hopes to one day woo the interest of a girl victim to a similar conformity. Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane lives a dysfunctional home life but follows the choices of the in-crowd as she turns down a night with Parker to ride the wheels of her Jock boyfriends new car, and cloaks her personal problems to earn a lift with to school with the cream of the socialites.

Raimi attempts to corner a double-whammy with a light-hearted approach to addressing two youth-based angst problems: the dysfunctional family and the social outcast romance. Of course, condensing these ideas into the obligatory twenty minute establishing time makes for the corner-cutting, convenient placement of MJ and Parker as street neighbours with adjacent bedroom windows, and a quick glimpse of a ‘wifebeater’ vest wearing, abusive parent, slurring at Parker’s young love. Such cookie-cutter stereotypes may help communicate the foundation of the basic romance to an
audience in it’s most simple form, but the presence of such crude codes and symbols at such an early stage in the film do stifle our suspension of disbelief and cheapen the film’s attempts at verisimilitude. Perhaps cruder is Mary Jane’s release of sympathy towards Peter in the film’s opening bus scene. By exposing these feelings in front of her peers, not only does the romantic element become immediately obvious and predictable on a melodramatic level, but it also shows that the scene is working one, familiar level.

With the arrival of the genetically modified spider, Peter Parker confronts the school bully, and this sequence does not only hark back to the film’s own structural debt to Superman The Movie, but it also illuminates that film’s superior subtlety too. In Richard Donner’s film, the Smallville high school sequence, lasting no more than five minutes, establishes conflict between Clark Kent, Bully Brad and their interest in sweet heart Lana Lang at the end of a football match. Lana asks Clark to come socialise with her circle of friends, and Clark accepts the invitation, only to be denied the offer by Brad, who sternly points to a stack of unwashed football kits. As the party drives away, Clark releases his feelings on a football that he sends flying into the heavens. Unlike the scene in Spider-man that borrows this framework, the Smallville scene contains no physical aggression, no violent attacks on either youth, or even a screaming voice. The whole Smallvile high school piece is delivered through dialogue, symbolic proxemics and subtle power play, demonstrating how even the mightiest superpowers are all but trivial in the domain of playground politics. In Spider-man however, there is a more sign-posted, literal fight with thrown fists, chanting observers accompanied by aggressive war music. To borrow from the structure of a twenty Four year old film, imitate the scene in twice the amount of time as the original, and with less of its sophistication represents a surge of mediocrity that prevents Spider-man from achieving classic status.

A following scene in which Peter Parker’s uncle Ben rearranges Pa Kent’s “if there’s one thing I do know son, it is that you are here for a reason” with the variation: “with great power comes great responsibility”, is even more self explanatory of Spider-man’s borrowing from the Man of Steel, and
requires little analysis in appreciating it’s structural worship of the pioneering Superman The Movie.

But let's just remind ourselves here, Spider-man was and always will be, a shameless Marvel comics cash-in on DC comics own flagship hero, Superman. Red and blue primary colour attire, employment at a "Daily" newspaper in New York City (upon which Metropolis is based), Newspaper editor is an old
school chief who stands his ground. Add to that a bald headed, rich super-criminal (not appearing in the Spider-man movie, as another studio won the rights), and much like the comparison of the movies, Spider-man the comic book success owes a great deal to Superman.

Structure isn't the only area where Spider-man follows Superman, it even comes down to individual shots, the most obvious being Spider-man's alleyway shirt-ripping scene, in which he exposes his superhero logo. While comic-book movie enthusiasts everywhere would call this homage, the deserved grown from the audience with whom I saw the picture reminds us that such a moment confuses the film's chances of finding it's own identity, and instead just reminds us of how great Superman the Movie is, as opposed to the character at hand, Spider-man.

One of the more unforgivable Superman-dependent moments comes with Green Goblin's gate-crashing of the Daily Bugle. in a complete shot by shot reworking of an exact scene from Superman II, the villain breaks through the wall of the office, grabs the newspaper editor by the collar, heaves him into the air and knocks his head against the ceiling! To top it off, the hero then makes his dramatic appearance by surprising the Goblin right outside the window. Coincidence, or homage?

Perhaps the most indulgently vile piece of homage/in-jokery is little brother Ted Raimi's turn as every speaking Daily Planet character in the Daily Bugle scenes. Audience members less familiar with the Evil Dead director remain baffled as the comic book and film fantatics giggle at this below one level gag.

It's not original, it's flawed- then what is it that makes Spider-man a winner? Well, for plain old starters, Spider-man is not a great superhero movie, but a great summer blockbuster - and it is all down to Raimi's optimistic, passionate, cinematic spirit. The story has a wonderful Saturday matinee feel that is uplifting, with a mad scientist intent on mindless destruction with only the webslinging
protagonist capable of saving the day.

