It’s
crazy to think but before 2002 there were no superhero movies in theatres. The last
attempt at any sort of venture was with 1997’s abomination ‘Batman and Robin’.
Marvel had yet to make any headway into the world of live-action adaptions of
their heroes, but decided to begin with Spider-Man. Flash-forward to 2012 and you can’t go
6 months without seeing a new superhero film, Hollywood has embraced the genre
and made it one of the most successful of all time. Back in 2002 though
‘Spider-Man’ was revolutionary.
(I’m
not going to do a story recap since I’ve recapped this story about 4 times this
week, if you don’t already know the story then why are you reading this?)
This
movie has a pretty solid script, its characters are given enough room to
develop before they are called upon for forwarding the core plot,
particularly Peter Parker who becomes a very personable character for the
audience to latch onto from the onset of the film. The classic story of
Spider-Man’s origin is told with the respect it deserves and Sam Raimi doesn’t
ever try to distract from who the real star of the movie is, Spider-Man.
Raimi’s
direction is a great match for a hero such as Spider-Man, all the fantastical
qualities are there including the larger than life action sequences with the
wall crawler and the Green Goblin, but what Raimi really succeeds at is
portraying of the realistic aspects of this story such as Peter’s day to day life
at home and at the Daily Bugle. The Green Goblin in particular was handled
expertly in this movie and Willem Defoe delivers a performance as Norman
Osborn that will be incredibly difficult to top for any future actor taking on
the role. The main players are well cast for the most part but there are a few duds in the mix,
Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris did not the suit the parts of aunt May and
uncle Ben to me, they even seemed to old to even be such a relation to Peter.
The
impact this film had was enormous, as I stated earlier the superhero genre has
become commonplace since the release of this film and I personally think it has
a lot to do with the success and quality of this movie. The series may have
gone drastically downhill with the horrendous ‘Spider-Man 3’ and if I’m honest ‘Spider-Man
2’ is probably a better crafted film than this one but for what it did to
cinema and for the amazement it made me feel the first time I saw it, I can’t
deny that ‘Spider-Man’ was pure magic.
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