When teenage science geek Peter Parker (Toby Maguire) is bitten by a genetically engineered ‘super-spider’, he suddenly finds he has many attributes of spiders; web-swinging, increased strength and a precognitive ‘spider-sense’. The question is, will he use these newfound abilities for his own personal gain, or for the good of the public?
As Spider-Man opens, a sweeping score courtesy of Danny Elfman settles. It creates an incredible feeling of power and suddenly, everything feels very epic. So imagine your surprise when the first you see of Spider-Man is of his alter-ego, Peter Parker: Teenage nerd.
Generally, it’s the normality of everything which is striking. Pete is a science-geek who pines after a girl who is completely out of his league. But then, who wouldn’t be pining after Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst)? She’s beautiful, kind and just has that sort of aura around her that just says: check me out, I may be a little shallow, but who isn’t?
Then of course we have Norman (Willem Dafoe) and Harry Osborne (James Franco). Norman is the caring but slightly ignorant father of Harry Osborne, as well as a brilliant scientist. Harry is Pete’s best friend, failure of lessons and son of Norman.
The chemistry throughout all the characters works well. Everyone seems to be quite happy in their own little mundane lives throughout the Big Apple. It’s strange to think that in a super-hero film, there has to be mass conflicts of interest however, for just about the first 15 minutes, everyone in Spider-Man is happy to…well, exist.
However, it doesn’t take long for that conflict to kick in. We learn Norman is losing his funding and he generally seems somewhat pissed off about that. See the thing about Norman is that he is brilliant but somewhat overly ambitious. The sort of guy who just takes things too far…
Now would be a great time to learn some more about Peter’s family. He lives with his Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) and his Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson). These two are pretty much the subject of some of the earliest (and best) humour of the film. It’s subtle, and it’s very honest in the way of which characters are saying what but it works wonders. Uncle Ben, is essentially the comedian, whereas Aunt May is the voice of reason. It’s a good coupling and it works well.
The great thing about having Sam Raimi directing a motion picture, like Spider-Man is that having worked on low budget horror flicks (The Evil Dead) he knows what can be very scary and how far to go. He exploits that to the max in the scene where Peter begins to change into Spider-Man as a creepy montage of DNA and Spiders occurs. Generally, this isn’t the best film for Arachnophobics…
Meanwhile back at school everything is portrayed incredibly well. Raimi doesn’t opt to take the simplistic approach of looking at school as a hyper-stereotypical place of “Oh my gawds…” and cheerleaders. Everything seems generally real. The one slight problem is that the local bully Flash Thompson (Joe Manganiello) seems slightly on the edge.
The computer effects have aged since 2002 but can be given the benefit of the doubt now. They certainly don’t render the film unwatchable and still get across the principle of what is portrayed.
Spider-Mans only obvious fault has to be the writing. It is usually pretty good, but sometimes it just fails terribly. There are lines that are supposed to tug at the heart-strings but never manage to do anything other than make you wonder who wrote those terrible lines, such as Peter saying “Sometimes…you know people…” whilst trying to convince her she’s a good actor.
When it comes to the wrestling ring, Raimi manages to catch a wonderfully tacky and gritty environment. Naturally, for a character as over the top as the Ring side announcer, you need a great actor. But not too great. Which is why I see that the only man for the job was Bruce Campbell! He isn’t around for much, but when he’s pulling off the worlds worst Elvis impression, he is funny. Almost too funny.
A great thing about Spider-Man is that it has no problem with making Peter seem really, really dark when required. When everything kicks off and Peter goes crazy, Toby’s performance and the tone of the film really sends one of those immense chills down your spine.I can’t stress enough how much I think the studio hit the jackpot with Toby Maguire as Spider-Man.
Obviously, with a project such as Spider-Man, it would be insane not to have some incredible shots. When the camera swings down and up through the traffic of New York in a first person shot looking at everything from Spider-Man’s point of view it’s one of those great shots that just has you feeling exilerated for hours on end.
A special notice here to J.K. Simmons for his unforgettable and hysterical portrayal of J. Jonah Jameson, editor in chief of the Daily Bugle (“If we can geta picture of Julia Roberts in a thong, we can sure get a picture of this weirdo!”) In spite of just about anything that’s happening on screen, Jameson is, always has been and always will be my favorite character from the Spider-Man series.
