Spiderman: Special Edition

-Columbia/Tristar (2002)

Summary:

High School student Peter Parker is bitten by a spider and becomes the mighty Spiderman.

My Thoughts:

Films based on comics, more specifically superhero films, had become a bit of a pit of stinking money losing hell for film studios after the success of films like Superman and Batman had worn off. Things changed when X-Men paved the way for a successful comic book film, but Spiderman blew them all away.

The first thing I have to say is that the film has an overly long opening sequence. What is it with superhero movies and stupidly long title sequences? I hate waiting to get to the beginning of a film watching text fly around in a fancy way, much like in Batman and Superman.

Spiderman is the story of Peter Parker, a regular nerdy guy who gets superpowers. The film melds the classic Spiderman origin story into a modern setting, within the constraints of the film medium. The Spiderman purist may balk at the amount that’s been changed, but I say get a life it’s a film. Think about it, could you really have Peter falling in love with Gwen Stacy only to have her die at the end? I didn’t think so. Unlike the sticklers in the audience, I didn’t have much of a problem with what has been changed, but I think it's funny how small things like a radioactive spider that gives superpowers changed into a genetically engineered spider that gives superpowers. Like genetic engineering is that much more plausible as a means of gaining the powers of a spider.

Spiderman/Peter Parker is played by Tobey Maguire, perhaps the most plain, ordinary, and nerdy looking guy ever to star in a film. If there was any actor who was born to play Peter Parker in a film it's Mr. Maguire. What's even weirder is that this average guy got so buff that he looks good in the Spiderman outfit. You can't tell me that Christopher Reeves looks like you imagine Superman or that any of those actors that played Batman could do without the rubber muscles. Okay, MAYBE Val Kilmer.

Peter lives an average life as a smart, but under appreciated youth. He lives with his elderly Aunt and Uncle who love and support him. Peter's main interest in life is Mary Jane Watson, played by an ultra hot Kirsten Dunst. Peter is too shy to ask Mary Jane out, but it's not like he's noticed by her either. He gets bugged by the school bullies and his life is on the bottom of the social chain. His life suddenly takes a change for the better, or worse depending how you look at it, when he's bit by a radioactive… ahem… genetically engineered spider. From the spider bite he gets all kinds of great feats and powers, and he decides to use them in order to get Mary Jane. He decides the best way to go about this is by buying a great car, since all women are superficial (send hate mail to me here ladies). Peter comes up with a costume and enters a wrestling contest to get some quick cash.

Things don't go so well for Pete in his first attempt to get money from the wrestling gig, as he's screwed out of the 3 grand from the promoter. In the spirit of what goes around comes around, the promoter is robbed, and Peter lets the thief go. But, that bad favor is returned, because that same criminal kills his Uncle Ben. Okay, I'm going to admit something here. This Uncle Ben thing really gets to me. I don't know why, but it's so sad. When Peter was being a jerk to his Uncle before the wrestling scene my Mom nailed it right on the head when she said, "You should be ashamed, Peter Parker!" Good call, Mom.

From that day on Peter takes the line that his Uncle said to heart, "With great power comes great responsibility."  Good thing for him too, because at the same time a super villain comes around to become a big thorn in his side in the form of The Green Goblin. The Goblin is played by a crazily good William Dafoe. I don't know what it is about this film, but the casting is amazing. Dafoe plays the insane Goblin to a T. I've never really cared for the villain before this film, but because of the design and Dafoe's acting, it really works and makes me like the Goblin for the first time. Everyone in this film is great, including the character of J. Jonah Jameson, played by J.K. Simmons. Simmons captures how I picture the character perfectly in some pretty hilarious scenes.

In addition to the great cast, the film portrays how I always imagined Spiderman to be. The action sequences are awesome. There are only a few moments where the CGI looks crappy, but it’s overly forgivable most of the time. The plot is fairly simple and does the job, although it's strange that the main villain’s only real goal is to kill Spiderman, then fill in some evil plan to be determined sometime in the future. Usually there is a much more immanent threat on the world or city ala Magneto's plan to kill a whole bunch of world leaders in X-Men.

