Spider-Man 2 - 07/05/04

Written by: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko (comic book), Alfred Gough (story), Miles Millar (story), Michael Chabon (story), Alvin Sargent (script)

Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Alfred Molina

Official Site

I'm a huge Sam Raimi fan, and was glad to see him get the first Spider-Man film... and, after seeing it a few times out of the theaters, I have to say that David Koepp wrote a terrible script. Just terrible.

Raimi didn't do a bad job with his directing, but one has to take into consideration that Raimi has never, ever had that much money at his disposal before. There were a large number of expectations with the film, especially in regards to the box office. Fans had to be pleased, the money men/women had to be pleased. Raimi has usually never had to worry about such things, because the projects he's chosen in the past have all be of the ilk we're used to.

But now we get Spider-Man, with a $140 million dollar budget. Sure, you've got the fan base... but fans have a way of turning on you. Just look at what happened to Batman, after Burton left. Or The Hulk. They made money, but nowhere near projections.

Well, even with the formulaic script from Koepp that was written in his sleep, the film still delivered on a number of levels... specifically all of the great stunt work and digital effects. Ok, some of the story was ok. Ok?

Now, I had heard that Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize winner for his comic book novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, was writing the script, and I was more than happy about that. A completely fresh voice, a fan of comic books... an original perspective on the character. I was psyched.

And then, I'm sitting in the theaters and I see that "Screen Story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Michael Chabon" come up. And then "Screenplay by Alvin Sargent."

What??? The guy who gave us Julia, Ordinary People, Nuts, Dominick and Eugene, White Palace, What About Bob?, Other People's Money, Hero, Bogus (Bogus?!?) and Unfaithful was writing a goddamn comic book script?

It made no sense to me. With the first installment, it was very easy to pick out all of the Koepp dialog, because it's trademark terrible. Sometimes he hits it right, with films like Stir of Echoes and Snake Eyes, but for every one of those, we get a Secret Window (I'm in the process of reading the story now, so I'll be reviewing that when I'm done. Suffice it to say that it was a great movie until the end... and since the ending is most important, the movie sucked) or The Trigger Effect, or some other lame film.

So, what was Chabon in this film? What did Millar and Gough offer? Millar and Gough are writing partners who have written some decent work in the past, including the Shanghai Noon and Knights films, along with the Leathal Weapon 4 story and Showtime. They're writing the script for Iron Man... so I guess they've got some comic book love in him. They're also co-creators of Smallville and written some of the episodes...

Besides writing the novel for Wonder Boys (and a few others), Chabon is writing the script to his novel Kavalier & Clay. He knows his fair share of comics... you can listen to him talk about the medium in one of the documentaries of Unbreakable. He knows his stuff.

The film also takes a portion of its plot from the Spider-Man comic, issue #50 "Spider-Man No More". Interesting, with Ditko and Lee getting credit as the writers/creators of the character and the comic... I found this similar to the predicament that The Punisher falled into, where Garth Ennis did not receive any credit for his creation of some main characters in the film. Too bad...

Is there a singular voice in this script? I don't think so. It's almost impossible to tell... and I think that's a good thing. Too many cooks and all... but I think in this situation it worked out very well. The story is strong. The characters are well defined... better defined than its predecessor. But the most important thing, to me, about the film is the pace. It's perfect.

I thought we were going to get a strong, super strong opening and then have a half an hour of zero action, followed by a second act set-up... followed by the big bang conclusion. But this film did much more than that. It broke open in the beginning and flowed perfectly throughout the entire remainder of the film.

Even the slow parts (read as character defining parts and battles of the self) were done in a timely and entertaining fashion.

And I have to congratulate Raimi for this, I think. I think that after the first film, he had a handle on what he did right and wrong from the first movie. Read as they didn't hire Koepp again, they didn't take things too seriously, and they had fun with the film, the pressure being relieved a great deal to perform.

There are some trademark Raimi moments in this film that go back to Evil Dead I and II and Darkman. I was happy to see some of these moments, because it showed that Raimi was in complete control this time, not worried about the money (as much) or the powers that be.

The cast was great. Maguire has found a strong voice in this film, although there were doubts of his return to the film, after having some back problems. Dunst, I found, was on autopilot in the film. Not so much as Natalie Portman in the Star Wars movies... but Dunst really didn't come out of her shell until the middle of the film. James Franco had a larger role in this film, though the amount of lines might have been the same. He was more emotional and purposeful in this film, and I expect him to be a major force in Spider-Man 3, when they get to it.

Alfred Molina was FANTASTIC. He's a brilliant and accomplished actor, and I was very happy to hear that he'd accepted the role of Doc Ock. Since his first role in Raiders of the Lost Ark, to his work with P.T. Anderson in Boogie Nights and Magnolia, along with his other films, he's turning into a favorite of mine.

Having worked with Raimi on Darkman and Army of Darkness, it's clear why Raimi wanted to work with Bill Pope as the cinematographer. Pope has done some pretty incredible work including the entire Matrix series. You can't get any better than that, when it comes to working on high profile films. I was impressed with the photography in this film, though it was difficult to see, sometimes, what was CG and what was real.

Anette Haellmigk did addition photography on this film, and has had a very good career herself. She's worked on a number of crews in films like RoboCop, Showgirls, Se7en, Starship Troopers, Godzilla, Hollow Man, SWAT... not too shabby. It's only a matter of time before she gets to shoot her first feature.

This is the best movie of the summer so far (not including Farenheit 9/11 which isn't summer fare, but an incredibly important movie to watch, none the less). Sam Raimi has come back full circle to having fun with directing, thankfully. I'm looking forward to seeing what his next project will be.

It's also being hailed as the best comic-book movie ever made. That's a hard call for me, because Superman is one of the best I've ever seen. Keeping in mind the year it was made... it's a hard movie to displace as the best comic movie ever.