Despite the subject matter of criminality, it’s all handled fairly light-heartedly. It’s quite shocking when people start dieing, but Spider-Man’s wit and general ass-kickery just makes everyone feel at home. As ever, when the first real set piece comes in, we’re treated to a brief glimpse of the one and only Mr Stan Lee, head of Marvel comics. Adding Spider-Man to the long list of cameos he has done must have been a great experience, especially seeing he had the honour of saving someone (he’s now my hero).
Naturally, I’m not ending this review without a mention of the upside down kiss in the rain. It’s a great moment of cinematography and whoever came up with the idea deserves a raise. Whoever decided they’d have her cheat on her boyfriend, however deserves to be fired. Unless of course the idea is to give a hint that she doesn’t care about him? Think about it…
The final few scenes say just about everything youi’d ned to know about the film. It sums up the plot, the action and the characters really well. You get a great feel for everyone and everything and it shows how much effort was put into making it.
Overall, the direction brings out the best performances in what is essentially a flawed script when it comes to dialogue. But there are also some amazing set pieces and great conventions put into effect really well.
4/5
Sunday 22 April 2007
Fight Club (1999)
When a mindless consumer (Edward Norton) begins finding it difficult to sleep, he begins going to therapy sessions for problems he doesn’t have. But when suddenly, his flat explodes whilst he’s away on business he finds himself with nowhere to go. In a fleeting moment of insanity, he calls a man he’d met on a plane earlier that day: Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), and as they shun a life of consumerism, they find a new way of living: Fight Club.
As Fight Club opens to a CG journey from the microscopic cells on the Narrators head to the barrel of the gun in his mouth, it seems no wonder that the film failed tremendously at the box-office. It’s too unconventional too fast and as such is, too much to take so soon, which is why it’s nice for everything to conform slightly. However, for every time Fight Club adheres to the pre-determined rules, it breaks a few more.
Edward Norton’s narrator is suitably unemotional in his voice-over. Both the way that everything is spoken, and the actual dialogue itself is obscenely clever. It’s gripping, clever and really reflects everything that the average person doesn’t like to be reminded about themselves. The very fact that they are consumers. And in that alone, the narrator is: us.
The conventionalism within Fight Club soon wears off, but it happens in such a way that the audience doesn’t mind. For a short time, there doesn’t seem to be a plot. The Narrator struggles to find any comfort with merely being a white-collar everyman so he tries to remedy it. He goes to a number of support groups for the (usually terminally) ill where he finds that he can survive with a mixture of human interaction and consumerism, a balance. To relate back to the Narrators coffee table, you have to have the both the Yin & Yang sides of things.
As much as Fight club is fuelled by testosterone, it’d be ridiculous to assume there are no female leads. Firstly there’s Bob (Meatloaf). Bob sounds very predominantly like a man, so why is he put down as a female lead? “Bob has bitch tits” drawls the Narrator whilst weeping into bob’s disturbingly heavy chest. Admittedly, that’s overly harsh. I just didn’t want Helena Bonham Carter to feel alone as the only female lead. Marla Singer is in short, a bitch. She appears to find catharsis in the same support groups as the Narrator. Naturally, being awoken to the shallow nature of his little game, the Narrator looks to get rid of her as much as possible and decides to trade therapy groups. It seems sick because it is. It’s one of many times that Fight Club displays an ability to embrace controversy as if it were something to be proud of. And what with the execution of such controversial acts, everyone behind the making of Fight Club should be proud.
The film, in stark similarity to the narration, is very blunt. It’s a real world with most of the colours being dark and dank as opposed to a bright colour filled land of happiness and joy. People are cruel and selfish, none less so than Tyler Durden. Tyler is just that kind of guy who you love even though you know you shouldn’t. He is straight to the point and embraces his humanity, not totally dissimilar to the way in which the film embraces controversy (controversy, he is usually the instigator of).
Where the Narrator thinks about what he does, Tyler just rolls with it. He is that guy who is so off the cuff that he doesn’t even try to condone what he does. He will give reasons for it, but never once will he say that he’s doing the right thing. In that respect it seems to an extent that Tyler Durden is so fucking sly that he could run for president. In a similar respect, he is a character that everyone wants to be and because everyone wants to be him, he’s a character unrestricted by the burden of logic and sanity.
