Spider-Man (2002)

Whelp, I avoided it for as long as I could, but I can no longer fight it. I'm back in Superhero mode.

And why not start off this, probably short lived, mode with the movie I actually credit to being the first superhero movie I ever saw. Yes there were plenty of superhero movies before this Spider-man movie, but for some reason, this one peaked my interest about superheroes. Not long after, the Dark Knight trilogy started. Then I figured out about X-men. Then I went back and discovered the first Superman movie... then I discovered its sequels... Then Man of Steel came out! And the tumbler of love and inspiration just continued and I credit a lot of it to this film. While it can't take all the credit for rejuvenating the comic book movie for everyone, (I think X-men may have beaten them by a couple years) it can for me.

But how good is it?

Well Spider-Man tells the story of Peter Parker (played by Tobey Maguire). He's an unpopular, social outcast who is in love with the girl next door, Mary Jane Watson (played by Kirsten Dunst).

At a school field trip to a science lab studying spiders, Peter is bitten by a radioactive spider and is granted incredible powers.

With those powers he tries to make some money to get a car to impress Mary Jane. So he joins an amateur fight. Well he wins the fight but is conned out of the money. Shortly after, the man who conned him is robbed and Peter lets the robber get away.

Unfortunately this results in the carjacking and murder of Peter's uncle and father figure, Ben Parker. Peter had just gotten into an argument with his uncle who had just tried to tell him that will great power comes great responsibility.

Thus giving us probably the most hilarious crying scene in all of comic book history.

From that point on, Peter vows to become a masked vigilante and serve the city of New York, fighting crime and rooting out evil.

Meanwhile, Peter's best friend, Harry Osborn (Played by James Franco), moves in on Mary Jane after high school and they begin dating. Honestly, Harry doesn't play a huge role in the first movie besides being Peter's best friend.

It is instead Norman Osborn (played by Willem Defoe) who is a more substantial part of the story.

Norman has been developing a new serum for human performance in his company Oscorp. His work has made him distant from his son. But in reality Norman connects more with Peter Parker than he does his own son.

When Norman's funding for his serum is at risk of not being funded anymore, Norman goes forth with human testing himself and becomes incredibly powerful, but at the same time, goes just a tad crazy, dawning the Green mask and armor, becoming The Green Goblin, wreaking havoc over New York City.

Now when I was a kid, I thought the Green Goblin was actually kind of terrifying. I mean its Willem freaking Defoe. Even when he wasn't in the weird ass costume, he was just freaky. And Defoe is actually pretty good at acting freaking insane.

And that brings me to the costume design for the Green Goblin.

What the hell?!?

You cast Willem Defoe as the Green Goblin, a villain shrouded by demons and illusions of evil and you put a giant mask on him? A mask that looks like a bad power ranger villain?

That being said, Willem Defoe, in my opinion, rocks it as Norman Osborn.

A little bit of a disclaimer, I don't read comic books. I don't really know how Norman Osborn or The Green Goblin was suppose to be, but I really like this version of Norman Osborn. I really like Willem Defoe as an actor and this was actually the first time I was ever exposed to him. He's freaking nuts, but he's good at what he does.

Overall, this is an origin story. Its how this version of Spider-man came to being, how he became a hero.

As far as origins stories go, this one is very very good.

As far as individual performances go, its a pretty good cast, considering the times.

Tobey Macguire is... an interesting choice for Peter Parker.

A few years ago, I would have said he was perfect for the role, and a nostalgic part of me still thinks he's the better Spider-man.

He definitely pulls off the social outcast element of Peter Park really well. I think the brilliant nerd is a very good representation of Peter Parker, a direction they didn't really take in the new Spider-Man films from 2011.

I think as a Peter Parker, Macguire nails it. As Spider-Man, he's... alright.

Peter Parker is suppose to be a social outcast and introvert, but when he becomes Spider-Man, he's suppose to be extroverted and cocky, almost unlikeable. Macguire however brings that awkward shaky voice to whatever he does. I think he's kind of funny, especially with the style of the movie, which I'll get to later.

I really like Macguire. I'll hopefully get to a review of comparing the Sam Rami Spider-man films to the Marc Webb films, but for now I'm just talking about the film.

Then you have Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane...

She's just... awful.

Especially in comparison with Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey (I know I want to just focus on this movie but bear with me here) Gwen Stacey is just written as a better character. Its not necessarily a comparison between the two, its more how they're written.

Gwen Stacey does things with her life, she's smart and helps Spider-man in his fight against villains. Mary Jane is just kind of there. She's the dream and she's the damsel.

