Spider-Man
Spider-Man is an action film released in 2002, directed by Sam Raimi and staring Tobey Maguire. The film follows Peter Parker, a bullied teen that doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere who has his life turned around when he is bitten by a spider that gives him superhuman powers representative to the traits of a spider. Throughout the film we then see him battle against the Green Goblin in a fight for Justice. This film has had a huge impact on cinema today. This is evident through the most recent film to break the record for highest grossing film ‘Avengers: End Game’. This is because Spider-Man was so instantly popular that other films like Iron man came out years later trying to replicate this same response, which in turn lead to the MCU. Whilst other superhero films were around at the time like ‘X-Men’ for example, non were as immediately popular as Spider-Man, which made 114.8 million dollars in its opening weekend, a new debut record at the time.
As this film was released in 2002, there were a lot of limitations in place for how much they could accomplish using CGI alone, something that most superhero action films heavily rely on today. Because CGI was only just starting to find its tropes in the world of cinema, Sam Raimi did most of the effects for the film in Camera. I feel that this gives the film a huge upper hand in comparison to the marvel films that we see today. This is because whilst the more recent Spider-Man films such as ‘Spider-Man Homecoming’ are a fantastic spectacle, they are drowning in CGI, and it’s obvious. Whereas with the original Spider-Man, having the majority of the effects done practically makes the film feel much more real. This especially helps the action sequences of the film. For example, in the final battle scene between the Green Goblin and Spider-Man you can see that to make it they actually had people throwing punches at each other and flying through the air dramatically rather than doing it all digitally. Sam Raimi was the perfect director to accomplish these in camera effects for a film with such a high budget. The reason for this is that before this Raimi was only really known for his work on the Evil Dead films, which were pretty low budget, meaning that he would always have to find a way to create unseen horror like effects in camera. Raimi clearly brought this same creativity to the set of Spider-Man. For example, in a scene just after Peter Parker gains his new powers, we see him use his Spider like reflexes to perfectly catch falling lunch onto a tray, but this didn’t use any wires or CGI, and Raimi had Maguire attempt this 156 times before they got the perfect shot. Raimi’s previous work on Horror films also shines through in this same scene due to the set itself. It is an old abandoned house with overgrown dead plants around the place, with Mise en Scene such as broken glass, and rubble everywhere. The lighting of the scene is also dark and very sinister. This is worth mentioning because Spider-Man should have been seen as a film primarily for a younger audience, and so shouldn’t have its final battle in such a dark setting, but having Raimi direct this film and bringing that element of the horror genre with him to such an epic action, is what made Spider-Man so entertaining for an adult audience as well. Whilst all of the in-camera shots were perfectly done, even though CGI technology was lacking at the time, the swinging scenes still look incredible. The film was certainly the best feature for CGI at its time. Raimi also did a perfect job of blending real actors into digital versions of New York City to give the film a more realistic feel, unlike todays marvel films in which some scenes are entirely digital.
When making a film like Spider-Man that already has a huge fanbase for the character before the film itself is made, it is vital that the film is appealing to a new audience, whilst also providing all the original details known to the character and his story by its more dedicated fanbase. Before this film came out the only other popular comic book adaptation of Spider-Man that was accepted by true comic book fans was the animated tv show that ran from 1967-1970. The reason that fans still look back at this show today as some of the best Spider-Man content out there is because of how the show stuck solely to the attributes of the character and story that had only been previously seen in the original comics written by Stan Lee. Raimi did manage to keep a lot of these original details in his adaptation of the story, although he did have to make some changes that a lot of fans were not happy about. For example, in the comics Spider-Man had web shooters that he crafted himself, Raimi did not include this and instead made his version of Peter Parker have organic webs. Raimi has stated that his reasoning behind this choice is that he did not feel it was a realistic idea that his Peter Parker would be able to create these advanced devices, which when looking at the storyline as a whole makes a lot more sense. However, even though there was a very small amount of backlash due to Raimi changing parts of the original comics in order to benefit his interpretation of the story, the large part of the audience for this film were people that may had never even heard of Spider-Man before its release in 2002. This would mean that these people going in to watch the film would be able to watch it with a far more open mind set, which I feel is what helped lead to the films success.