Where the promising X-Men failed in it’s over-focus on po-faced drisel and dark characterisation, Spider-man, while lacking the depth of that other Marvel comics movie, has an element that makes it worth while regardless of content: fun.

Spider-man is a film made by a mainstream outcast working in the mainstream perimeters, and as mentioned, the tension from both sides create a lot of the films failures, but what it also achieves is a reflection of the director in the film itself. Tobey Maguire, who not only sounds and looks like Sam Raimi, carries the auteurs train of thought as Peter Parker, adding a naïve innocence that prevents the charcters portrayal as a generic twenty-something stock-type, and instead shows him as a confused young adult at the door of a new threshold. One of the earlier Spider-man sight gags, the controversial organic webshooters offer a metaphor for adolesence early on in the characters life, a tribute to teen self-discovery of new found bodily fluids and their purposes, supporting the film’s thematic motif: “with great power comes great responsibility”.

While compared to the comic books own knife-sharp, wise-cracking, Tobey Maguire’s own rendition of the character seems somewhat ponderous and slow, with an annoying retarded quality, a problem that works out of sync with the fast reflexes of the hero during the heroic action scenes, which works as a further problem regarding suspension of disbelief. If a guy can back flip, contort his body and throw a punch in a split second, why does he have trouble muttering simple sentences?

The greatest amount of praise in the performance area goes to the outstanding Willem Dafoe, whose Green Goblin could well be the most inspired superhero villain of all time. Dafoe brings colour and respect to the role, with true belief and spirit in all of speech-bubble orientated one-liners.
An amazing example of this would have to be the conclusion to the Incy-Wincy-Spider: “Down came the Goblin and washed the Spider-man out!” Self-awareness is totally abandoned, pride is never questioned and the line comes to life like magic on the screen, and it is this area that Spider-man
holds the torch above even Superman the Movie. Willem Dafoe, though highly respected, will never achieve the celebrity, household name status of either Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway or Ian McKellen, A-list acots all used to sell their respective superhero movies, and therefore has no
on-screen celebrity indulgence, just inspired performance. The moment that truly shines for the actor, however, is his Norman Bates style portrayal of both the Goblin mask and Osborn Sr., in a house not unlike the Bates Motel.
In a rare piece of daring on-screen convention breaking, he is visibly seen voicing both characters in a mirror confrontation. The scene is so demented and so radically different to any Jeckyll and Hyde performance ever seen that it leaves the viewer truly satisfied by the madman’s identity crisis.

Unfortunately, Kirsten Dunst, an outstanding young actress at the top of her field is wasted with a one-dimensional character in Mary Jane. As mentioned before, she is seen as a materialistic, conformist it-girl with a cute smile, yet any form of development in her character resorts to the crude
dysfunctional family stereotypes, so lightly handled as to appear laughable.
A sub-plot involving her pursuit as an actress also goes nowhere (perhaps if Disney had made the film this would have been the scene for the “I want to follow my dreams” musical sequence), and her random relationship with Peter’s rich friend Osborn does little more than justify her material lust.
Sam Raimi may be frustrated from his outcast perspective of desiring those out of one’s league, but by merely ignoring the character’s motifs and the enigmatic drive of popular young people, he leaves the Mary Jane flat and from an audience perspective, unworthy of Peter Parker’s interest. This reaches an incredible low in the film’s concluding moments where totally unpredicted she announces her love to Parker, in a cringe-inducing speech that gives her role all the credibility of a archetype damsel in distress. It’s also at this point that Mary Jane offers an offensively dated portrayal of young hidden love, making her character a dependent shallow airhead admittedly free of any independent thinking. Raimi then attempts to shock the audience by having Peter turn down her offer of a relationship, but this neither develops the situation or the Peter Parker character, it only displays the director’s own bitter reaction towards the unpredictable desires of young women, and such a statement seems incoherent and misplaced among the laminated stereotypes and undemanding simplicity of Spider-man.

