Being self employed has many benefits, one of which is the ability to play hooky on a Wednesday afternoon and go see Spiderman 2 on opening day.
I was in Knoxville anyway, picking up paper for my next print run (got a great deal; 30 reams of 20# 92 bright for less than $60.00) and decided to treat myself to a show. I figured that since it was early, I could save a couple of bucks by going to a matinee, and there wouldn't be much of a crowd.
Right. It's summer, stupid.
I bought a ticket for the 2:00 show and headed into the theater, which, 15 minutes before the show, was already largely full. The crowd was mostly families, but there were a few fanboys like me scattered throughout the crowd.
Just before the movie started, a family of four walked across the theater looking for a place to sit. It was fun opportunity to watch my childhood from another perspective. Just like me when I was a kid, they wanted to sit down front, up close to the screen, while the parents wanted to sit at a more reasonable distance, like, 10 rowa from the back. I think dad was ok with it, but momma was worried about her kids being that far away, and that close to the screen, so, after a brief consultation in the aisle, they all headed up to where I sat. The kids won a partial victory because they didn't sit with momma and dad, instead sitting a couple more rows back, while their parents took a couple of the empty seats beside me.
Then it was time for the previews. Talk about sad! The first preview was for a Tim Allen/Jamie Leigh Curtis yuckfest called Cristmas with Stomach Cramps, or something like that.
Totally awful.
Then there was the preview for the biggest scifi movie sacrilege since Paul Verhoeven's perversion of Starship Troopers; Will Smith's new movie, I, Robot. I'm betting that many of you reading this have also read the original collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov, but just in case a non-scifi reader has somehow slipped in, I, Robot was primarily an exploration of the complex behaviors that can result from simple behavioral laws, in this case the Three Laws of Robotics:
The stories were long on talk as robosychologist Susan Calvin tried to determine how some action by a robot could be consistent with the Three Laws.
It's been a litle while since I read the stories, but I can safely say that nowhere in them is any hint of robots rampaging through the streets. In fact, Dr. Asimov was quite determined that no hint of "Frankenstein" show up in his stories. Leave it to Hollywood to get it completely wrong. They've created a cartoon version of Asimov's robots; flat, and unappealing.
Fortunately, almost in spite of itself, sometimes Hollywood gets it right. Even more fortunately, Spiderman 2 is one of those times. (The review below contains spoilers. Leave it alone if you don't want to know. Short version is "The movie is good.")
Sam Raimi directs a script by Michael Chabon and Alvin Smith and Spidey co-creator Steve Ditko, and together, they stay faithful to the essense of the comic book, which was always more about Peter Parker than his costumed alter-ego.
We liked Spiderman because he was like us. Instead of a paragon of morals and virtue like most superheroes, Peter Parker was clumsy, inarticulate, (except when exchanging banter with his foes) uncomfortable around girls, always enduring a run of bad luck, and in general, just like us. Raimi and company remember that, and instead of a whiz-bang mindless action film, we get an actual-by-God movie!
The characters in Spidey 2 all face conflicts; they all must make hard choices, where the correct path is not always clear. Peter must choose whether to continue the path of the hero; Mary Jane must choose between security and love; Aunt May must choose between clinging to the past, or embracing change. Even J. Jonah Jameson has a choice to make. That's the mark of a good comic book; despite the fantastic circumstances, the people involved are real, facing real problems. Even the smallest characters are fully realized.
It was also nice to see a hero as fully realized as the villian for a change. My biggest gripe with the first Batman movie was the lack of attention to the Bruce Wayne character; we never really get to explore him, and see inside the Bat Suit. In both Spider movies, we get to watch as a young man grows up under almost unbearable burdens, and develops into a sometimes reluctant hero.
The movie is richer than the first; we don't need as much time for exposition, so we can get right into the story. Peter, as usual, is frantically trying to keep all the pieces of his life together, with less than satisfactory results. He gets fired froma pizza delivery job, lives in a dump, is behind on his rent, missing classes, and losing Mary Jane. His only steady income comes from Jamesona man who is happily trying to destroy Spiderman. His best friend, Harry, is obsessed with finding Spiderman and making him pay for the death of his father, which places a heavy burden on their friendship.
He's not living a happy life as a superhero.
So, for very understandable reasons, he chucks it for a normal life.
But not for long. Circumstances force him to realize that, for better or worse, he is Spiderman.
All the actors give excellent performances, made even more interesting if you know some of the back story. The staff at The Daily Bugle are all captured excellently, with J.K. Simmons doing an outstanding job of taking the most cartoonish of characters and making him human. The pain in his face when his son is stood up by Mary Jane adds tremendous richness to his character. A lesser actor would have played the line for laughs; Simmons lets us see beneath the bluster. It's the little touches like this that impress me about a movie, and Spiderman 2 is full of them.
Posted by Rich at July 1, 2004 1:30 AM | TrackBack