SPIDER-MAN (PG-13)
A few minutes into it, I was picking this movie apart. A scientist in the film itemized "insanity" among a list of side-effects, and that just really got under my skin. Insanity is a legal term, my friends, and even beyond that, it's such an umbrella of a term that it would hardly serve as a description of a side-effect. It's almost like someone asking, "what's it like ouside?" and getting the answer: "weather."
Twenty minutes further into the film, I hadn't encountered any other problems. It was good. But that remark was still under my skin. I remember, sitting there in the theatre, thinking, "jeez, that's just the sort of crap that they'd put in an old comic book or something." When I realized what I'd thought, I loved this movie whole-heartedly.
Way into the movie, I realized that this movie had brought something back to me, and that was a love of super-heroes. I've spent years focused on the wonderfulness of reality-tinged heroes. (e.g., Batman can't fly - he uses ropes and hooks.) I loved that about the comics - they made it more real, more likely, easier to believe that if someone jumped out at you from around a corner, someone could actually come along and save you. Or
you could do it yourself.
But here, director Sam Raimi puts it in your face. Don't worry about imagining it - Spider-Man is swinging around
just like you'd want to. He's hanging upside down and webbing the guns out of bad guys' hands,
just like you'd want to. He's making money off it - morally! - and getting the girl (marvelously played by Kirsten Dunst's breasts),
just like you'd want to.
If there was one thing I'd change about it, it would be the end. It was a good end. Nothing wrong with it at all. But there was so much that could have been said, that
wanted to be said... that
wasn't said. It was an excellent opportunity missed. but I won't go into that, because I'd have to describe the whole movie leading up to it to do that.
And you wouldn't want that, would you?