With Tyler comes a quirky sense of humour that despite bordering on absurdity never makes the final leap and so helps the viewers to relate to the characters. The dialogue is compelling, funny and at times completely and utterly disturbing.
There are times where Fight Club will delve into great detail to help the viewer come to a state of premature nirvana (in relation to the film) only for such a scene to be followed by another in which as little is revealed as possible. The entire film is very confusing at times and in between the random facts (“You can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick.”) and the unrelentless fighting, you get a slow but steady evolution. Not only with the plot and the characters, but with yourself. Remember: you are the Narrator, and as the Narrator evolves (mostly into Tyler) so do you.
The strange thing about evolving into Tyler however is that as you evolve into him, you’d expect to gain a greater knowledge of him. As soon as you think you know something about Tyler he is just as likely to throw it in your face as he is to replicate such an action.
Fight Club throughout has an insane science to it. There is a slight religious subtext but nothing to be taken too seriously. The characters are the focus of the story but you never quite get a full portrait of anyone. And overall, at the most light-hearted of moments is when everything seems the scariest. Fight Club is a mixed bag of emotion and a lucky dip of contradiction.
The cinematography is interesting. There are times when the camera actions and editing seem standard but naturally, in a film like Fight Club, that doesn’t last for very long. There’s something captivating about how everything plays out. It’s possibly in the way that it never quite misses an opportunity to display great dialogue or plot. On top of that the music throughout is 100%, sometimes in the most embarrassingly catchy way.
Brad Pitt is brilliant as the coolest guy alive (honestly, is he actually even acting?) just as Edward Norton is great as a hollow shell that follows the crowds.
There are a few key points throughout that really stay with you for a long time afterwards. Firstly is the breaking of the fourth wall. It’s done a good 3 or 4 times throughout the film and sometimes it makes you wonder if a character really is talking to you. It never gives a distinct answer but it’s all up to a specific individual really.
Second are a few scenes that turn everything on it’s head and give off the overall impression that ALL HELL HAS BROKEN LOOSE!
But that only happens a few times, so there’s really no need to fret.
It’s strange how many different views Fight Club brings up that you were probably never going to think about if you hadn’t seen it.Sacrifice is everything.Everything is nothing.Nothing is knowing yourself.To know yourself you need to sacrifice.
Sometimes it does seem that the film is so close to emo. The lack of conformity, the moving away from the crowds and the general truthfulness of it all.
Maybe that’s the point. Or maybe the point is to stop worrying about the point…
Conformity is bad from Tylers point of view.Tyler is bad from conformity’s point of view.But whatever your opinion, it’s pointless to deny that Tyler is an infection, a self replicating virus. Sooner than later, everyone is Tyler and it’s certainly worth checking Fight Club out just to experience this.
5/5
As Fight Club opens to a CG journey from the microscopic cells on the Narrators head to the barrel of the gun in his mouth, it seems no wonder that the film failed tremendously at the box-office. It’s too unconventional too fast and as such is, too much to take so soon, which is why it’s nice for everything to conform slightly. However, for every time Fight Club adheres to the pre-determined rules, it breaks a few more.
Edward Norton’s narrator is suitably unemotional in his voice-over. Both the way that everything is spoken, and the actual dialogue itself is obscenely clever. It’s gripping, clever and really reflects everything that the average person doesn’t like to be reminded about themselves. The very fact that they are consumers. And in that alone, the narrator is: us.
The conventionalism within Fight Club soon wears off, but it happens in such a way that the audience doesn’t mind. For a short time, there doesn’t seem to be a plot. The Narrator struggles to find any comfort with merely being a white-collar everyman so he tries to remedy it. He goes to a number of support groups for the (usually terminally) ill where he finds that he can survive with a mixture of human interaction and consumerism, a balance. To relate back to the Narrators coffee table, you have to have the both the Yin & Yang sides of things.