And to be fair, that's not totally Kirsten Dunst's fault. She was given a horribly written character and was expected to make a well written character out of it. She does play that dreamy girl next door part well, but you just start to wonder, why is Peter Parker so smitten with her. There's nothing to say she's an incredibly good person and in this film, she really only thinks of herself and just kind of gets swept away with the things happening to her. She gets saved by Spider-man and suddenly she's in love with him. She dates Harry until its no longer convenient for her. In short, she's not that great.

Speaking of which, let's talk about Harry Osborn.

Unfortunately, I know how he ends up in Spider-Man 3... and we'll get that that. But as far as Spider-man one goes, I don't think there was ever a better choice for a comic book character than James Franco as Harry Osborn.

You can imagine that Peter and him would be friends. He plays off that look as though he hasn't quite blossomed yet into a real good looking man, but as we know in Spider-Man 2, he actually really does.

I think this was a brilliant choice of casting. Unfortunately, it is just executed horribly as the movies go on. I thought the ending of Spider-Man was brilliant and set up for a great motivation for Harry Osborn. A motivation that was not written well as the movies went on but it was a good start.

There are a couple of other castings worth mentioning. Ben Parker (played by Cliff Robertson) still is, to me, the Ben Parker I'm used to. Rosemary Harris as Aunt May is kind of a mixture of Harry Osborn and Mary Jane. In the end, not really that great of a character but starts off pretty good and slowly, as the movies go on gets worse.

And then there's JK Simmons as Mr. Jameson, the Chief editor of the Daily Bugle. Simmons is one of the best parts of this film just because he's such a character. He's so animated and really darn funny.

I kind of wish they would use him in the new Spider-Man films but this Mr. Jameson really accentuates the style these Spider-man films were going for.

I mentioned this a little bit in my GI Joe: Rise of Cobra review.

Here's that review.

But Spider-man was made in a time when Comic book movies were still pretty new. They weren't just taking material from comic books, they were trying to recreate comic books in live-action movies. Its almost a distinct style, with stylized angles and cinematography. Its the kind of filming that if you took a screen shot and edited it, you could put these screenshots in a comic book.

Its really a style of comic movie that is slowly dying out.

The dialogue is cheesy and campy. The action is almost that that you would put POW and WHAM on if it were in pictures.

I think this style mainly came from the fact that Superhero films were still so new when this movie came out. Sam Rami is still one of the pioneers of the wildly accepted Superhero films and he did what he knew, and that was the comic books. Why wouldn't he base the cinematography and script off of what they were suppose to be adapted from.

Its interesting because this Spiderman seems to be a mixture of the times. It seems to be calling back to the campiness of Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin but at the same time, embracing new effects and technology that X-men had started. It also started the actual storytelling that became suddenly more sophisticated the minute Batman Begins started up. So Spider-man 1 is a little bit of a mixed bag. At the time it was a stellar visual candy store with awesome action

There was an interesting blog post that I read that had an interview with Joss Whedon, the man behind The Avengers and a lot of the Marvel Universe. He started talking about how much things changed when the Dark Knight Trilogy began. I'm probably going to do a blog post on that in the next few days, but it fits well, especially seeing where Spider-man was, and where it is now. It creates the question, are these movies suppose to be adapting comic books into movies or making movies from the subject of comic books.

That question will be answered in another post but as for the entirety of the movie...

Its a fun ride. Yes its cheesy. Yes it has outdated effects and stiff action. But Spider-man still to this day stands as a symbol for me, as one of the first great superhero films.

Sure things have gotten larger and more extreme, but its good to every once in a while go back to the roots of things and see where things began.

Its a film series that had its ups and downs, I think when all is said and done, Spider-Man 1 was one of Sony's ups when it came to the Spider-Man franchise.

Now hopefully, this has opened up a small series of me watching all the Spider-man films and giving my take on them. If you're an avid reader of my blog, you know that I'm not that great with film series. I lose interest, I can't find good copies of the film if I don't have it or its not on Netflix. It can be a little bit of hassle. But I'll do my best to get out as many Spider-man films as I can before I have to take a hiatus for the summer. I just finished Spider-Man 2, that review will be coming up soon.

So that's my thoughts on Spider-man. Have you seen it? What do you think about it? Leave your comments and thoughts in the box below.

I'll leave you with this. Apparently James Cameron (my favorite psychopath) almost directed Spider-man. There was a very different Spider-man about to hit the screens if it hadn't really worked out. Thank You Sam Raimi. Enjoy!