Leading Up to No Way Home: Day 1 – Spider-Man (2002)

Spider-Man: No Way Home is one week away and today we’re kicking off the movie marathon leading up to the premiere with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. We’ll take a look at the successes and pitfalls of this movie today, as well as the other Spider-Man movies throughout the upcoming week.

Jack’s Score – 75/100 | Rotten Tomatoes – 90% | Audience – 67% | IMDb – 7.3/10

While I don’t think anyone regards it as a perfect movie, Spider-Man is often referred to as the “perfect origin story.” We are introduced to Peter as a normal person and get a baseline for his relationships with other characters. We see how he acquires his powers, the way they manifest, and how he discovers and reacts to his new abilities. That’s all well and good, I just think “perfect” is a strong choice of words.

There’s a lot that works in this movie, but there’s also a lot that doesn’t. Let’s start with the better parts of this movie: Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin, J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, and the city of New York as a collective character in the movie.

Firstly Willem Dafoe delivers an excellent performance as the Green Goblin. In my eyes, this is a perfect villain origin. He is nothing more than a greedy scientist afraid of losing funding, resulting in him experimenting on himself which turns him into the Goblin. What I loved about the way he was written was that Norman Osborne and the Green Goblin were initially two separate identities. Osborne wasn’t aware of the actions of the Goblin for a good portion of this movie, and even after discovering this personality, still tried to reason with it.

Many people have been talking about the speech that he gives to Spider-Man on the rooftop about how they both chose their paths when they gained new powers and that people want to see a hero fail, die trying. I think that it is a fantastic speech, I just wish we could see the characters faces in that moment. Another moment with Dafoe that this movie nails is his realization that Peter is Spider-Man. It’s an excellent moment when you can see him piece it together just by the look on his face. I can’t wait to see Dafoe as Green Goblin again in No Way Home.

My favorite part of this movie is hands down J. Jonah Jameson. J.K. Simmons delivers an unforgettable performance that earned him a role reprisal before Marvel even opened the multiverse. His humor brings this movie up in every scene he is in. However, my favorite part of his performance is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line when the Green Goblin has him by the neck.

Osborne wants Jameson to tell him who takes the pictures of Spider-Man. All Jameson would have to do is point at Peter standing right behind them – an action that would seem in-character, as he is portrayed as a greedy, self-interested editor who doesn’t seem to care about the people around him. However, he makes up a story on the spot that the pictures come in anonymously, which highlights one of my favorite aspects from my limited comics knowledge: J. Jonah Jameson cares about Peter Parker. In the comics, Peter is a person who he respects and values, contrasting his smear campaign of Spider-Man. In fact, he values Peter so much that when he finds out the Peter and Spider-Man are one in the same, he apologizes to Peter and stops the libel against him. I’m interested to see how the MCU explores the relationship between Jameson and Holland’s Spider-Man, now that Peter Parker and Spider-Man are inseparable to this new version of the character.

Finally the third part of this movie that really works well for me is the way the city plays into Peter’s story and his journey as Spider-Man. Before we really get to see him swinging through the streets, we get a montage about how he’s become an urban legend and how everyone has different accounts about him and what he can do. Then, when the Green Goblin makes him choose between saving the cable car full of children or saving Mary Jane, the city comes to his aid by pelting the Goblin with debris and providing Spidey with a barge to set down MJ and the cable car on. This is a great contrast to Osborne’s speech about how the people want to see a hero fall. Overall this is a great theme that ties into the Spider-Man mythos and one I can’t wait to talk about more as we continue through these films.

Now we turn to the lesser aspects of this movie and how they could be improved. While some flaws are as simple as some VFX not holding up after 20 years, the most prominent problems of Sam Raimi’s first installment are primarily based in the high school scenes and much of Peter’s interactions with Mary Jane. While some of the problem with the high school scenes is that they cast 25-30 year old grown adults as 17-18 year old seniors. Part of it is also likely a generational disconnect. My high school experience was nothing like the ones depicted in movies from the early 2000s.

However, considering both of those, I think the biggest reason that these sequences don’t work is because of the choice to make Peter an uber-nerd. The bus driver laughs at the fact that he’s chasing down the bus. The dorky, pimpled nerd won’t let Peter sit next to her on the bus. He doesn’t seem to have a single friend outside of Harry. Peter is made such an extreme outcast for being slightly awkward that it is unbelievable to me.

The other big problem is Peter’s interactions and relationship with Mary Jane. Firstly, the awkwardness is not supplemented by random silences. Give Peter an awkward line to say – some corny joke that he thinks is funny but in reality is cringey. Him staring at MJ for 20 seconds while smiling uncomfortably is not good writing. Granted, this improves as the movie goes on so I’ll chalk that one up to personal preference, but there are many more problems with her character.

The decision to have Mary Jane dating Flash at the start of the movie serves no purpose than to make her look like she is either oblivious to the fact that he’s a jerk or that she doesn’t care. Both options diminish her character for a plot point that doesn’t affect the plot – she breaks up with him at graduation for a reason unknown to the audience and the relationship has no effect on any character after that (not that it had one before either). It does nothing for the story and simply shouldn’t have been written in.

The one good part of their dynamic in this movie is the famous upside-down kiss that is one of, if not, the most well known on-screen kisses in movie history. The problem there is that it’s been pointed out to me that she is dating Harry Osborne during that scene, which means she’s cheating on him – something that continued in the next two movies. However, I will still hold that the scene is good.

Mary Jane literally cheated on someone in every original Spider-Man movie😂 — Matt Ramos (@therealsupes) December 7, 2021

Finally, she suddenly pivots to being in love with Peter at the end of the movie. She tells him that he was the only person on her mind went to when the Green Goblin dropped her from the bridge. Unless she has her own spider-sense and knew Peter was Spider-Man then, there is no reason for her to suddenly feel this way about a guy she has barely given a second glance to all movie.

Overall, Spider-Man is a solid, if imperfect introduction to the character for his first live action movie. It’s a great watch to get to know the foundation of Spider-Man as both a hero and a normal person, because at the end of the day Spider-Man is all about how an everyday guy can do his part.

“With great power comes great responsibility.” – Ben Parker

#Marvel #Movies #NoWayHome #SpiderMan