Flak Magazine: Review of Spider-Man 2, 07.14.04

If you've got $150 million and you want to make a blockbuster fantasy movie, here's what you do: Find a director who started out making crazy shock-horror movies, give him a lot of creative control, let him hire the actors he wants and get the hell out of the way. That's how New Line rolled the dice with Peter Jackson, and they broke the bank. Now Columbia and Sony Pictures have done the same with Sam Raimi and the Spider-Man series, which just might end up being the most successful fantasy franchise of all time, reaching a level of quality that more than justifies Avi Arad's conversion of the Marvel empire into a Hollywood machine. No, this isn't going to win any Oscars, but is there a better way for kids and adults to develop that common pop culture language that binds our society together?

The Spider-Man franchise is great pop storytelling: It weaves big themes fluently and believably into an accessible narrative — not so complex that it loses the kids but complex enough to be emotionally involving for adults as well. There's no Bruckheimer cynicism; the movie isn't just there to exploit the audience and then go straight to DVD and pay-per-view. Director Sam Raimi, who began his career outside the mainstream, is at heart a fan himself, and it's extremely palpable onscreen. Unlike Ang Lee, who tried to inflate Hulk into a sonorous Freudian psychodrama, or Chris Columbus, who used special effects as a defense against charges of bastardizing Harry Potter, Raimi understands what entrenches these sorts of movies in the pop imagination — making the correct comparison early George Lucas.

Spider-Man 2's opening credits are a slideshow of the first film, rendered in glorious comic panels that, reversing the standard effect, integrate the actors into comic form. We're not reminded that this is an adaptation of a comic book; when we see Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst's upside-down kissing scene rendered by Alex Ross, the movie becomes the comic. Raimi then reminds us of the exhilaration of the first movie by making a gymnastic drama out of Peter Parker's web-slinging attempt to deliver a pizza across Manhattan "in 29 minutes or it's free." At once, the hero is both superhuman and human. Who hasn't fantasized about using superpowers to defeat the banality of everyday life (in this case, NYC cabs)? Parker has money problems, which is causing him problems at school, and he can't be on time for anything because of the stress. That, and the girl he loves is plastered on billboards all over town, eyes sparkling as if giving him a come-hither look every time he steps outside. You can virtually hear Parker shaking as he stands in front of Mary Jane's apartment, rattled with self-doubt and embarrassment as he tries to catch up with an old friend he really loves. All this, of course, is simply the next chapter in Parker's human drama, a natural arc from the first film, which was essentially about puberty and high school. (Yes, Peter Parker being humiliated by being interrupted while uncontrollably shooting his gooey webs all over his bedroom means exactly what you think it does.)

Spider-Man is the most fragile and human superhero in the movies, which Raimi uses to develop a deep emotional connection with the audience, employing comedy to help us empathize with poor Spidey's plight. This movie is genuinely funny without resorting to ostentatious gags for laughs. After a dramatic rescue, Spider-Man, in full regalia, has to take the elevator. Raimi holds the moment to awkwardness, just like an elevator ride, until finally the other passenger makes small talk, refusing to acknowledge the fact that, hey, that's Spider-Man, and Maguire just shrugs. There's a lot of deadpan humor that keeps the film from being beset by silliness or an overwrought sense of dread.

That said, Raimi does something rather playful — when Parker decides to shirk his Spider-Man duties in an attempt to lead the life he thinks he want to live, Raimi scores the scene with "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." Somehow, the sheer bubbleguminess of the song seems about right: Parker may be carefree, but he's also more superficial. Again reminding us why Maguire is perfect for this role, the dorky Parker damn near jumps out of his chair to answer questions in class, spends quiet evenings at home fixing his bikes and starts cheefully hanging out at the library. At the end of the sequence, Raimi focuses in Maguire's goofy, Cider House Rules-orphan smile, freeze-framing on his blurred glasses. The scene is a giant gut laugh, and at the same time tells us everything we need to know about the character in that moment. Raimi is clearly having fun with this movie, tipping his hat to the Raimi fanboys in the audience, just to assure us that he hasn't forgotten. J.K. Simmons, a Raimi favorite, steals every scene as the gruff newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson, and there's even a chainsaw out of Raimi's seminal Evil Dead movies. Spider-Man 2 is a blockbuster with the scrappiness of an indie.

Classing up the venture is Tony and Oscar nominee Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus. Ian McKellen has shown that great stage actors, even British Shakespearian ones, can work wonders in Hollywood if they completely buy into the material. Sir Alec Guiness hated being Obi-Wan Kenobi, but you can almost see McKellen's glee as he intones Tolkien's sagacities or plays up the maniacal evil of Magneto. Molina clearly buys what Raimi's selling, to the point he's even willing to walk around with his shirt unbuttoned down to his gut while he smashes stuff with his giant metal octo-arms. In fact, Molina's Otto Octavius has a lot of the promiscuous smarm and intellectual pretension of his Diego Rivera in Frida. That film cast him as King Kong in a fantasy sequence in which he lugged Frida to the top of the Empire State Building, which presages much of what Molina does here. The other villian, James Franco's Harry Osborn, is all yuppie slickness — an American Psycho, the urban capitalist who can't be trusted or resisted. Osborn and Parker have one of those doomed relationships because of their stations in life, but Franco's Osborn has depth because he's torn between his natural feelings for his best friend and his responsibility toward his father. The relationship is familiar enough to be accessible, with enough depth to intriguing for a series of movies. It's not Shakespeare, or maybe it is: Franco's Hamlet act in front of the ghost of his father wouldn't have worked if he weren't so convincing.

