I've been watching Sam Raimi's Spider-Man this morning on HBO. It really is one of those movies, like the first Superman or The Godfather or The Wizard of Oz, that I always immediately get caught up in and just have to watch to the end. I really think this movie is one of the very few times that Hollywood ever got a comic book movie right, and it all comes down to the genuine heart at the center of the movie. Sam Raimi didn't waste an entire movie in anticipation of a franchise, meandering around while trying to find his characters. He knew exactly who his characters were, and the spring fully-formed into the narrative. That's why these movies were so popular. Yes, Raimi delivers on the action and on the fanboy front, but without strong characters that we care about, there's nothing there. This is one of the few times a comic book movie doesn't feel like it was made just to sell action figures.
This is why it's so disheartening to me that Marvel is doing one of those franchise reboots with Spider-Man. I understand that Marvel's a business and that they're in business to make money, but quite frankly I don't think they've ever had movies as good as Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, so it's depressing to see Marvel willing to shuffle the whole thing to the side just because Sam Raimi wants to use the Vulture in Spider-Man 4. Frankly, the idea of attempting a do-over on a movie series whose last film came out just 3 years ago seems insanely fickle to me.
I wish Marvel would get their shit together and actually care about the stories they're telling. They're already rebooting the X-Men series with this X-Men: First Class, even though their last movie in that series came out just last year. There's talk of rebooting The Fantastic Four. And it really seems to me that Captain America, Thor, and any other Iron Man movies are being thought of less as stories than as some kind of continuity orgy that only exists to justify an Avengers movie.
I'm not into this Spider-Man reboot, and I won't be going out of my way to see it. For me, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man is MY Spider-Man. It's the characters the way I've always seen them, and I'm glad to have had movies that were that good in the first place. I don't really expect much else from Marvel, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised in the future. But for now, I'm just not interested in a different Spider-Man that only really exists to ingratiate itself with the audience's money.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Spider-Man
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2 comments:
I too have such great memories of seeing the first Spider-Man movie. It was one of the rare times when everyone got up to cheer at the end. It was magical. We waited so long for it to happen and it was better than we had any right to expect.
I too am annoyed with this reboot. They will change so many things just to appeal to some bullshit demographic. It's like X-men First Class where they include characters that were never raised by Xavier. I can accept Magneto working with Charles but the first class should only be the first five we knew and love.
And yet, in 1974, just 11 years after the first X-Men comic, Chris Claremont rebooted the entire series. New characters, Beast had fur, etc.
Comics are a disposable medium meant to last for x years until the reader grows up. If you grow with that reader, the audience will attrit and you will lose your business. It's why Superman never ages.
But, we feel proprietary about the ones we love. The ones we want.
I don't think any of the stars of any of those movies want to come back for less that gigantic paydays. The studio can't justify the growing price tag of everyone. So you either never ever make another one or you reboot it.
Such is the life of pop-culture.
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