From Kris Pigna:
"Spider-Man 2" begins with an extreme close-up of a woman's face, a dissolve from the last image of the opening credits. Against a stark white backdrop, she stares right into the camera, deeply, with the kind of eyes that are easy to fall in love with. "She looks at me every day," Peter Parker says in voiceover. "Mary Jane Watson. Oh boy. If she only knew how I felt about her." The camera slowly pulls out on this ideal, dreamlike image.
"But she can never know. I made a choice once to live a life of responsibility, a life she can never be a part of." The camera pulls out far enough to reveal we're actually looking at a billboard, a perfume advertisement Mary Jane posed for. "Who am I? I'm Spider-Man, given a job to do. And I'm Peter Parker, and I too have a job." The camera pulls out farther, and we see Peter come into frame on his pizza-delivery moped, gazing at the billboard over his shoulder with full attention. Suddenly we hear a man calling his name, and Peter's attention is snapped. So is the dream.
The beginning of the shot shows us exactly how Peter sees Mary Jane -- all he wants in the world. By the end of the shot, we see Peter's reality, and what's keeping him from being with her. That's Peter's dilemma -- and the movie -- in a nutshell: a struggle between his desire to lead a normal life with the girl he loves, and his belief in using his powers responsibly to do some good. Yes, this is a glorious entertainment, but "Spider-Man 2" stays true to the roots of the character -- the most human of all classic superheroes -- by simultaneously being one of the most intimate and humanistic summer blockbusters ever made. The movie doesn't open with a bang, but with a moment of quiet reflection and deep longing, and it sets the tone for Peter's struggle (and the film) to come.
The opening shot is perfectly balanced with the last shot, where we get one last look at Mary Jane's face (in the flesh) as she watches Peter web-sling away from his apartment window. By now Peter and Mary Jane have agreed to be together despite the dangers his crime fighting may pose to her, and yet... the same idealism isn't quite there. Director Sam Raimi made a daring choice to end his big, crowd-pleasing action flick on an oddly ambiguous note, as the expression on Mary Jane's face turns to a look of concern... or perhaps of doubt. Did she make the right choice? Will maintaining a relationship with a superhero be too hard? Is she just worried about Peter's safety? She wonders, and so does the audience.
Sadly, the power of this last shot has been lessened now that we know the absolute horror that comes after it. But it helps to pretend "Spider-Man 3" was never made, which is, I propose, a prudent thing to do in general.
JE: Thanks, Kris. I hadn't thought about how the film is bookended with shots of Mary Jane -- the first idealized (both mass-merchandized and through the eyes of Peter) and the last in a moment that reveals her inner doubts.
As you say, Peter/Spider-Man's dilemma is "a struggle between his desire to lead a normal life with the girl he loves, and his belief in using his powers responsibly to do some good." That puts him in good superhero company and, it occurs to me, also describes the "Last Temptation" of Nikos Kazantzakis's and Martin Scorsese's Jesus Christ. Perhaps "Spider-Man 3" can be thought of similarly, as a momentary hallucination...
Perhaps "Spider-Man 3" can be thought of similarly, as a momentary hallucination...
Ha! He was just high on the Big Apple Express.
I don't think I'm alone when I say that I love the Opening Shots Project, that I miss it, that I'm glad we've gotten a few new ones recently, and that I hope they continue.
I'm one of the few who liked Spiderman 3 quite a bit, and moreso than the first one. But that's not based on direction quality. Spiderman 3 has a lot of faults. Too many characters (same thing I bet Wolverine will suffer from), with little chance to really develop them and make me give a damn. However, I liked the craziness that Peter Parker went through. It was totally overthetop, but I understood what Raimi was doing and I enjoyed it. But what I really enjoyed was that it actually felt like the comics. I also thought that the action scenes with the crumbling building were shot excellently. There was so much energy in it that I almost wanted to dodge debris.
Maybe I need to watch them all again.
I had forgotten about the ambiguous look Mary-Jane gives at the film's end.
I first saw Spider-Man 2 on a lark, because of Roger's 4 star review; I had liked the Spider-Man character as I remembered him from my childhood, but hadn't bothered seeing the first film. Really, I don't think anyone needs to--the first film is mediocre and the third film is worse, but the second film, in its tight focus on Peter's identification with Mary-Jane, is a very good, moving piece of work. (And this is the only film in the trilogy that deals with harry Osborne in a reasonable, even-handed manner. The guy's a really nice kid actually--just, you know, desperate for answers about his father.)
Doc Ock works much better than he should, too--one could argue that his being taken over by his robotic arms and losing his agency is a cop-out removing responsibility from him, but complexity isn't really required in Ock besides as a mirror for Peter. his powers and special-ness doom his "normal life" as well, killing his wife while Peter's doom his relationship with MJ, and he chooses primarily to use his powers selfishly while Peter tries desperately to use his powers for good. More proof for Pete that doing good doesn't guarantee anything. And I always found his selfless sacrifice at the end effective. ("Brilliant but lazy...?")