And now for the more severe criticisms: Danny Elfman. First I will start with the Danny Elfman issue. Elfman, as you may know, produced the 1989 Tim Burton Batman, which broke ground in it's musical portrayal of a superhero, with Elfman's dark/oddball trademark sound, an imaginative and highly
creative contrast to the synth tinged melodies of Jerry Goldsmith's Supergirl and John Williams orchestral beauty, Superman. But almost immediately thereafter, Elfman began to reuse and imitate his own score. And I mean immediately. And in the comic book movie genre. First there was Dick
Tracy, in which a main theme screamed out a tired reorchestration of Batman.
Then The Flash TV series. And then Sam Raimi's superhero movie, Darkman. And the Darkman score is so derivitive of Batman, most listeners cannot tell the difference. And now Spider-man. Elfman's lazy, themeless and self derivitive score is excused by his recent light percussion fetish. well, let's be
honest, not only did Alan Silvestri do these percussion jobs MUCH better with Predator in 1987, not only did George S Clinton take percussion to the next level with his 1995 Mortal Kombat score, but this is also an era of drum and bass, where artists such as Roni Size (who added his drum and bass
wizardry to the soundtrack of that more musically fortunate Marvel character sequel, Blade 2), Goldie and Diesel Boy, so by contemporary percussion standards, Elfman's stab at percussion is light, superficial and out of it's poorly researched depth.

Musically, what Spider-man requires is a composer whose tastes and trademarks reflect the personality of the character. David Holmes did an incredible ambient-jazz score for Soderbergh's recent hit movie Ocean's Eleven, and he could and should have been offered the Spider-man job,
providing us with a theme tune totally unheard of in the superhero genre, just as Elfman had done so in 1989 with Batman. After all, music is part of the characters recognisable identity, and this is what Raimi's film lacks. On the technical side of things, it isn’t just the music that is a let down.
Neil Spisak’s sets are ridiculously D-rate; in the parade scene, the sequence is shoddily intercut between photogrammtery computer aided shots of Times Square, a backlot road parade, and an obviously soundstage bound façade balcony of Osborn’s skyscraper, drenched in uncorrected tungsten light. As if not cringworthy enough, during the action sequences, Spider-man leaps onto the wall of the building, which is clearly a foam mock-up section horiztontally spread out across a soundstage, and more embarrassingly, it flexes on impact! It is a shame to see that the baroque production design and built to last craftsmanship standard of John Barry and Peter Murton’s
work on Superman, Richard Mcdonald’s work on Supergirl and Anton Furst’s Oscar-winning Batman sets has disappeared in the computer based world of 2002.

Don Burgess ASC also contributes some of the most anonymous photography ever commited to a multi-million dollar production. Flat light, overexposed skies and nonexistent depth dominate the screen; this is the worst case of a misplaced camerman in a Superhero movie since Ernest Day produced similar work on Superman IV. Like Day (On A Passage To India), Burgess won an Oscar
nomination for a film in which most of the memorable visuals were created by special effects (Forrest Gump), so thereafter off that success he seemed a good choice for Spider-man. Like Ernest day, Don Burgess is one of the best second unit cameramen in the world, creating indistinguishable second unit
photography that blends into a film to the nearest f-stop, and that should have been his job here. Superhero movies demand characteristic, individual photographic and lighting styles to make the costumes come alive, and in a film like Spider-man that boasted location filming in New York City, every dollar must appear on-screen. What we get could have been filmed outside Safeway in Norwich, England. If one was to assess superhero comic book films of the past, a good example of New York on film would be Geoffrey Unsworth BSC’s wide angle, alien look at the city in Superman The Movie, or John Fenner BSC’s gritty, grainy street smart pulp look on Ninja Turtles The Movie. Spider-man could only dream of such imagination, as Peter Parker’s school bus drives off to reveal a barely registered Empire State Building against a flat, white sky. Additionally, Spider-man was filmed in a year with a remarkably warm summer (even the spontaneously lensed 9/11 video footage of the World Trade Center disaster captured brilliant blue skies and a sun soaked atmosphere), but you would never know from the on-screen evidence. What Spider-man needed was Jamie (Grosse Point Blank, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) Anderson, who photgraphed Raimi's previous film, The
Gift, a master of pulp bubble gum colour pallettes and thrilling angles.

John Dykstra, another ill-advised choice, brings more of the cartoony superheroics he brought to Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies, guiding a visual effects company that rhymes with “Phony”. The two dimensional, texture mapped 3-D cityscapes could exist in any version of Grand Theft Auto 3, and
Spider-man himself has been criticised by others to the point where even the sprite could become self critical.

Only James Acheson seems to treat the movie with the type of production values seen in the Salkind Superman movies, with the hero’s costume pushing the boundary on contemporary fads and returning to the days of variety and colour. Only the Green Goblin’s helmet (designed and built by Algamated Dynamics) fails to impress, but that blame goes nowhere near Acheson.

All in all, while no genre-redefining marvel, Spider-man is a huge amount of light hearted, thrilling cinema that may not be perfect, but it’s the best of the 2002 summer blockbuster crowd!

<<<Back to index