As much as Fight club is fuelled by testosterone, it’d be ridiculous to assume there are no female leads. Firstly there’s Bob (Meatloaf). Bob sounds very predominantly like a man, so why is he put down as a female lead? “Bob has bitch tits” drawls the Narrator whilst weeping into bob’s disturbingly heavy chest. Admittedly, that’s overly harsh. I just didn’t want Helena Bonham Carter to feel alone as the only female lead. Marla Singer is in short, a bitch. She appears to find catharsis in the same support groups as the Narrator. Naturally, being awoken to the shallow nature of his little game, the Narrator looks to get rid of her as much as possible and decides to trade therapy groups. It seems sick because it is. It’s one of many times that Fight Club displays an ability to embrace controversy as if it were something to be proud of. And what with the execution of such controversial acts, everyone behind the making of Fight Club should be proud.
The film, in stark similarity to the narration, is very blunt. It’s a real world with most of the colours being dark and dank as opposed to a bright colour filled land of happiness and joy. People are cruel and selfish, none less so than Tyler Durden. Tyler is just that kind of guy who you love even though you know you shouldn’t. He is straight to the point and embraces his humanity, not totally dissimilar to the way in which the film embraces controversy (controversy, he is usually the instigator of).
Where the Narrator thinks about what he does, Tyler just rolls with it. He is that guy who is so off the cuff that he doesn’t even try to condone what he does. He will give reasons for it, but never once will he say that he’s doing the right thing. In that respect it seems to an extent that Tyler Durden is so fucking sly that he could run for president. In a similar respect, he is a character that everyone wants to be and because everyone wants to be him, he’s a character unrestricted by the burden of logic and sanity.
With Tyler comes a quirky sense of humour that despite bordering on absurdity never makes the final leap and so helps the viewers to relate to the characters. The dialogue is compelling, funny and at times completely and utterly disturbing.
There are times where Fight Club will delve into great detail to help the viewer come to a state of premature nirvana (in relation to the film) only for such a scene to be followed by another in which as little is revealed as possible. The entire film is very confusing at times and in between the random facts (“You can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick.”) and the unrelentless fighting, you get a slow but steady evolution. Not only with the plot and the characters, but with yourself. Remember: you are the Narrator, and as the Narrator evolves (mostly into Tyler) so do you.
The strange thing about evolving into Tyler however is that as you evolve into him, you’d expect to gain a greater knowledge of him. As soon as you think you know something about Tyler he is just as likely to throw it in your face as he is to replicate such an action.
Fight Club throughout has an insane science to it. There is a slight religious subtext but nothing to be taken too seriously. The characters are the focus of the story but you never quite get a full portrait of anyone. And overall, at the most light-hearted of moments is when everything seems the scariest. Fight Club is a mixed bag of emotion and a lucky dip of contradiction.
The cinematography is interesting. There are times when the camera actions and editing seem standard but naturally, in a film like Fight Club, that doesn’t last for very long. There’s something captivating about how everything plays out. It’s possibly in the way that it never quite misses an opportunity to display great dialogue or plot. On top of that the music throughout is 100%, sometimes in the most embarrassingly catchy way.
Brad Pitt is brilliant as the coolest guy alive (honestly, is he actually even acting?) just as Edward Norton is great as a hollow shell that follows the crowds.
There are a few key points throughout that really stay with you for a long time afterwards. Firstly is the breaking of the fourth wall. It’s done a good 3 or 4 times throughout the film and sometimes it makes you wonder if a character really is talking to you. It never gives a distinct answer but it’s all up to a specific individual really.
Second are a few scenes that turn everything on it’s head and give off the overall impression that ALL HELL HAS BROKEN LOOSE!
But that only happens a few times, so there’s really no need to fret.
It’s strange how many different views Fight Club brings up that you were probably never going to think about if you hadn’t seen it.Sacrifice is everything.Everything is nothing.Nothing is knowing yourself.To know yourself you need to sacrifice.
Sometimes it does seem that the film is so close to emo. The lack of conformity, the moving away from the crowds and the general truthfulness of it all.
Maybe that’s the point. Or maybe the point is to stop worrying about the point…
Conformity is bad from Tylers point of view.Tyler is bad from conformity’s point of view.But whatever your opinion, it’s pointless to deny that Tyler is an infection, a self replicating virus. Sooner than later, everyone is Tyler and it’s certainly worth checking Fight Club out just to experience this.
5/5
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