As Mary Jane, Kirsten Dunst develops a character layered enough to be a credible love interest. Sure, she's pretty and strong-willed, but the formerly impoverished MJ also feels the pragmatic pull of dating rich men who treat her well, even if she is just a trophy. She seems aware of this contradiction, and it gives her a tragic edge that most blockbuster eye candy doesn't quite muster. Being the artist and drama queen, her attraction to the melancholic Parker is believable, and it's pretty clear that because her boyfriend is most interested in an arm ornament for his business-related dinner parties, she needs some attention as well. Yet her beau's not mean to her and lavishes her with gifts, making Parker's weakness disconcerting. MJ, in her profession and her life, is an actress, and that's how she gets by. Whenever Parker tries to make good on a broken promise, he tries to rekindle the puppy-love memories: "I've been reading poetry," he says. "Whatever that means," she shoots back. It's the illusion she wants in each man, and it's the illusion each man wants in her. Raimi, with an eye toward the audience, encapsulates this when Peter stares forlornly at billboards of MJ and Harry applauds too wildly after staring blankly at her performance in "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Raimi manages to weave this illusion theme into his idea of what it means to be a hero. Parker several times tries to give up the Spider-life to fulfill his emotional need for Mary Jane, but it doesn't quite work for him. The first film was about Parker learning to use his powers; this one is about accepting responsibility for them. Parker's aunt gives an earnest speech about society's need for heroes, sacrifice, responsibility, choices … all the stuff on the promo posters in the theater lobby. It's rather standard, but it resonates in this time and place. Raimi even plays the Sept. 11, 2001 card, with Peter Parker, not Spider-Man, rushing into a burning building with the Fire Department of New York. Raimi makes a point of showing people's reaction to Spider-Man when threatened with the mass destruction of Manhattan. Yet because Spider-Man is so human, we see his superpowers are really just an extension of his bravery in the face of adversity. Again, these aren't groundbreaking ideas, and Raimi doesn't pretend that they are; he simply develops his story around the idea and lets it play out in his characters. This is the essence of comic-book writing, why it appeals to the kid and stays with the adult.

Indeed, one of the charges of the comic-book film director is capturing that comic feel and look on film, graciously nodding to the spirit of the original as if to give the film some authenticity. In last year's blockbuster bomb, Hulk, Ang Lee divided the screen into quadrants, flipping pages to more quadrants, all with simultaneous action building toward an action climax. It was a neat experiment, and many serious-minded moviegoers and critics appreciated the effort. Raimi's method, however, is a lot simpler and more effective. His camera fluidly follows the action, be it a stunt-based set piece or an acting-based scene, until the audience feels like we've come to the end of a page. The camera then swoops in to capture the moment, and Raimi holds it for a second to let the audience process it, then cuts to the next scene. The result is a deft subtlety that doesn't artificially inflate the film into something overwrought and operatic. This is the work of, if not a master, someone close. Even way back in The Evil Dead, Raimi had a natural sense of how to use the camera as a narrator, finding the important moments in scenes and focusing tightly on quivering lips or dialated pupils, or leaving it still to build tension, or even positioning the camera as the bad guy, letting the audience experience horror from the other side. This separates him from a blockbuster director like Michael Bay, who insists on either thrusting the camera in the face of his multimillion dollar stars or keeping the scene and the audience permanently at a distance to be sure to capture all the ostentatious destruction the budget allows. Raimi never forgets about the audience's emotional connection to the character. Even when he pulls back to show us special effects, it's shot from a perspective that demonstrates the gravity of the hero's plight, not simply to exploit the graphics. Yes, Spider-Man 2 is a summer blockbuster, but it's still great filmmaking.

Hollywood might actually be doing something right with this whole new-century comic book thing. Sure, Daredevil was a dud and Hulk didn't pan out, but those movies didn't follow the formula: Find a crazy low-budget horror director, shove insane amounts of money and creative control at them, and just let 'em make movies. Look at Guillermo del Toro's modest, enjoyable, and certainly quality early-season hit Hellboy as another example. Also remember that if you plan ahead for sequels by developing storylines and characters intriguing enough for the long haul, then that old maxim "The sequel is never as good as the original" falls by the wayside. Of the two giant comic book franchises in play right now, audiences would probably agree that the X-Men sequel and Spider-Man 2 are better than the orginals for precisely that reason. That is why we can't wait to see the third ones. Indeed, this is the most welcome development to come out of Hollywood in quite some time, especially with the father of the summer blockbuster, Steven Spielberg, making "important" movies about life and stuff. Who knew back in 1981, when Ellen Sandweiss got raped by a tree and Bruce Campbell got splattered by red Karo syrup while axing zombies, that it would be the future of Hollywood?

— Stephen Himes (stephenhimes@hotmail.com)