And the movie does have a lighter touch than most comic book adaptations (excepting the so-much-fun Iron Man and the original Superman). (This fits in with your post on Alan Moore--you can tell moving, even heartbreaking stories without being grim.) I do like The Dark Knight, but the more I think about it the more the simplicity and transparency and the spirit of fun of the story in Spider-Man 2 appeals to me.
Oh and speaking of non-comic-adapted superheroes, the struggle between the desire for a normal life and one's responsibility is also the primary subject of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spin-off Angel--for my money the best, most complex and exciting "superhero" stories (if certainly inperfect) yet put on screen, small or large.
After almost five years passing and witnessing the oozing blob of a movie known as Spider-man 3, one almost forgets the ambition and intimacy that made Spider-man 2 so great. Most of the characters were either likable or remained central toward the story arc. And there will never be another superhero movie that will capture the feeling of being trapped by fate as effectively as through the eyes of the main protagonist Peter Parker.
Three goose bump scenes should be noted: (1) the scene in which Peter confesses to his Aunt May about the truth of his Uncle Ben’s death…there has never been another scene in a comic book movie that contains as much emotional intensity. (2) The scene in which the passengers on New York City freight train carry the body of a motionless Spider-man with his face revealed…This is especially touching since this was a few years past 9/11. (3) The moment Mary Jane finds out that Peter Parker is Spider-man...and all is right with the world. They should have ended the series at that moment.
When it’s all said and done, Spider-man 2 ranks up there with Superman (1978) and The Dark Knight as landmark oeuvres in the superhero genre.
Jim, good to see you write critical essays about the little-known films of late like Spiderman 2, Watchmen, Batman and Pineapple Express. God knows, these films need the exposure! Whatever happened to your championing of those niche films that actually rely on film blogs like yours to gain some exposure out there.
JE: This is part of the Opening Shots project, submitted by a reader/writer, Kris Pigna. I think it speaks eloquently for itself. Just because it was a popular movie doesn't mean it's not worth looking at closely!
I was in the video (DVD, Bluray, whatever) store the other day and they had this playing. It was on the scene where Doc Ock breaks loose from the hospital and then afterwards the claws talk to him. "I miscalculated. I made a mistake". And then... "But I couldn't have? It was working wasn't it?"
I have a whole new appreciation of the Raimi-Molina interpretation of that character as sort of a semi-Nixonesque over-rationalizer, thinking himself into ways to justify what he's doing versus Peter who follows that little man (conscience, gut feeling, etc.) inside him. I'm not sure I picked up on that when I saw it years ago.
Everything about the Spidey-Doc Ock match up just fits. From the intellectual and emotional match between Peter and Doc Ock to how they match each other physically and from a visually entertaining standpoint.
I'm not sure what other Spider-man villains would work... All the others just become airborn fist-fights...
They should do something radical with the next Spidey flick. Hire Tarsem to direct or somebody like that. Somebody that will completely erase our memory of Spider-man 3 with some truly innovative visuals and not just CGI overload. Then we'll be able to appreciate Spider-man 2 again.
Never gave that much thought
especially the ending...kinda makes you wonder what Spiderman 3 could have been like if it didn't suck
I feel I should mention, just for the sake of transparency, that "Spider-Man 2" is my all-time favorite movie, if I was forced to pick one. So for me, I'm just fascinated to see people discussing it more closely and critically again.
In particular, William B and Karlos, the idea of Doc Ock as a foil to Peter's struggle (rationalizing the use of his own special powers for evil while Peter struggles to use them for good) is a dimension I haven't given much thought to. A lot of long-time Spider-Man fans complained about the changes made to Ock, and how the arms were given their own artificial intelligence that influence Octavious -- but that just gets back to the same give-and-take of any adaptation. Is it a divergence from the comics? Sure, but for this movie, it works.
Oh, and I love the idea of "Spider-Man 3" as a Christ-like hallucination, Jim. The interference of Beelzebub, Father of lies, probably is the only reasonable explanation for that movie.
Iron Man ends with a similarly ambiguous look on Robert Downey Jr.'s face.
I just also remembered: Peter has his spider-sense too, so it's not as if his transformation is purely physical and not mental either. So again, the spider-sense matches up with Ock's tentacles speaking to him.
I think they should have Spider-Man 4 open with Peter waking from the dream that was Spider-Man 3.
SM3 was enjoyable visually for me, and I was never bored during it, but the story was pretty much one cop-out after another. Total creativity failure. There were so many missed opportunities that it reminded me of The Matrix Revolutions. Thanks Jim, Kris Pigna, and the other commenters, for reminding me how good Spiderman 2 was.
Of course there needed to be a Spider-Man 3 because of Harry Osbourne and his revenge wishes. I think it was a very good setup. But rather than doing something interesting, like struggling to accept what his father had done, Harry was like "Oh, NOW I get it. Peter didn't actually kill him. Ok." After his butler told him. Not to mention the convienent amnesia. And bringing back the love triangle for no reason. And the...never mind.