"SPIDER? I HARDLY KNEW HER!" (reviewed by OG)

It looks like the comic book world is finally getting its just desserts. In the last 2 years or so, comics have made a huge splash on the big screen, as well as the small one (The gory classic FAUST was turned into a straight to video flick), and for the most part, these films have teetered on the line between satisfactory and disappointing. Bryan Singer's "X-Men", for example, was a bold yet subdued attempt at capturing the comic book's popularity. While Stephen Norrington's "Blade" and Guillermo Del Toro's "Blade 2" improved on the original comic by leaps and bounds. Joel Schumacher's "Batman and Robin", on the other hand, sucked the ball sack.

Now here comes Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man", which neither detracts from nor exceeds the original material. This, however, is a damn good thing. By far, this one's as authentic as it gets, nailing the feel of the original comic book to the ground. It is also, as far as these films go, the most accurate representation of a story line I've ever seen. With a few exceptions (Spider-Man's webs are now organic, and his first love is Mary Jane Watson...not the ill-fated Gwen Stacey), Raimi's film captures every aspect of the world comic book fans have become accustomed to. Spider-Man is Spider-Man, the way we know him, and the casting is as close to perfect as it gets. Tobey Maguire does an amazing job as the famous web-slinger, and Willem Dafoe practically steals the film as Spidey's Nemesis, the Green Goblin. Kirsten Dunst, while not exactly the Mary Jane I remember (5'11 and stacked with T and A), does her best, delivering a solid performance through a character that is, thankfully, complex and intriguing. Freaks and Geeks' James Franco rounds off the troupe as Peter Parker's best friend, who as all fans know, ends up turning into the second incarnation of the Goblin.

Pretentious criticism aside, the movie rocks. It's 2 hour plus running time does detract from the momentum at times, but for the most part, Raimi has succeeded in capturing the origins of one of the world's most beloved fictional heroes. The special effects are mostly CGI (AKA: Spider-Man swinging through Manhattan), but they don't wear the viewer down. This is all a collective accomplishment worth noting. Any other director could have fucked this one up (just thinking what Tim Burton would have done to the character makes me shudder), but Raimi proves himself to be much more than the amateur trigger happy director he started as. That, and the guy is responsible for one of the greatest pieces of American art in the last century: EVIL DEAD 2.

One thing, though...that webbing on Spider-Man's arm looks way too much like the kind I throw on a nightly basis. Someone should look into that.

(5.20.02)