I liked the unpolished nature of Spider-Man’s web swinging actually. But probably for the same reason I still like Ray Harryhausen stop/motion special effects. I guess I don’t mind using my brain to fill in the blanks so long as the acrobatics/style/etc., are worth making that leap.
I hate the fakey CGI in most movies, but that’s because the FX artists don’t have their creations doing anything, um, amazing enough. The whole time he was web swinging I was thinking “Looks like fun.”
Go web go!
I though the web swinging was fine… There was just one combat scene (a gang, I think? don’t have the DVD yet) where he was doing some spider-acrobatics in the middle of the group that looked terribly fake.
I know the scene you’re talking about, and you’re absolutely right. I mean, it was so fake looking, 20 years ago and you would have seen the wires – like Condorman — but …
I LIKED that scene because if it doesn’t follow an exact early Spidey fight scene (panel by panel) from the comic books, it does a good enough job to make me think it follows an exact early Spidey fight scene from the comic books.
One thing SpiderMan got right, was the posing, so I don’t mind the CGI fakery if it makes me think of how fakey early Romita or Ditko art always looked. If they couldn’t refine it better than that, I’m glad they left it in.
Oh you did NOT just bag on Condorman…
The movie needed more J. Jonah Jameson. I enjoyed the movie but I wasn’t impressed by it. As wumpus said, it’s a good superhero movie if it doesn’t suck. I felt the same way about X-Men.
I like the Daredevil trailer too.
I enjoyed X-Men a lot more than the average super-hero flick. Maybe I just hadn’t seen one in a while when it was released.
You know what movie sucked was that damned Spawn. WHy has the HBO toon version popped up anywhere?
BTW, Futurama is moving to the Cartoon Network. Does anyone know if they are going to be airing any new stuff?
I liked J Jonah, BUT once I knew who was playing the role, it was tough seeing him without thinking of ‘the bastard skinhead in Oz’. I don’t normally get weighed down with these prejudices, but these are about the only two roles I’ve seen him in and it made it distracting.
Dafoe, however, rocked as normal. His best villanous role since Shadow of the Vampire (though whether he was a villain there can be argued).
Watching this with my kids as we complete all the live-action superhero movies that are watchable by kids (i.e. no Snyder/Nolan movies). Dang, this movie holds up so well. It’s the definitive superhero movie – right up there with Superman, but I’d say better. Homecoming is cute, but it’s just inconsequential next to this one.
Spider-Man 2 is better.
I don’t disagree, but I’m watching the first one and finding it much better than I remember. The first 2 make for an awesome duology.
To amend my previous comments, I’d say the middle part of the movie has aged badly – the parade fight scene has some special effects that aged really badly. The rest is great though.
I loved this movie. I watched it opening night in the theater. This thread is a good reminder though that it’s been a while since then. Maybe it is time for a second viewing.
Still the best of the live action Spiderman movies and still my favourite actor to have played the role. And such a great performance by Willem Dafoe.
I watched this with my kids at the height of their MCU enthusiasm, and I think they appreciated it, but they thought it was corny as hell. And I had to agree, as much as I like it. It took the mainstream superhero genre quite awhile to transcend (for lack of a better word) comic-book-iness. By that I mean the unabashed tropiness, earnestness, and straightforwardness of classic comics writing (which, by that time, comic books themselves had eschewed).
When Burton’s Batman made superhero flicks into blockbuster fare, I think one takeaway of a lot of filmmakers was that the classic heightened comics style was essential. I may be getting the timeline mixed up, but X-Men is the first mainstream superhero movie that, to me, started to feel like it was escaping that shadow, getting at once more contemporary looking and more serious.
Raimi’s Spider-Man feels like an artifact now–easy to appreciate, hard to find relevant.