spidey sense

Why care about Spiderman?

I’ve been asking myself this a lot lately, as the unstoppable hype machine has geared up for the first of a long, long summer of loud and astonishing sequels. It’s been a while since I got undeniably giddy about a movie—last summer was largely a waste, except for The Devil Wears Prada, which featured a serious lack of explosions. But every time I saw Tobey Maguire, or even better, red Spiderman vs. black Spiderman, on a poster, I got that little thrill, the knowledge that I would get to squeeze myself in a theater with a bunch of excitable fans and gasp at all the right parts, exactly the way Hollywood wants me to.

I remember seeing the first Spiderman in May 2002, just a few weeks before I graduated high school. Early in the film Peter and Mary Jane graduate high school, and their robes were the same color green I would be wearing later that month. There it was—I was giddy. Driving home with a handful of friends we sped through the empty streets of our hometown, feeling that secret movie elation that you really are like the main character, you really are special.

The sequel came out two summers later, when I was spending a misguided summer abroad in Germany, mostly feeling sorry for myself and trapped by the language barrier. I was visiting Berlin for the weekend with an American friend and wound up seeing Spiderman 2 in the giant Sony dome at Potsdamer Platz, a Germanized version of an American multiplex if there ever was one. I was hungry for anything American that summer, anything that reminded me of home, so I was happy to spend 10 Euros or so basking in an all-American superhero. It was one of the first movies I ever saw in IMAX, which was a jarring experience when Tobey Maguire's face is 60 feet tall and crying.

So I guess it's with nostalgia and some wistful brand attachment that I've looked forward to Spiderman 3, willfully ignoring the critics who slammed the ridiculous screenplay and planning all the bootleg candy I would sneak into the theater. I saw it on IMAX at Lincoln Center, the theater that had made the most money for Spiderman 3 so far, and barely found four seats together. In the front row. Tobey Maguire's head was 60 feet tall, and about 5 yards away from me. Talk about intense.

In the end, I don't think my feelings on the series as a whole have changed that much. Number three is blatantly not as good as the first two-- there's far too much going on, and with three villains to juggle and Spiderman's secret evil self to reckon with, no one really gets a fair shake-- but it's still undeniably fun, which is just about all you can ask for in a big summer movie these days. I hope Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst don't opt to come back from the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh sequels that Sony is threatening, because there doesn't seem to be a lot left to work with here. I would have felt a lot better about the film had they let things wrap up in the end, instead of leaving things vaguely open-ended enough to bring Jake Gyllenhaal or Shia LaBeouf or whoever as the next Spiderman. When it started as a trilogy in 2002 it felt exciting, like a Lord of the Rings in latex suits. Now it feels like a money machine with no end in sight.

The details: Topher Grace is delightful, even with terrifying Venom teeth. Thomas Haden Church is frighteningly jacked, and benefits from some great special effects (including the ones that make Sandman look a whole lot like the smoke monster from "Lost"), and makes a pretty good sympathetic villain. (Grace, on the other hand, is totally unsympathetic, which is what makes him so delightful). Bryce Dallas Howard looks great as a blonde. Bruce Campbell somehow shows up in the funniest scene of the film.

That's a lot of new characters, and that's the major element that sucks the life out of the film. Sandman could have had his own film, as could Venom, as could Peter Parker's best friend Harry, who avenges his father by coming back as Green Goblin 2. Black-suited Spiderman, ostensibly the fourth villain of the film, is probably best left alone; representing Peter Parker's trip to the dark side as horrible dancing and a few crotch shots is cheap and boring, and succeeds in making Spiderman, for the first time, the most typical superhero: the least interesting person in the movie.

In the end, I can't hate Spiderman. He's meant too much to me all these years, the reigning superhero in America for my entire four years of college. In 2002 when he swooped through the canyons of Manhattan I longed to live there someday; now I do, but my ardor hasn't changed. And maybe this is just because I'm the girl who will stick up for Back to the Future III, but when you've got background material as strong as the first two films, you can't go all wrong.

This doesn't mean I'll see the fourth film (or fifth or sixth or...), though I might change my mind if some friends with some M&M's and a promise of popcorn are headed to the Lincoln Center. What can I say-- my summer movie standards are pretty low. I want to give them all the benefit of the doubt, which is why I'll put up with every single main character in Spiderman 3 crying. I'm probably exactly the example of what critics hate about audiences who ignore major flaws and accept movies with enough noise to pass, but even budding critics need their guilty pleasures. And when the summer gets hot enough and what you need is air conditioning (and the leftover energy to send you driving through empty night streets), then Spiderman fits the bill. And probably always will.