Sam Raimi may be the first filmmaker ever to fully understand and appreciate the comics
medium and all of its nuances.
The movie itself is crowd-pleasing entertainment raised to high art. It anticipates, and
stays just in front of, its audience's expectations.
It's grounded in a good story first and foremost. The Peter and Mary Jane romance is
classic stuff. The sturdy "love rack" that writers of films in the 30s and 40s
used to great effect. Raimi knows that audiences then were as hip (or hipper) to being
manipulated and taking joy in that manipulation as we are today. The push and pull of the
background love story was tremendous fun.
Doc Ock's origin got a makeover that did not alter his motivations or personality. Adding
the affecting tragedy of his possession by his own creation added a wonderful new darkness
to him. And his fusion experiment scenes were done as Ditko might have imagined them. That
incandescent ball of light with great arcs of energy exploding from it was pure Ditko SF
effect. Even the appearance of the technology owed more to Steve Ditko than Kirby or more
recent Matrix imaginings.
And the many nods to my man and comic idol were good to see and hear. The Ukrainian
Ditkovichs living across the hall from Peter. The fleeting mention of Dr Strange. There's
an obvious appreciation and love of "Sturdy Steve" in evidence here. And more
than a touch of letting folks in the know into the heads of the filmmakers in their
acknowledgements to the man who created Spider-man.
Tha action was brilliant. The fight on the train was beautifully staged and one of the
most thrilling scenes of its kind in a long time.
Thge climatic fight on the rotting pier (again it was Ditko in every frame) was amazingly
blocked out and, for once, we don't end an action movie atop a tall building. Ock's end
was ambiguous enough that I can only hope he'll return. There's no WAY Raimi could resist
recreating the comic where the Doc's arms bust him out of jail on their own.
The most daring thing about this movie (and you have to be REALLY daring to go out on a
creative limb under the pressure of a franchise this mammoth) is how it tries to translate
comic idioms to the screen.
The soliloquies of Peter that faithfully reproduce the sound and feel of a comic book
thought balloon. The whole grand opera feel of nearly every scene. The endless sight gags
re-enforcing the perpetual loser status of Parker. The acting that goes to the very brink
of parody and stops just short.
It was a great movie experience and especially enhanced by seeing it with an audience of
newbies having a great, and vocal, time with material brand new to them.
The challenge of making a movie based on as ludicrous a basic idea as Spider-man is nearly
insurmountable. Raimi does it handily and he and Alvin Sargent (the uncredited scripter
for the first Spidey movie) were wise enough and dedicated enough to stick to what worked
so well in those early Lee-Ditko stories.
My only regret is that the deservedly curmudgeonly Steve Ditko can never have all those
decades of heartbreak made up to him. No amount of cash in the world (and he has turned
back millions from what I am lead to understand) can ease the pain he had to have felt at
watching his creation bowdlerized and dumbed down and sold like so many heads of lettuce
for so many years.
This movie series is a vindication of his original vision of the character. It’s an
homage and a honor to him. But it comes too late.