With Spider-Man now back home safe and sound (for now I guess) in the MCU I thought it would be a good idea to take a look back at the characters’ first big screen outing in 2002’s Spider-Man, directed by Sam Raimi, he of the great Evil Dead trilogy and Drag Me To Hell fame. The film has an impressive cast with Tobey Maguire (Pleasantville, Wonderboys) as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Kirsten Dunst (Interview with a Vampire, TV’s Fargo) as Mary Jane, James Franco (Pineapple Express, Milk) as Harry Osborn and Willem Dafoe (John Wick, Wild at Heart) as Normon Osborn/Green Goblin. Surprising nobody the film was a box office hit and Raimi proved himself as capable with big budget comic book movies as with smaller horror movies and thrillers.
I put the film on, having not seen it in almost a decade and one of the first things to hit me was the special effects. Wow. Haha. Look I’m not bashing the effects work. The effects are very good in this film, but what caught me off guard was that I feel like I only went the cinema to see this movie last week! It still feels fresh to me and of course it’s not. Some of the CGI used to convey Spidey’s movements is a bit blatant but that’s not the films’ fault. It’s simply the passing of time taking me by surprise and what I can say is that Raimi’s film goes a long way to mix and match CGI with practical ‘guy in suits’ action to create believable and great action.
Plot wise Raimi’s movie follows the origin route we all know by now. Student Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider on a school trip and is granted great power. He learns some tough lessons and ultimately decides to do good with his new powers and thus Spider-Man is born. In a cool way the arc of Norman Osborn paralells that of Peter, as Norman becomes the villain of the film the Green Goblin, both hero and villain dealing with a similar sense of amazing power but choosing to use it in two very different ways. Both Maguire and Dafoe doing wonders and nailing their characters.
Raimi has a solid handle on the action throughout the film. Whether in the form of massive set-pieces – a Green Goblin attack on a street parade in the middle of the city is awesome, as in the final showdown between Spidey and his nemesis – or smaller and more confined cut-away or montages showing Spider-Mans’ reputation as a hero growing throughout New York as he helps folks out catching thugs and robbers. Yet Raimi loves horror and you can’t help but grin when you catch glimpses of that fun darkness coming through in this movie from time to time as Green Goblin explodes onto the screen out of nowhere like some movie monster without warning. I love that stuff about this movie.
Maguire, Dafoe, Dunst and Franco are good in the movie and looking back now it’s one strong core cast and no surprise Dunst and Franco went on to carve out careers as great actors. Obviously by 2002 both Maguire and Dafoe had more than proven their acting chops at that stage in their careers. The big standout in Spider-Man is J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) as Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson. Now Simmons is a big Hollywood name but back when this movie came out he was not as established yet it’s clear from his performance here that this guy has talent and charisma by the bucket load. Keep a look out for ‘unknown’ (at the time) Joe Manganiello and Elizabeth Banks in small supporting roles.
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man is a terrific debut for the Marvel Comics character who had more than a few stops and starts in his journey to the big screen through the 1980s and 1990s. Sure at times, for my tastes anyway, the film is a bit too sentimental for it’s own good, almost becoming outright corny but I think that’s down to me being slightly heartless (haha) and the film trying to ape the more innocent feel of Spidey as he was when he first came onto the scene in his original comic debut. Yet for Spider-Man fans this is a must watch movie and as far as cinamatic debuts go you’d just hope you could manage one as strong as this if you were about to launch a comic book movie franchise.
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