Despite all its greatness, Spiderman has its flaws. There’s a little too much exposition tossed around (especially in the Ben and May scenes). The worst flaw of them all, though, is the Macy Grey singing bit. I know it’s only for a few seconds, but it seems like such a commercial for Macy Grey who hasn't had a hit song in about four years and counting. In another five or so years her performance will be incredibly dated. I also thought the idea of a World Unity Festival was so contrived. Why not have a real holiday being celebrated, instead of some stupid excuse to have a bunch of people together. Oh well, these are really trivial problems I suppose. 

Spiderman is a great movie. It isn't the greatest "film" I've ever seen, but it does an excellent job taking the comic book hero and translating him to the big (and in the case of DVD small) screen. This DVD edition is the perfect compliment to the film. There are a ton of special features, and the surround is simply excellent. You can tell that a lot of time and effort was put into this two disc edition because it really shows.

Extras:

There are a ton of special features included in this two disc set. The first disc contains two sets of commentaries, one with the filmmakers and cast and the other with the visual effects designer and some of the crew. Both are informative and sadly, dry and boring.

There is a special feature called "Spider Sense.” When a special Spiderman icon appears you can go to a segment that let's you in on some factoids and behind the scene type of stuff. "Weaving the Web" is another feature in sort of the same way. With this on, there are some factoids that pop up as you watch the film. I don't know who would actually watch a film in either of these ways, but it's there if you need too.

"Character Files" is a poorly disguised filmography. Shame on you Spiderman!

The "Marketing Campaign" section includes the trailer for the film along with some commercials… ahem… trailers for other films. I noticed that the awesome teaser trailer for the film that has a helicopter getting stuck in a giant web between the World Trade Center towers is gone. I know that we must have respect for 911, but the World Trade Center did exist you know. Pretending they didn't doesn't do anyone any good. Also included in the “Marketing Campaign” section is a load of commercials promoting the film and one for the cellular phone company Cingular. It’s too bad that all of the Spiderman commercials aren’t on here, the Dr. Pepper ones were a hell of a lot better than the Cingular one.

There's two useless music videos included, one for the horrible "Hero" song that was a really big hit and another truly crappy song by Sum 41 that thankfully, I never had to hear on a radio, because it makes my ears bleed.

There’s some okay DVD Rom content on this edition, but I don’t understand the record your own commentary feature. What’s the point of this?

Disc two contains even more extras. The menus are more of a goblin theme to go along with the disc cover, which is a nice touch and it’s separated into information about the comic book and the film.

The comic section is really good with a great amount of information that will be of value for even the biggest Spiderman fan. “Web of Spiderman” contains such things as a very lengthy collection of interviews with some big time Spiderman artists and Stan Lee, John Romata, Todd McFarlane, and tons of others.

One of the coolest features is a section which contains almost every Amazing Spiderman comic through the years and highlights what happens in each comic, year by year. This is some great archival stuff that must have taken some time to put on the disc.   

There’s a good amount of pictures of Spiderman related art and even a rouges gallery that details many of Spiderman’s enemies. And rounding out the extras in this section and coming in as the most useless feature is the commercial… ahem… feature about Activision’s Spiderman video game.

The film side of this disc is the “Goblins Lair” that contains the HBO making of Spiderman and E!'s special “Spidermania”. Both are pretty dry and boring, with HBO being the crappier effort.

There’s a nifty “Director Profile” and a “Composer Profile” featurettes that each spotlight Sam Rami and Danni Elfman respectively. These are both pretty decent featurettes and blow the hell out of any sort of text filmography.

To round out the extras there are a couple of screen tests that are an okay watch and some useless gag and out takes.

I think there are enough extras to please, but my spider sense is telling me that there will be an even more special edition in the future. Why? Because, most notably absent from this edition of Spiderman are any deleted scenes. There has to be a couple lying around. Only time will tell.

Score:

Film: 8.5

Extras: 8

Edition: 8.5

-Paul