Word: spider
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...makes this Spider-Man a nest of conflicting ambitions. Every Hollywood marketing impulse screams for the movie to be zippily cartoonish. Yet the story is also Rebel Without a Cause: an agitated boy, the girl he loves, his best friend (James Franco as the Goblin's son) and some adults who never quite get it. Will Spider-Man be Ghostbusters or Ghost World...
...Boys and The Cider House Rules, can seem like an alien sent to observe earthlings. Here he's highly muscled but still sensitive; he certainly cries way more than your standard superhero. Raimi directs the film at Maguire's pensive pace. Some scenes are just inert. Whole swatches of Spider-Man play like a $139 million indie film...
...emphasizing angst over energy, the movie is much like its hero--not the dashing crime fighter in a red-and-black bodysuit but the introspective nerd who both endears and exasperates. Perhaps that's artistically appropriate, for Spider-Man is about the awkward process of becoming, of somehow surviving teen turmoil to turn into, as Peter's saintly Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) tells him, "the man you're going to be for the rest of your life." Why shouldn't there be growing pains in the Spider-Man movie? Just as Peter's transformation is a process of trial...
...With great power," Uncle Ben also says, "comes great responsibility." And with great hype come great expectations. This movie, which will be a big hit, is up against more than a beloved comic book; for the millions of visitors to Universal Studios Florida, it must overcome memories of the Spider-Man theme-park attraction. In a six-minute tram tour of upper Manhattan, the ride provides careering thrills, state-of-the-art 3-D visuals and a fistful of supervillains. There, and not on Sam Raimi's screen, is where to find a charismatic Spider-Man--and a moving marvel...
...black since the bankruptcy. "There's an instantaneous awareness of Marvel properties among a lot of people, and that translates into dollars and cents," says Amir Malin, CEO of Artisan Entertainment, which has a deal to adapt 15 Marvel franchises. "The audience attracted is very significant, and I expect Spider-Man to open huge." So do a lot of other execs, apparently; five Marvel movies will open in the next 18 months alone...