Amy's Robot

Spider-Man.Having waited my entire life

Spider-Man.

Having waited my entire life for this movie, it would have been easy for me to be disappointed. I wasn't.

Quick thoughts:

• What I liked most about it was that it captured Peter Parker's sort of glee and continual surprise with his new-found abilities in a way that the comic book never quite did.
• It's Willem Dafoe's campiest performance, I think, but there is something really brilliant about it. Occasionally, you get the sense that he can't believe the lines they're making him say, but then he seems to dive right into them with even more vigor.
• The fact that Dafoe played Jesus a few years back makes it more fun to see parallels b/t Jesus and Spider-Man, parallels which Dafoe's character comments on almost explicitly. ("No matter what you do for them, they will turn on you.")
• The movie's one false moment is when Macy Gray performs at a Times Square concert and is actually shown reacting to the events of the movie. The moment seems even more false when you realize that Macy is a Sony artist, and Spider-Man is a Sony movie. But, we already know Macy, despite airs of artistic integrity, will do anything to increase sales.

Salon's terrific review, by Charles Taylor (who usually hates everything), says everything else that I have to say about it, so I'll leave it at that.

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posted by adm at 7:33 PM | #