Spider-mania (From Western Telegraph)

Spider-mania

Spider-man Director Sam Raimi Starring Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco. Cert. 12. Dur. 121 mins.

The biggest swinger in the USA is finally arriving on this side of the pond. If you want to avoid all that is Spideyfied over the summer, youd better get yourself cut off from the world until the next Lord Of The Rings comes out in January. Unless you plan on doing that, youd better give in to getting well and truly stuck in the web of the all-new Spider-man.

I must have been a wee nipper when I first heard the rumours of a big Spider-man movie. Superman had made superheroes really fashionable for the first time since the 50s, but with all the campness that the 1980s had to offer. It wasnt for another ten years however, when Batman hit the screens, with all its techno-gothic action that Tim Burton showed the darker, starker, cooler 90s how hip a hero could be.

The Spidey senses in all the fans of the Marvel comic web-slinger started tingling. Unfortunately, the senses that studio execs feel are all to do with cash, not people in distress. They leapt up to drink at the superhero pool of plenty by putting a Spider-man together.

To their surprise they werent the only execs trying to drink at the waterhole and so they called their friends the jackals (played by gleeful entertainment lawyers). The jackals fought it out and only after James Bond was thrown into the deal (Sony/Columbia giving up their claims on 007) was it all sorted out. A big gamble on an untried superhero geek against one of the biggest movie franchises of all time.

A gamble that paid off - Spider-man took $114 million dollars in 48 hours. The sequel is already in pre-production. But is it any good?

Sam Raimi is not a director of films that make a whole lot of money usually (pre-Spidey, The Gift was his best). He is, however, a life long Spidey fan and he hasnt choked on the pressure.

For me the best decision he made was in casting Tobey Maguire, an unlikely superhero, in the title role, an unlikely hero who becomes super! Maguire plays Peter Parker, a geek with a social life about as successful as Wales World Cup qualification efforts. When hes bitten by a genetically modified spider, his life changes. Suddenly hes able to do what ever a spider can including fire webs, so purists will quibble that Peter Parker doesnt invent his own web-slinger as he did in the Marvel comic. Instead he develops mutant glands that he has to learn to control. This change is one of a few that I think really improve on the story.

Theres no world domination plot thankfully, just Willem Dafoe being particularly evil as The Green Goblin. Theres the obligatory love interest for Parker in the form of Kirsten Dunst. Her character is not very deeply styled but I liked her more than other superheroines.

Raimis Spider-man is not as consistently witty as it should have been, but his indie-film style does give more texture to the big, big summer blockbuster than some other a-list actioneers would have given it. Having said that, Spider-man isnt short on action either. Despite footage of the Twin Towers that has been removed post-September 11th, the New York streets are still a lavish canvas on which to paint this Marvel story.

My final criticism is that yet again this movie relies too heavily on a technology (CGI - computer generated images) that just dont look real enough. You might argue that this is a comic so who cares, but as with the cartoon failings in Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones, the sudden lack of reality jarred on me.

Spider-man is a rip roaring success and another must see blockbuster. VAUGHAN SIVELL