The casting for Spider-Man is possibly the best I have ever seen. Tobey Maguire for Spider-Man is an amazing choice for the role because he is able to brilliantly replicate the work of Christopher Reeve from when he played Superman in 1978. Superman is one of the first superhero films that had a high budget and received back incredible reviews, scoring a critical score of 94% on rotten tomatoes. The reason Christopher Reeve was so great as this superhero role was due to his ability to switch between Clark Kent, a push over character that’s clumsy and scared of everything, and world loved all powerful superhero. Tobey Maguire was able to bring this exact dedication to the role of Peter Parker, convincing the audience that he is powerless and hard done by in this cruel world, whilst simultaneously playing the role of a brave hero whenever he is behind the mask. Tobey Maguire was also perfect for this role because he was in no way seen as an action star by any means. This was due to the fact that the majority of the films he had been in so far were usually dramas and rarely action. This worked massively in favour for him playing the role of Spider-Man because the character is supposed to be seen as the last person you would expect to have superpowers. Another amazing casting choice for this film was Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin. This is because having an actor that has previously been in such classic films, like Platoon for example, in a film that may be in danger of being assumed to be a film for children will help to ensure that people understand this this is a film for everyone to enjoy. Another reason Willem Dafoe is so perfect for this role is because of his dedication to the character, I still get chills to this day when I watch the scene where he is talking to himself in the mirror as both Norman Osborne and The Green Goblin. It is in these scenes where he is playing both characters where a lot of credit is due to Raimis camera angles as well. He managed to always make the scenes appear that if an outsider was watching the film then they could easily assume that there are two twin brothers currently talking to each other. How he did this was by angling the camera so that we were on Dafoes back and looking at his face through the mirror when he was talking to himself as the Green Goblin. He would also use props such as the mask that he wears when he becomes the Villain as a way of representing the other person in this fake conversation. Doing this gave the scenes an incredibly eerie feel that left the audience on the edge of their seats as they watched this character slowly descend into madness through the film, before he finally breaks and performs acts of terrorism on the city in the film’s final battle.
One of the most important factors of a good superhero film is the costume warn by the protagonist. The costume that was used for Spider-Man in this film was perfect, it’s a perfect balance between what we have always recognised in the original comics, and a modern twist given to it by Raimi in order to making it more appealing to the new generation. How he did this was by simply making the colours slightly damper/darker, rather than having them look like bright blue and red pyjamas, as they did in the comics originally. If we also compare the Raimi suit to the more recent Jon Watts suit warn by Tom Holland in ‘Spiderman: Homecoming’, then you can very quickly tell which suit is real and which is not. This is because whilst in the original Spider-Man films they had Tobey Maguire wear an actual Suit made for the film during all the action sequences, in the more recent Spider-Man films the majority of the time the character isn’t even wearing a suit at all, and it is all done through motion capture. The reason that they do this is that they can get rid of any creases that would naturally form in a superhero suit like this one, as well as use colour tools to always make the colours of the suit pop, even in the worst lighting situations. Whilst this does make the character shine whenever he is on screen, it also has the negative effect of making him look slightly animated. Whereas, when you watch the Raimi films the character feels much more real, and you can tell he is actually in the scene you are watching, rather than being drawn in digitally in post-production. Another very important attribute to any superhero film is the costume of the villain. The costume warn by The Green Goblin in this film is definitely one of the films downsides. This is because whilst with the protagonists’ costume, they were able to find a good balance between the comics and a modern twist, with the villain they failed at doing either of those things. The costume is nothing like what we see in the original comic books, and the modern twist that they tried to give to the character simply ended up making him look like something from Power Rangers. In other words, it made the character look incredibly outdated, and gave the film an unfortunate generic trope of an unintimidating villain that we are used to seeing in kids action films, which is something that this film has been trying so hard not to be.
To conclude, I would still argue that Sam Raimi’s interpretation of Spider-Man is still the best that we have seen so far. This is mostly due to how Raimi so creatively replaced technological factors of the film with practical effects. This is what makes the film feel so much more real in comparison to most other superhero films that we see today.
